Vice President Mike Pence Says Google Should Halt Dragonfly App Development (reuters.com)

On Thursday, the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence weighed in on Dragonfly, a project run by Google to build a censored search engine app for China. He said Dragonfly app would make it easier to track someone's internet searches. From a report: Pence said in a speech that business leaders are now thinking twice before entering the Chinese market "if it means turning over their intellectual property or abetting Beijing's oppression." He added, "More must follow suit. For example, Google should immediately end development of the 'Dragonfly' app that will strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers."

Comments

Orange Alert!

[PopeRatzo]

I wonder how Pence feels about technology that would allow a political leader to push instant messages onto every single cellular device, allowing citizens no ability to opt out.

But since he supported giving electro-shock to homosexuals to "cure" them, I think we have a pretty good idea.

Re: That's a joke, right?

[pr0t0]

I highly recommend Kishore Mahbubani's Long Now Foundation Talk on China. I am not the expert of eastern geo-politics that he is, so I have no idea if his thinking is correct or not, but it's very interesting.

He states that China's move to democracy is almost inevitable, but it will take a long time. He said that Chinese officials saw what happened with the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, going briefly into democracy before Russia emerged with totalitarianism and Putin. They don't want to go down that road. But it's clear that there are many democratic reforms happening in China right now. It's not the China I grew up learning about in the 70's and 80's, and the people of that country are benefiting from those reforms.

All of that said, they are still a very long way away from what most of us would deem as acceptable when it comes to human rights. I think in 50 years though, China will look very different from both inside and outside their borders.