Slashdot Mirror
Google's CEO Says Tests of Censored Chinese Search Engine Have Been Very Promising (theverge.com)
At Wired's 25th anniversary summit, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company's internal tests developing a censored search engine in China have been very promising. Pichai is strengthening his commitment on the controversial search engine, codenamed Project Dragonfly, saying the potential to expose the world to more information is guiding Google's push into China. "We are compelled by our mission [to] provide information to everyone, and [China is] 20 percent of the world's population." Wired reports: Pichai was careful to emphasize that this was a decision that weighs heavy on the company. "People don't understand fully, but you're always balancing a set of values," in every new country, he said. Those values include providing access to information, freedom of expression, and user privacy. "But we also follow the rule of law in every country," he said. This is a reversal of a decision from about eight years, when Google pulled its search engine, which was also censored, from the Chinese market. Pichai said the time had come to reevaluate that choice. "It's a wonderful, innovative market. We wanted to learn what it would look like if we were in China, so that's what we built internally," Pichai said. "Given how important the market is and how many users there are," he added, "we feel obliged to think hard about this problem and take a longer-term view." In response to the company's decision to back out of a project with the Department of Defense, nicknamed Project Maven, to build AI and facial recognition technology, and the employee concerns surrounding it, Pichai said: "Throughout Google's history, we've given our employees a lot of voice and say. But we don't run the company by holding referendums. It's an important input. We take it seriously." On the issue of Maven, however, "it's more also the debate within the AI Community around how you perceive our work in the area."
You thought the censored version was just for China?
In the west, Google can only gather (and monetize) user data so much, before there starts to be public outcry, pushback, and Congressional hearings about them invading privacy to an unacceptable degree.
In China, Google can gather user data as much as it wants, and gathering more leads to ambivalence from the public (because they're used to it) and praise from the local government. They get to play out their dream of having every search be tied to a person; and of course every site that includes code from google analytics, doubleclick etc. is tied to that, so they'll know many sites that each person goes to (all, if they use Chrome or Android).
The proven most-effective pieces of personal data to harvest will be back-ported to Google's services around the rest of the world.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Deplatform Google. Hit them in the wallet, it's all they understand.
So, the system they're NOT developing and not going to use to help one of the most evil governments on Earth oppress people is moving further along throught the development process and the testing is looking good? (or is that "bad" since it's intended for extreme evil?)
Note to Google: 70+ years after WWII, IBM is still thought of by many as evil because they knowingly helped the NAZI regime procees the paperwork in their oppression program. Rolling the dice on China ia a HUGE gamble. If China ends up as the planet's big global superpower, you will brielfy be a rich part of tha machine (until they absorb you or replace you with a domestic alternative using tech reversed from your stuff). If on the other hand, China eventually fails as all such oppressive dictatorial governments do, you will become a global paraiah and your emplyees will be viewed like former Klansmen or NAZI collaborators.
"we would not sell technology to the nazis would we? but before anyone else does, we wil sell to the nazis ..." also "we feel obliged to think hard about this problem and take a longer-term view" pretty much means "fuck you we will do it and we dont care about your concerns". this machine kills .. it will collect data and will get you killed.
I'm amazed that Google wants to play this dangerous game. Who will benefit most is yet to be seen (sure as fuck won't be the plebs worldwide).
China will eventually access and copy every bit of Google's data when they place on-site servers with the proper credentials to access anything stateside. This may really be a trap for China to suck away all of Google's information, not the other way around.
That is, if they aren't already being partially blackmailed into this move because someone stateside already managed to steal Google's data (including the employee stuff). (Only partial blackmail because China's abundance of data and few limits on what to collect is the devil's own temptation for these corps.)
I sure wouldn't want to be the people setting this up, it's playing with fire no matter how you look at it.
In the sense that people in China using Google search won't see what their government does not want them to see? Congratulations Google!
As Google already has a lot of experience censoring US search results, they're a natural to cooperate with the Communist Party of China. The whole brouhaha started when Google was going to use its power of search to bring down the CPC. This was at the time of the color revolutions and Google was feeling its oats. Moreover they still had the "Don't Be Evil" motto back then. Ah, memories.
With Google's proven expertise in censorship and new-found willingness to be evil, I see a happy and prosperous future ahead for the CPC. They're going to need it, China is heading for a rocky time and they'll need every bit of help they can get repressing their own people.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Pichai: "People don't understand fully, but you're always balancing a set of values,"
Yeah, right. On one side "Human Rights" values and on the other "Money".
We clearly know your balances...
No, we fully understand what you're doing, and we don't agree with you that whatever good you think you're doing offsets the intrinsic evil of helping the central governing authorities in China monitor every search your users do.
I am going to make a bet here: at some point, the Chinese government is going to ask for Google to help with AI research with direct military applications, and they will agree to do it. You will also not see rioting in their American campuses from the people who opposed participation here, and you certainly won't see them rioting and saying that helping the PLA is even worse than helping the US military. It will be exactly like wars during Democratic administrations where they suddenly support the troops, support the mission and call dissent treason.
The company has gone downhill ever since he joined,and a lot of sjw politics has been injected from around the same time. There must be enough pressure put on google to fire him or the authorities should just break it up into 10 different companies.
Working so hard at getting the very best education.
Dreaming of getting a top internet job after graduation.
Finally getting the best internet job.
Now working hard to totally control the net for Communist China.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
China is an oppressive dictatorship that uses censorship to control its people. America is a democracy that values free and open information. Google values free and open information. Who is that Google wants to help and who is it that Google refuses to help?
This is f'd up.
Sergey Brin, one of the founder's of Google, was one of the main forces that pushed Google to leave China before. He has a Yacht named Dragonfly. Pichai has named this project to go back into China Dragonfly - from the outside it looks like a right in your face middle finger to Brin and what he said.
The market there is already saturated for search engines, so its not like Google is going to make alot of money - but the moral standing Google has for not being there is valuable which the Google CEO doesn't seem to comprehend. Pichai is doing great for the stock price, but seems to have no moral compass other than do what makes the most money right now - its as if Scrooge is running the place. He does need to go - but the shareholders are loving this no concern for moral issues type of management style (Facebook style really), so no.
I got a Gmail address ver early on. I was able to get one that was essentially my full name@gmail.com. I must have something like 50,000 emails in that account.
I want out.
Questions are:
Which service is relatively new and might have more open addresses.
How do I get my 50k emails OUT of gmail and the IN to the new service.
I'd be willing to pay.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.