33 ms·

Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

492 points by crispinb 8y ago

kiki_jiki 8y ago
I wonder if Chinese people will be able to search for Winnie the Pooh.
- mocae 8y ago
  Sure they will, but they'll never be able to leave the country, fly or get a train ticket again.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > I wonder if Chinese people will be able to search for Winnie the Pooh For context, Xi Jinping's feelings get hurt when people point out that he physically resembles Winnie the Pooh [1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/18/15993136/winnie-the-pooh-china-ban-censorship-xi-jinping-lol https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/18/15993136/winnie-the-pooh-...
dooglius 8y ago
Sad, but ultimately unsurprising
Eridrus 8y ago
So what had fundamentally changed here? Is it just that China is a bigger market now? Did Google think they actually had enough leverage to get the Chinese to back down? Are the founders simply less idealistic than before?
- nine_k 8y ago
  Maybe a few billion of fines here and there make you rethink your sources of revenue?
- kanox 8y ago
  The moral compass has shifted and Silicon Valley has learned to embrace censorship, at home and abroad.
  - 908087 8y ago
    The "moral compass" in the ad/surveillance industry was always set up to indicate the direction of money, and only existed as a tool for PR to begin with.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  Hypothesis: the rise of the right to be forgotten in Europe served as a stepping stone. Free speech absolutists within the company could not be defeated in one step, but could be defeated in two steps. I am not saying that right to be forgotten is halfway through from free-speech absolutism to full-blown state control of information, but come on. If you ever jumped from a high place, you know that every foot of height makes a lot of difference.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Right To Be Forgotten isn't a censorship move, it's toward personal and individual freedom, not corporate or government secrecy. However, you probably aren't too far from the truth that it is because of European laws. Antitrust and privacy laws in Europe is going to make a lot of their business less profitable there. Which would lead to new efforts to make up that profit elsewhere. China's essentially an untapped market for Google, so its not a shock for the drive for money to eventually bring them back there.
  - ggggtez 8y ago
    Relating this to RTBF is interesting, but your thinking is muddled. Europe created RTBF, not Google. So the hypothesis that RTBF is part of a Google corporate plan to "defeat" internal activists is baseless. It just makes no sense on the face of it.
    - emiliobumachar 8y ago
      What I meant was: EU created RTBF, Google went "well, we must comply with local laws, and we can't get out of Europe". From there, it's a smaller leap to comply with worse local laws.
- GW150914 8y ago
  They don’t have to pretend to have a moral compass anymore, they’re already massive. Besides, people have seen through the lie of “don’t be evil” so why leave money on the table by living the lie? They just want money, lots and lots of money. They pretended to have a conscience when that was advantageous and dropped the act the moment it was more advantageous to do so.
londons_explore 8y ago
Too late... They will never overtake Baidu, who have leaks of Googles algorithm, more data to train AI on, government support, an existing (better) product in asian languages, and a massive userbase.
- SSchick 8y ago
  > who have leaks of Googles algorithm Sounds plausible, got any sources on that?
  - Apfel 8y ago
    If they had leaks of Google's algorithm, they'd likely have a much more usable product...
    - thinkingemote 8y ago
      Oh my sweet summer techy. An algorithm alone does not make a usable or successful product.
  - confeit 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin... Google enlisted the help of the NSA after their internal code repository was hacked. (And before the NSA hacked Google for surveillance purposes). > [...] we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. > These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/technology/19china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/technology/19china.html > Lanxiang, in east China’s Shandong Province, is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military. The school’s computer network is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and a competitor of Google. > “I think it’s impossible for our students to hack Google or other U.S. companies because they are just high school graduates and not at an advanced level. [...]
crispinb 8y ago
A tactically-'ethical' startup of the near future's motto: "Don't be Google".
- pixelpoet 8y ago
  It is definitely worse to have a startup phase with the motto "don't be evil" and then later remove it once they've got everyone's data.
  - SquareWheel 8y ago
    Please do not spread misinformation. They never changed their motto. https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
    - awinter-py 8y ago
      they moved it down or reworded it or something https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-dont-be-evil-code-conduct-removed-alphabet-a8361276.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...
    - thinkingemote 8y ago
      How about this for accuracy: "It is definitely worse to have a startup phase with the motto 'don't be evil' and then later heavily demote it once they've got everyone's data"
      - SquareWheel 8y ago
        Still reads as irrational to me, but at least it's technically accurate. It's worth remembering that "data" as they say stales very quickly. Knowing that you ordered a package two months ago is far less interesting than knowing you're expecting one next week. Or that you'll be booking a plane trip soon, and wouldn't you just love to know Delta is cheapest on that date? "Having your data" isn't a binary concept. Their services degrade substantially once you turn off the firehose. You'll still get ads, but they won't be tailored to you. Maps won't be able to show your current position. Assistant won't be able to recognize your voice. And that's fine, if you prefer that approach. But the concept of "having your data" in a historical context is meaningless. The only thing that matters is if that firehose is still available to them. Turn it off if you like. It isn't a lost cause.
KenanSulayman 8y ago
What does "censored" mean in this context? No anti-communist or anti-party propaganda? Personally I feel that Google has slowly become more and more censored over the recent years, to the point that I do searches on multiple search engines if I'm not so sure about the Google results. More than often there's not only a filter-bubble in my results, but there's more and more sites that suddenly disappeared over the years, but are high-ranking on DDG, Bing, Yandex, ... — especially in February / March 2018 there was a kind-of-extreme disappearance of sites in the results where I previously used Google to get to them.
- samhamilton 8y ago
  Means they will hide the same stuff Bing has and will hide more stuff as and when the gov tells them to. You want to be inside the firewall you need to be “legal”
07d046 8y ago
I wonder if Google employees will be as outraged about this as they reportedly were about Project Maven...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- microdrum 8y ago
  Google has no morals. Only marketing.
awinter-py 8y ago
Wonder how Uber's experience in China will play out here -- people variously interpret it as state interference clearing the path for local competitors OR Didi being much better at meeting chinese cultural expectations for taxis. This feels like a very different world than 1998 when G could launch an upstart search engine with 'free the world's information' in their DNA. in 1998 even in the tech bubble people still had no idea how the open web platform would be used. Now it's some combination of closed platform dominance, cookie farms, land grabs and spam. Not surprising G is under pressure to play ball in china; the prevalence of android there (albeit in weird open forms sans G maps & tools) gives the government a geopolitical interest in tying some strings.
dosy 8y ago
This is so smart. I’m so happy for Alphabet. They seem to have recovered their mojo. Engagement not activism. I never understood why they held off so long but glad they finally respecting the host country and providing a service tailored to local needs rather than trying and failing to impose their perspective on a foreign nation. Happy. In other news I find it hilarious FBs license was revoked in Hangzhou just now. Suck it. Hahaha.
- ainiriand 8y ago
  Please, keep the discussion in a respectful way. This is not Reddit.
nchelluri 8y ago
Could have sworn I read about this some years ago.
mywacaday 8y ago
Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. If we have a problem with how their government works policy should be applied that prevents/manages how businesses subject to our laws operate abroad. The majority of people don't really care how corporations behave. If they did Google search/gmail/maps would not be so popular. They have the right price point(0$) for people to ignore any moral misgivings they may have. I'm guilty of this and up to my neck in google services
- macspoofing 8y ago
  >Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. This exactly. I would even make a stronger case. It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power. This is a failure of US and EU governments. They should pressure China to liberalize their government and provide a level economic playing field (it is insane what China gets away with with respect to the roadblocks it places on Western companies to do business there).
  - Alir3z4 8y ago
    Neither US or EU are the world police. They have no rights and should not have any to pressure any country to push their own idea of how things should work in another country, just like how China and others don't demand such and even if they do that doesn't make it less wrong.
    - cazum 8y ago
      this is a weak argument, as it can be made for literally any situation. Israel massacring Palestinians? Hey man, they can do whatever they want, we don't have any right to tell them not to and it doesn't make what they're doing any less wrong!
      - it_learnses 8y ago
        You mean Palestinians trying to massacre as many jews as possible and Israel stopping them due to their superior defense capabilities.
econ4all 8y ago
There are a couple of recurring themes here: 1. the hyper-moralising over google's business decisions, they're not the only company that modifies its business to access the chinese market nor is the chinese government the only one that demands censorship. 2. google employees' attempts to sabotage the company's business prospects.
- confeit 8y ago
  1. It is because we/I expect better from Google. Google has such a huge responsibility, being the gateway to the world's information, and we trust them with that position. For-profit and deliberate blocking access to information erodes that trust. I would not care about other companies doing this, but seeing I care about Google doing this shows me that Google has a great PR/goodwill they've build up over the years. With this move I am left wondering if that is deserved, or if it was merely manipulating me for fanboy profit. 2. I think that is because they love working there, they hold their employer to a very high standard, and they don't want to take a pay cut to work for another (perhaps US-only) company with morals more aligned to theirs. Doing (or even thinking about) ethical business, puts you at a disadvantage over those that care more about profit and increasing their power. Losing prospective profits by doing the right thing is not a popular choice for a commercial business, so the incentives are there to just sell out your soul and go along with censorship (or spying on your users). For Facebook, this went on for years, until they found themselves in a mess. This mess was the result of 1000s of decisions made by all employees (not just upper management). I commend Google's employees for standing up for their beliefs and vision for the company. Only in a very Ayn Rand world is this sabotage. I am sure the big chief in charge of foreign markets views it as sabotage, but luckily Google is not run by only Eric Schmidt's.
  - sharcerer 8y ago
    Agree with all your points. I am wondering what justification Sergey,Larry will give for this. If they took good ethical decisions, they would gain more respect from people. I read the book The Google Guys when I was 13 (now 20). Larry,Sergey were the first 2 people i sorta idolized. Been a Google fanboy mainly due to their incredibe R&D,STEM focus. Now, i feel sad. Obviously, not gonna defend bad actions but it's difficult to overcome that bias,fanboyism cultivated over the years. I also wonder why Larry,Sergey are so out of action. They should have at least been more public till they're about 50 years old. Weird thought: maybe somehow Google will help overthrow the communist govt in China in the future. The fact that this news makes so many people sad is evidence of the fact that we expect better from Google.
babsHeinz 8y ago
Because Google's search engine isn't censored in the rest of its locations?
- crunchlibrarian 8y ago
  Yeah it's strange how nobody talks about the fact that google search is getting less and less relevant and more and more filled with garbage every year. It's downright terrible, I have to go to social media or search with lots of domain operators (if I can remember them) to actually find what I'm looking for. I'm sure google's "analytics" say they are doing great and results are more relevant and engaging for them and their corporate partners than ever, but I am often walking away from a search not finding what I know still exists on the web. They are just a massive media conglomerate trying to promote other massive media orgs and their content, content that doesn't live in that bubble is increasingly out of bounds.
  - beauzero 8y ago
    It's funny you say that. DDG, 2 years ago, was hard for me to use (less relevant). The last 3 months especially, they are about the same. I have a limited search set though...mostly .NET code searches.
    - MrEldritch 8y ago
      I personally find that for a lot of queries, especially ones of the "trivial" or "smart" kind where I'm looking for some old meme or bit of fandom trivia, DDG often returns results that are noticeably worse. Not much worse, and not always - but often enough that if I don't find something on DDG, I frequently try the same search on Google anyway. That said, DDG isn't that much worse than Google in terms of search quality, and is perfectly fine for more "serious" queries - It's an inferior user experience, admittedly, but I'm willing to drink RC Cola instead of drinking cane-sugar old-recipe Coke that also is contaminated with lead.
      - 394549 8y ago
Alir3z4 8y ago
Each country has its own rules and for sure any company wishing to operate there should abide. Be from North Korea or Cuba etc and then see if PayPal opens an account for you. I don't see PayPal fights for it, they simply abide the law and move on. You have a company and the gov gives you tons of regulations that most of them are unfair? Your problem, take it or leave it.
- ainiriand 8y ago
  You cannot open in NK because it has a trade block imposed by the US. Something similar was happening with Cuba or Iran. Let me tell you that abiding and legitimating freedom opressing regimes is not very american, even if it is for money.
  - afroboy 8y ago
    > Let me tell you that abiding and legitimating freedom opressing regimes is not very american, even if it is for money. This is really far from the truth,Israel and Saudi arabia are example how this is bullshit.
    - alexandercrohde 8y ago
      If you have examples where America puts money before the freedom of the individual to have a political opinion, then it's those examples that need to change, not our standard of America.
      - ainiriand 8y ago
        Nailed. I tried to convey both things. First how America is blocking some countries for political reasons linked with democracy and liberty. On the other side of the spectrum there is the need to trade with some shady regimes. This is the side in which America needs to be more firm. Regarding China, we should not celebrate that an American company legitimates this censorship. Moreso (more-so?) when the company itself made billions on top of a technology designed for sharing information in an open way.
jessesoo 8y ago
From a business standpoint, I think it's only stupid for Google not to revisit such a huge market, then I wonder if they really have other choices that make business sense?
baybal2 8y ago
Seeing how launching "a limited Chinese lite version" went for many many many Western companies in China, I can tell following: Communists are totally ok with these limited versions, they are more than eager to "lure in" foreign dotcoms. Their logic is: "let them grow business in China, when the time comes, their business in China becomes so big, that it can be held hostage, we can demand them anything" Look at AirBnB: They were swearing on the graves of their fathers that you ID verification data is gone the moment it is verified, .... yet you will be super surprised to see that if you book a place in China, ALL YOUR ID DATA will be automatically filed into the form that hotels have to send to Chinese ministry of interior.
justsomedude43 8y ago
Money doesn't stink.
matz1 8y ago
Nice, hopefully this will make my trip to China less annoying.
- ainiriand 8y ago
  If the joy of visiting a country like China depends on your access to the Google Search Engine you are either a Google engineer or a very sad person.
  - matz1 8y ago
    I use a lot of Google service everyday as I'm sure many people do, if i don't have to worry about having to find vpn that works than yeah it will be helpful. I rarely need to look for those censored stuff anyway even in the US.
manigandham 8y ago
Why do the 1.4 billion people living there put up with it in the first place? Why they have just made Jinping a lifetime president? Why are they fine with their own Chinese tech companies doing this already? It would help to understand the geopolitical causes of this environment instead of the constant faux outrage over Google doing what any business does, which is provide services in accordance to the laws where they operate. I do not want a world where a few major US tech companies become political powers. This effort should be directed towards the government forces where it matters.
- starbugs 8y ago
  If you reach a certain scale you effectively are a political power, whether you want it or not. What you do and under which circumstances you offer your business is a political statement, whether you want it or not. There's no way out. You will be held responsible for what you do and what you don't do.
  - pas 8y ago
    > There's no way out. You will be held responsible for what you do and what you don't do. And that's fair actually. After all, with great power comes great responsibility. (At least in strict utilitarian sense action, non-action, private-public policies and so on are undoubtedly very much fall under the same consideration. That is, is it possible for the big company to do something? To maximize its utility function? If yes, then they should, right? Now it's up to the people to keep that function useful for them.)
- cryoshon 8y ago
  it is common for people to genuinely not care about the freedoms they are denied. for instance, there is likely a law on the books in the USA which prohibits you from having your cattle graze on various lands. you would be incrementally more free if there was not that law, but do you care? no, the issue is not relevant to your life, nor is it relevant to any life you could imagine yourself realistically having from the starting point of the present moment. if you were a cattle farmer the issue would be more salient -- but there's still no guarantee that you would be railing against the law. now, imagine that the prospect of democracy was what was forbidden, as it is in china. it's abstract, and the benefits are purely hypothetical for the chinese -- but there are hypothetical liabilities that come with democracy too, which might seem just as salient if you don't start from a position of being in favor of democracy.
quirkot 8y ago
Small reminder that companies must submit all source code for review if they do business in China
- wwhitlow 8y ago
  Wait really?!? I'd love to see a link to that, so China has more knowledge about how the services that control everyone's digital lives function then we do in America. While I see the totalitarian effect that can have the lack of knowledge and trust in these brands is slowly turning me away especially since alternatives exist.
- orbital-decay 8y ago
  And?.. Many companies "submit" all their source code to anyone interested, regardless of doing business in China. Just saying. Among closed-source ones, Microsoft and many others have decades-long history of submitting the code for governments to review. Does it really matter for anything? Or you mean even the code which doesn't leave company servers? Do you have a source then, because I'd have a hard time believing that.
  - mindfulhack 8y ago
    That's news to me, and if true, stronger evidence for the likelihood of NSA / government backdoors.
- afroboy 8y ago
  That seems not believable at all i'd like to see source for that, i find hard to believe Apple, Oracle and such companies that are very protective for their code to submitted to one of most copy past countries in the world.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
    I've heard about this in the form of "if you want to sell hardware, you have to give them the blueprints", and companies doing it because they want to do business there. I wouldn't be surprised if this included the source code of everything that ships with the device, but I'd think it doesn't extend to server-side code.
aurizon 8y ago
Google has two choices:- to be outside - looking in, or to be inside - and engaged. It is axiomatic that China has roots in an oppressive communist titled government. I say titled because it was not communist in the classical sense, any more than the former USSR was communist - again in title only. China will gradually change and adapt - converge, to a more truly representative government as the middle class expands and the government learns they have nothing to fear but fear itself. Both former communist countries are doing far better than under their former party dictatorships. I suggest everyone read "Gulag Archipelago" I hope North Korea also is also opened up - engaged, in a similar manner.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  "...doing far better than under their former party dictatorships..." Not trying to split hairs or anything, but China is "...under their former party dictatorship..." It's the same party, the only difference is that the leaders today are mostly trained engineers and scientists instead of the mainly political thinkers who preceded them.
  - aurizon 8y ago
    Hopefully change will proceed at a faster rate as political hacks go to pasture.
throw2016 8y ago
People who are neck deep in the surveillance economy and have long sold out can't suddenly pretend to care about ethics without looking insincere. Given the large majority seem to have no problem with Google, Facebook and others, and their ability to attract employees is unaffected it's obvious ethics is not a high priority for current or prospective employees, if anything the fawning is often cringy. That also explains why inspite of Snowden's revelations no one really cares and there is no change. So there is little basis for ethical concern about China, unless the motive is purely posturing and grandstanding.
novaRom 8y ago
Search terms about human rights, democracy, religion and peaceful protests will be among the words blacklisted in the search engine app This is disgusting! I am not using Google Search anymore because of Firefox+DDG, but where are alternatives to YouTube, Gmail, Gmaps?
- dartf 8y ago
  PeerTube as a YouTube alternative Fastmail, tutanota, protonmail, etc. as a Gmail alternative OpenStreetMap as a Google maps alternative.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - 394549 8y ago
    > Fastmail I can wholeheartedly endorse them. One other benefit is that they actually have real live humans doing customer support. I haven't needed it much (only when I was setting up my custom domain and feature requests), but it's very reassuring to know it's there. It was the stories of people who were permanently locked out of their gmail accounts with no recourse and no one to call that ultimately caused me to abandon Google.
skc 8y ago
Why should Apple be the only ones making money hand over fist from China (and be lauded for their eye popping revenues every quarter)
- enitihas 8y ago
  Not just that, but their CEO was even invited to a Chinese government conference where he backed their vision of the 'open' Internet.
- hahahaha23 8y ago
  Making phones is different from helping censorship. Although admittedly, their phone operation is also controversial by letting works work extensively.
  - ehsankia 8y ago
    Yeah, why censor when you can collect all your users' data and give it straight to the government. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/17/apples-icloud-user-data-in-china-is-now-handled-by-a-state-owned-mobile-operator/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/17/apples-icloud-user-data-in... Do you honestly think that's less bad than blocking a few websites that are already blocked and can be bypassed by VPN?
- est 8y ago
  FYI Google makes money in China alright. It only closed the search function, not AdWords.
jillesvangurp 8y ago
There are lots of tech companies active in countries like China, Russia, Iran, and other countries with varying ideas about privacy, human rights, etc. This generally requires complying with local legislation, whether you agree with that or not. Singling out Google for not opting to exclude a fifth of the population of this planet from their products is a bit overkill. I'd rather they offer choice to the Chinese people on their terms than opting to not be in China at all. Google has huge stakes in China with Android, related production of many Android devices, and a lot of their other products. I imagine pulling out of China is not very practical for them at this point nor is selling phones without Google search. When I was still working on search Nokia Maps (now Here maps) we had to comply with all sorts of rules internationally, including for China. In addition to being weird about certain POIs (e.g. Tien an mien square) we also had to deal with their obfuscated GPS coordinates. They use some weird shifting algorithm that you have to license from them. The point is not the algorithm (you can find it online if you dig hard enough) but the fact that you had to talk to them to get a license. It's a control point for them. Another weird thing was that Iran insisted on referring to the Gulf as the Persian Gulf. One nice edge case there is the inflight maps of planes flying over their territory. The point here is that doing business internationally is hard and taking the moral high ground basically means not doing business with a lot of countries.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- the_grue 8y ago
  How precisely does the fact that these countries exist 'require' complying with local legislation? Google is free to host their servers in other countries, which are free from censorship laws. It's not like Google needs to be present in that market to survive. In a bigger context, the Internet business, and Google in particular, is a product of a free, liberal society. It couldn't have existed without freedom. Thus freedom is linked with success. So, as long as Google is innovative, it has that inherent advantage over its Chinese competitors.
  - betterunix2 8y ago
DBCerigo 8y ago
For those inclined to disengage with Google and its products, this is a previous HN post on exactly that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280558
enitihas 8y ago
When Tim Cook backs China’s vision of an ‘open’ Internet in a Chinese forum, HN says that at least Apple is providing some service to the Chinese users, who will have worse services if apple drops out of China. Apple routinely blocks apps on the request of the Chinese government. But if Goole too decides to provides services to China, in accordance with Chinese law, the reaction is so different here. Not taking any sides here, just highlighting the different ways different companies are judged on HN.
- chadmeister 8y ago
  You got any links to some of those discussions with such overwhelming support for censorship on HN? Because your claim doesn't sound even remotely true from my own personal experience on here. Your response does however sound like a typrical Whataboutism comment on here.
  - enitihas 8y ago
    See the top comment on this thread(and other comments too) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16414703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16414703. I am not able to find the HN thread on Tim Cook's comments, but here is a WaPo link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/12/04/apple-ceo-backs-chinas-vision-of-an-open-internet-as-censorship-reaches-new-heights/?utm_term=.5e7331c4a9c9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/12/04... For some more info on apple helping censorship in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_the_iTunes_Store#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_the_iTunes_Store... I am not saying Apple is wrong in choosing to operate in a very lucrative market, but just that other companies are no worse than Apple.
    - kodablah 8y ago
      The top-level comment is not representative because sub comments may be voted higher. It is unfortunate that you base your opinion on a site by top-level comments instead of top-quality ones. I have unwaveringly been against Apple's approach here, made it clear in posts like the one you linked to, and yet still as a whole we're branded. It seems the real problem is volume (in frequency and loudness) and the inability for people to look beyond it.
bad_user 8y ago
There might be many tech companies in China, no doubt, including big names, and companies should comply with local regulations if they want to do business, however the fact that Google pulled their search engine out of China, defying their censorship attempts, is one big reason for why I respected Google, in spite of my reservations for them. So let me tell you what I think as an EU citizen that's actively concerned about both freedom of speech and privacy ... I couldn't give a crap about what companies are active in China and complying with their local regulations. That Google took a stand showed they valued freedom of speech above their bottom line, but now if they are going back in, we can talk about the primary concern with Google ... Google is the destroyer of privacy. Google tracks their users at an unprecedented level in the whole history of humanity and if they do this, we now have concrete proof that they don't have values that are above their bottom line. Therefore we have a problem and the next time the EU slaps them with another multi-billion fine for violating EU's anti-trust or privacy laws, I'll cheer them for it, because it's all about the dough.
- at-fates-hands 8y ago
  > we now have concrete proof that they don't have values that are above their bottom line. I had the same reaction. Back in the day, there was this common belief tech companies had a certain set of values and would draw a line. Now? It's always about the money. Welcome to the decline of Western Civilization.
  - fullshark 8y ago
    That previous position seems insanely naive now. I wonder if western civilization is actually propped up by a collective naivety among its population.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  "...Google is the destroyer of privacy. Google tracks their users at an unprecedented level in the whole history of humanity..." In fairness, you never had a problem with that privacy invasion before. You still respected them in spite of the fact that they were Gestapo-like privacy invaders. As evidenced by your claim that, "...the fact that Google pulled their search engine out of China, defying their censorship attempts, is one big reason for why I respected Google..." I've always been wary of Google. They are not our friends. They are here trying to make money off of us. They would sell any one of us out to any number of governments if they were asked. And they would do so without hesitation. That's the reason that we need to be mindful of what we disclose to companies like Google, Facebook, et al.
cutler 8y ago
Brilliant business strategy. 1. Profess "Don't Be Evil" 2. Dominate the market. 3. Be as evil as you like.
- gt_ 8y ago
  Americans call this simply “business strategy”. The “brilliant” descriptor depends how many millions of dollars they make.
bokertov 8y ago
IMO, obeying Chinese law is similar to obeying GDPR. It's not smart for any corporation to fight governments.
- blub 8y ago
  With the small difference that GDPR is empowering people while Chinese law is subjugating them. Actually the law itself is probably not so bad... in my experience communist states always have decent laws, with various rights enshrined into them. It's just that in the implementation one always ends up with a boot stomping their face somehow.
- phyzome 8y ago
  And many corporations that don't specifically do business in the EU chose not to comply with the GDPR, which is fine. (I mean, I like the GDPR, and wish they would comply, but it's valid.) The consequences for Google not obeying the demands of China are just... getting blocked in China, no?
influx 8y ago
Google employees practically rioted when they found out their employer was trying to get a contract with the American Government, but will just cash their RSUs when they help the Chinese government censor its citizens. Sad.
- cirenehc 8y ago
  The Chinese government is going to censor its citizens regardless though.
  - influx 8y ago
    Will they be able to do it as well as google can? I guess as long as the stock price goes up. Cool man.
  - 394549 8y ago
    What's your point? The US military is going to engage in drone warfare regardless of the the objections of Google employees to Project Maven.
  - bsamuels 8y ago
    The US government will just give the AI contract to Raytheon/Northrop instead of Google. What's your point?
    - ehsankia 8y ago
      The difference is that providing a censored service is better than no service. Android for example is a much more limited experience in China. Do you honestly not think a Chinese citizen would prefer having a limited Play Store than none at all? Chinese people don't go around searching about Tiananmen Square every day, and they would much rather have access to all the cat videos on Youtube than none at all. Whereas the Maven project, there wasn't really a user benefiting.
  - tomohawk 8y ago
    This is not about what the Chinese or any other government is doing. It is about the decisions of Google and certain employees of Google. Deciding to not join with others in the national defense is a very divisive and political decision. Deciding to aid totalitarian governments with censorship and other activities is likewise divisive and political. Deciding to back one major political party, but not the other - similarly divisive and political. If they didn't want the criticism, they would just take the bucks and do the business for whoever is paying. They are at least giving the appearance of making these decisions on ideological grounds. This moves them more into the arena of being an political organization. In which case, saying you're just doing business is pretty lame.
bkohlmann 8y ago
I'm having a hard time understanding how Google employees will shut down "immoral" project's for the US Dept of Defense programs like "Project Maven," yet hold their tongues in building an application that limits speech, aiding a repressive regime.
- mc32 8y ago
  Because it was less about principle and more about politics. If let’s say Bernie had won, this would not been raised as big issue.
- panarky 8y ago
  Where does the article say Google employees are holding their tongues?
  - Mindwipe 8y ago
    Indeed, the fact that only a small amount of staff appear to have access to this project and one of them has leaked it for moral reasons suggests rather the opposite tbh.
    - mc32 8y ago
      The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Will this project be derailed? I’m betting not.
    - justinzollars 8y ago
      These employees are heroes. If you are reading this: Thank you for standing up for Human Rights.
      - lorenzorhoades 8y ago
        Why is software that can be used by the military to more effectively label drone targets a violation of human rights? Bias: I am in the Air Force.
tyu100 8y ago
This is less of a moral cliff than it was a few years ago, given how many restrictions the EU is placing on Google right now, between right-to-be-forgotten and hate speech laws.
gremlinsinc 8y ago
There was another hn post a week or two ago, about how China is basically taking over the world, and could leave the USA in it's dust. Google, may be aware of this 'transition', which is a scary one, considering the 'big brother' scheme they have in China, but if China becomes the king of the world, Google and many other companies will have to play ball to stay viable. I'm reminded of a commercial where Americans are speaking Chinese, and there are also I think Japanese commercials that show poverty and feature American kids. Kind of disconcerting, and dystopian, but not out of the realm of imagination.
- novaRom 8y ago
  can you find a link to this HN post please?
- pathseeker 8y ago
  China surpassing the US as an economic powerhouse doesn't imply poverty or the inability to have viable companies there. What a silly dichotomy.
alexandercrohde 8y ago
I would not tolerate a company that build physical handcuffs to keep an entire population from expressing their opinion. I feel comparably icky about "mental handcuffs."
- iamshs 8y ago
  What a beautiful description.
hahahaha23 8y ago
if this is true, google has lost its soul! So disappointed... I will have to switch to duck duck go
_zachs 8y ago
Where are the troves of Googler's who were against helping the US military? They're totally cool with helping China censor information?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Yes, people that support the PRC regime tend to also oppose the US military. How is this even the least bit surprising?
  - brainfog 8y ago
    Are you seriously arguing that folks against maven were PRC shills?
    - pathseeker 8y ago
      Nobody said anything about shills. You can be anti-US and pro-China without being a shill.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - brainfog 8y ago
        I guess I just don't get the original comment. Even if some prc supporters oppose the US military, what on earth does that have to do with the (equally silly but for different reasons) "where are all the people who were against maven?" question if not to paint the majority of maven opponents as prc shills?
    - friedman23 8y ago
      You actually don't believe there is a sizable group of PRC shills/ Chinese nationalists currently working at google?
      - brainfog 8y ago
idoescompooters 8y ago
Just when I thought the US-China tensions would lead to positive progress in reducing China's censorship.
benologist 8y ago
The $100b+ they have in the bank made it inevitable they needed to open a massive new oppressive market ASAP. Succumbing to an onerous government is something companies with $100b+ in the bank just have to do to survive, like classify workers as contractors to not pay health care or move profits around to not pay taxes.
hnbroseph 8y ago
"chinese government controversies" google: "your search did not match any documents" "alternative political parties" google: "your search did not match any documents" ...that said the titanic amount of noise and misinformation on the web itself becomes a sort of censorship.
fortythirteen 8y ago
They have crossed a threshold and, if you continue to use Google products, you have crossed a threshold. Google is now a willing and active participant in the coverup of massive human rights violations, including the open air murder of political protesters. If you pay for AdSense or G Suite, or even consume the "free" services, you are financing this.
mike_ivanov 8y ago
I don't get why people are complaining about Google doing it in China. They obviously need to test their innovations somewhere. Do you expect Google to drop new features like this on the North American market without proper QA?
h4b4n3r0 8y ago
I wonder if this will be met with the same intensity of internal backlash as their participation in that DoD object detection competition (AKA project Maven). I mean, helping the authoritarian Chinese government censor the web seems worse than helping the US government recognize whether there are people and cars on the ground.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
DSingularity 8y ago
I love free speech. I love individual liberty. I respect the sovereignty of nations. I believe societies are feee to choose. Should we impose our value system on the Chinese? No. We should try to relate and understand why the Chinese people have taken their route. If and when we find our value systems at odds with those of other people we cannot conclude that ours is superior and undermine their freedom to choose. That’s just arrogant and — most importantly — unbecoming when you describe yourself as an advocate for freedom.
- xvector 8y ago
  > We should try to relate and understand why the Chinese people have taken their route. The people have not taken this route. The people were mowed down in the thousands during a peaceful protest in Tienamen Square. > undermine their freedom to choose They never had the freedom to choose in the first place.
quotemstr 8y ago
The hypocrisy of western activist types on this issue is astounding. One week, they demand that tech companies across the US censor what they find "harmful", but the next week, they condemn the Chinese for doing exactly the same thing for content they find "harmful". Either you're in favor of free speech or you're just partial about which content you want to censor. The activist crowd in the west lost all moral standing on this subject years ago.
- tanilama 8y ago
  That entitlement of self-righteous is jarring. They need to have some awareness/consciousness what is happening around the world. They are losing, power talks, value is overrated.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  Another explanation of course would be that "activists" is not a homogenous group, and that different people might be calling for different things.
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  I think there is an important distinction to be made. Censorship that is meant to block all criticism of the current rulers to keep them in power forever is unlike all other kinds of censorship because it is self-referential and self-reinforcing. If a government censors, say, sites that distribute pirated movies or sites that glamorise suicide, I can still protest against that ban or campaign to get a different government elected. But if a government censors both those sites and my criticism of the ban, then that is a wholly different kind of censorship. Making that distinction is not hypocrisy.
  - ehsankia 8y ago
    Any censorship is almost be definition self-reinforcing. If you censor something, there's less of it and the ideas that aren't censored proliferate more, getting stronger.
    - 8y ago
mrnobody_67 8y ago
Related: https://gizmodo.com/setsession?r=https%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2Fgoogle-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393&sessionId=e6dccfad-0392-4efb-9a49-18d4cd9b7023 https://gizmodo.com/setsession?r=https%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2...
- kyrra 8y ago
  Except that story headline is a lie. See my post in the other Google thread from today about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17663090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17663090
jdlyga 8y ago
China slows down all non-domestic traffic. Even using a VPN, sites still load slow. It's kind of a tariff system to encourage local internet companies and discourage outside companies. Which is why they have WeChat and not Facebook dominating their society. And anyone who doesn't want to play by the government rules is blocked.
xs 8y ago
This is interesting timing. I just released a podcast episode today about the history of the relationship between Google and China. To get caught up on what's going on listen to this. https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/19/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/19/
notbeevil1 8y ago
not be evil changed to: Why not be evil
smsm42 8y ago
What I recently heard is that there are Google workers actively protesting against Google's involvement with projects connected to US DoD and US Army. What I am not hearing now is Google workers actively protesting against Google enabling censorship and oppression in China. I wonder whether this is an artifact of how news are reported (or how I am consuming new) or a genuine phenomenon? And if the latter, why is that?
- ibrault 8y ago
  It sounds like the source for the leak is an insider, although the author is very cautious to tiptoe around saying that. > which is being planned by a handful of top executives and managers at the company This quote also paints it as a very hush-hush project that isn't under development yet, so maybe not widespread internal knowledge?
  - smsm42 8y ago
    > It sounds like the source for the leak is an insider Possible. Then again, why public open protests in one case and a clandestine leak in another? Does it imply protesting some things would be tolerated much easier by the management than the other - like protesting working with US government is OK, but protesting working with Chinese government is risky? > This quote also paints it as a very hush-hush project Possible. Though not that hush-hush anymore, so let's see what happens now.
mehblahwhatevs 8y ago
Wow hopefully this means I'll be able to use Firebase in China.
squarefoot 8y ago
As much as I don't like Google, lets not forget that corporations aren't subject to human morality, which is the number one problem in our current economic model. All companies soon or later become "evil" if that translates into more profits. That evil has nothing to do with the biblical evil or a comic book villain concept ("Muhaha, I'll conquer the world!") but rather with total lack of empathy which in a human is usually a sign of serious, more often dangerous, mental issues. We gave corporations the power of ruining lives; that's the problem, not just Google which is simply a creature adapting to the environment it lives in.
- mindfulhack 8y ago
  But they are subject to the law, which I know ≠ human morality, but it is a machine that our economic model does interact with in the real world. And on this, maybe there could be international / trans-national legal rules (enforced by major legal jurisdictions like US/EU) that could ban companies who economically operate in the west (with all our human rights freedoms), from breaking these human rights institutions in the east (i.e. even outside the US/EU jurisdictions) - forcing them to choose between one region's human rights standards or the other.
longcheng 8y ago
Trade War - US is barking and CN is ignoring. Google - Google bluffed and CN called. Now Google seems to stop bluffing. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to be the case.
Kenji 8y ago
Google have become bootlickers of fascists in the name of greed. Who would have thought. It's interesting how you can be so infested by "liberal" and antifa people yet hate free speech and individual liberty so much. Truly schizophrenic.
schuke 8y ago
Thank God please bring it back. Some Google is better than no Google at all. Freedom of speech sounds and looks aloft but in reality Google’s absence does far more harm to Chinese customers and citizens than a censored version.
tomohawk 8y ago
Wonder if there will be another internal petition of google employees, this time demanding that google not kowtow to government of China.
est 8y ago
another thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661214
known 8y ago
Google already has a winsome search engine for mobile platform
j45 8y ago
Once this happens once... for one country, is it too far off to be available to any other country, regardless of it's interpretation or practice of politics?
your-nanny 8y ago
Do no evil... unless it's gonna make us a TON?

492 points by crispinb 8y ago

kiki_jiki 8y ago

I wonder if Chinese people will be able to search for Winnie the Pooh.

mocae 8y ago
Sure they will, but they'll never be able to leave the country, fly or get a train ticket again.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> I wonder if Chinese people will be able to search for Winnie the Pooh For context, Xi Jinping's feelings get hurt when people point out that he physically resembles Winnie the Pooh [1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/18/15993136/winnie-the-pooh-china-ban-censorship-xi-jinping-lol https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/18/15993136/winnie-the-pooh-...

dooglius 8y ago

Sad, but ultimately unsurprising

Eridrus 8y ago

So what had fundamentally changed here? Is it just that China is a bigger market now? Did Google think they actually had enough leverage to get the Chinese to back down? Are the founders simply less idealistic than before?

nine_k 8y ago
Maybe a few billion of fines here and there make you rethink your sources of revenue?
kanox 8y ago
The moral compass has shifted and Silicon Valley has learned to embrace censorship, at home and abroad.
- 908087 8y ago
  The "moral compass" in the ad/surveillance industry was always set up to indicate the direction of money, and only existed as a tool for PR to begin with.
emiliobumachar 8y ago
Hypothesis: the rise of the right to be forgotten in Europe served as a stepping stone. Free speech absolutists within the company could not be defeated in one step, but could be defeated in two steps. I am not saying that right to be forgotten is halfway through from free-speech absolutism to full-blown state control of information, but come on. If you ever jumped from a high place, you know that every foot of height makes a lot of difference.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Right To Be Forgotten isn't a censorship move, it's toward personal and individual freedom, not corporate or government secrecy. However, you probably aren't too far from the truth that it is because of European laws. Antitrust and privacy laws in Europe is going to make a lot of their business less profitable there. Which would lead to new efforts to make up that profit elsewhere. China's essentially an untapped market for Google, so its not a shock for the drive for money to eventually bring them back there.
- ggggtez 8y ago
  Relating this to RTBF is interesting, but your thinking is muddled. Europe created RTBF, not Google. So the hypothesis that RTBF is part of a Google corporate plan to "defeat" internal activists is baseless. It just makes no sense on the face of it.
  - emiliobumachar 8y ago
    What I meant was: EU created RTBF, Google went "well, we must comply with local laws, and we can't get out of Europe". From there, it's a smaller leap to comply with worse local laws.
GW150914 8y ago
They don’t have to pretend to have a moral compass anymore, they’re already massive. Besides, people have seen through the lie of “don’t be evil” so why leave money on the table by living the lie? They just want money, lots and lots of money. They pretended to have a conscience when that was advantageous and dropped the act the moment it was more advantageous to do so.

londons_explore 8y ago

Too late... They will never overtake Baidu, who have leaks of Googles algorithm, more data to train AI on, government support, an existing (better) product in asian languages, and a massive userbase.

SSchick 8y ago
> who have leaks of Googles algorithm Sounds plausible, got any sources on that?
- Apfel 8y ago
  If they had leaks of Google's algorithm, they'd likely have a much more usable product...
  - thinkingemote 8y ago
    Oh my sweet summer techy. An algorithm alone does not make a usable or successful product.
- confeit 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin... Google enlisted the help of the NSA after their internal code repository was hacked. (And before the NSA hacked Google for surveillance purposes). > [...] we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. > These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/technology/19china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/technology/19china.html > Lanxiang, in east China’s Shandong Province, is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military. The school’s computer network is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and a competitor of Google. > “I think it’s impossible for our students to hack Google or other U.S. companies because they are just high school graduates and not at an advanced level. [...]

crispinb 8y ago

A tactically-'ethical' startup of the near future's motto: "Don't be Google".

pixelpoet 8y ago
It is definitely worse to have a startup phase with the motto "don't be evil" and then later remove it once they've got everyone's data.
- SquareWheel 8y ago
  Please do not spread misinformation. They never changed their motto. https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
  - awinter-py 8y ago
    they moved it down or reworded it or something https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-dont-be-evil-code-conduct-removed-alphabet-a8361276.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...
  - thinkingemote 8y ago
    How about this for accuracy: "It is definitely worse to have a startup phase with the motto 'don't be evil' and then later heavily demote it once they've got everyone's data"
    - SquareWheel 8y ago
      Still reads as irrational to me, but at least it's technically accurate. It's worth remembering that "data" as they say stales very quickly. Knowing that you ordered a package two months ago is far less interesting than knowing you're expecting one next week. Or that you'll be booking a plane trip soon, and wouldn't you just love to know Delta is cheapest on that date? "Having your data" isn't a binary concept. Their services degrade substantially once you turn off the firehose. You'll still get ads, but they won't be tailored to you. Maps won't be able to show your current position. Assistant won't be able to recognize your voice. And that's fine, if you prefer that approach. But the concept of "having your data" in a historical context is meaningless. The only thing that matters is if that firehose is still available to them. Turn it off if you like. It isn't a lost cause.

KenanSulayman 8y ago

What does "censored" mean in this context? No anti-communist or anti-party propaganda? Personally I feel that Google has slowly become more and more censored over the recent years, to the point that I do searches on multiple search engines if I'm not so sure about the Google results. More than often there's not only a filter-bubble in my results, but there's more and more sites that suddenly disappeared over the years, but are high-ranking on DDG, Bing, Yandex, ... — especially in February / March 2018 there was a kind-of-extreme disappearance of sites in the results where I previously used Google to get to them.

samhamilton 8y ago
Means they will hide the same stuff Bing has and will hide more stuff as and when the gov tells them to. You want to be inside the firewall you need to be “legal”

07d046 8y ago

I wonder if Google employees will be as outraged about this as they reportedly were about Project Maven...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
microdrum 8y ago
Google has no morals. Only marketing.

awinter-py 8y ago

Wonder how Uber's experience in China will play out here -- people variously interpret it as state interference clearing the path for local competitors OR Didi being much better at meeting chinese cultural expectations for taxis. This feels like a very different world than 1998 when G could launch an upstart search engine with 'free the world's information' in their DNA. in 1998 even in the tech bubble people still had no idea how the open web platform would be used. Now it's some combination of closed platform dominance, cookie farms, land grabs and spam. Not surprising G is under pressure to play ball in china; the prevalence of android there (albeit in weird open forms sans G maps & tools) gives the government a geopolitical interest in tying some strings.

dosy 8y ago

This is so smart. I’m so happy for Alphabet. They seem to have recovered their mojo. Engagement not activism. I never understood why they held off so long but glad they finally respecting the host country and providing a service tailored to local needs rather than trying and failing to impose their perspective on a foreign nation. Happy. In other news I find it hilarious FBs license was revoked in Hangzhou just now. Suck it. Hahaha.

ainiriand 8y ago
Please, keep the discussion in a respectful way. This is not Reddit.

nchelluri 8y ago

Could have sworn I read about this some years ago.

mywacaday 8y ago

Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. If we have a problem with how their government works policy should be applied that prevents/manages how businesses subject to our laws operate abroad. The majority of people don't really care how corporations behave. If they did Google search/gmail/maps would not be so popular. They have the right price point(0$) for people to ignore any moral misgivings they may have. I'm guilty of this and up to my neck in google services

macspoofing 8y ago
>Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. This exactly. I would even make a stronger case. It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power. This is a failure of US and EU governments. They should pressure China to liberalize their government and provide a level economic playing field (it is insane what China gets away with with respect to the roadblocks it places on Western companies to do business there).
- Alir3z4 8y ago
  Neither US or EU are the world police. They have no rights and should not have any to pressure any country to push their own idea of how things should work in another country, just like how China and others don't demand such and even if they do that doesn't make it less wrong.
  - cazum 8y ago
    this is a weak argument, as it can be made for literally any situation. Israel massacring Palestinians? Hey man, they can do whatever they want, we don't have any right to tell them not to and it doesn't make what they're doing any less wrong!
    - it_learnses 8y ago
      You mean Palestinians trying to massacre as many jews as possible and Israel stopping them due to their superior defense capabilities.

econ4all 8y ago

There are a couple of recurring themes here: 1. the hyper-moralising over google's business decisions, they're not the only company that modifies its business to access the chinese market nor is the chinese government the only one that demands censorship. 2. google employees' attempts to sabotage the company's business prospects.

confeit 8y ago
1. It is because we/I expect better from Google. Google has such a huge responsibility, being the gateway to the world's information, and we trust them with that position. For-profit and deliberate blocking access to information erodes that trust. I would not care about other companies doing this, but seeing I care about Google doing this shows me that Google has a great PR/goodwill they've build up over the years. With this move I am left wondering if that is deserved, or if it was merely manipulating me for fanboy profit. 2. I think that is because they love working there, they hold their employer to a very high standard, and they don't want to take a pay cut to work for another (perhaps US-only) company with morals more aligned to theirs. Doing (or even thinking about) ethical business, puts you at a disadvantage over those that care more about profit and increasing their power. Losing prospective profits by doing the right thing is not a popular choice for a commercial business, so the incentives are there to just sell out your soul and go along with censorship (or spying on your users). For Facebook, this went on for years, until they found themselves in a mess. This mess was the result of 1000s of decisions made by all employees (not just upper management). I commend Google's employees for standing up for their beliefs and vision for the company. Only in a very Ayn Rand world is this sabotage. I am sure the big chief in charge of foreign markets views it as sabotage, but luckily Google is not run by only Eric Schmidt's.
- sharcerer 8y ago
  Agree with all your points. I am wondering what justification Sergey,Larry will give for this. If they took good ethical decisions, they would gain more respect from people. I read the book The Google Guys when I was 13 (now 20). Larry,Sergey were the first 2 people i sorta idolized. Been a Google fanboy mainly due to their incredibe R&D,STEM focus. Now, i feel sad. Obviously, not gonna defend bad actions but it's difficult to overcome that bias,fanboyism cultivated over the years. I also wonder why Larry,Sergey are so out of action. They should have at least been more public till they're about 50 years old. Weird thought: maybe somehow Google will help overthrow the communist govt in China in the future. The fact that this news makes so many people sad is evidence of the fact that we expect better from Google.

babsHeinz 8y ago

Because Google's search engine isn't censored in the rest of its locations?

crunchlibrarian 8y ago
Yeah it's strange how nobody talks about the fact that google search is getting less and less relevant and more and more filled with garbage every year. It's downright terrible, I have to go to social media or search with lots of domain operators (if I can remember them) to actually find what I'm looking for. I'm sure google's "analytics" say they are doing great and results are more relevant and engaging for them and their corporate partners than ever, but I am often walking away from a search not finding what I know still exists on the web. They are just a massive media conglomerate trying to promote other massive media orgs and their content, content that doesn't live in that bubble is increasingly out of bounds.
- beauzero 8y ago
  It's funny you say that. DDG, 2 years ago, was hard for me to use (less relevant). The last 3 months especially, they are about the same. I have a limited search set though...mostly .NET code searches.
  - MrEldritch 8y ago
    I personally find that for a lot of queries, especially ones of the "trivial" or "smart" kind where I'm looking for some old meme or bit of fandom trivia, DDG often returns results that are noticeably worse. Not much worse, and not always - but often enough that if I don't find something on DDG, I frequently try the same search on Google anyway. That said, DDG isn't that much worse than Google in terms of search quality, and is perfectly fine for more "serious" queries - It's an inferior user experience, admittedly, but I'm willing to drink RC Cola instead of drinking cane-sugar old-recipe Coke that also is contaminated with lead.
    - 394549 8y ago

Alir3z4 8y ago

Each country has its own rules and for sure any company wishing to operate there should abide. Be from North Korea or Cuba etc and then see if PayPal opens an account for you. I don't see PayPal fights for it, they simply abide the law and move on. You have a company and the gov gives you tons of regulations that most of them are unfair? Your problem, take it or leave it.

ainiriand 8y ago
You cannot open in NK because it has a trade block imposed by the US. Something similar was happening with Cuba or Iran. Let me tell you that abiding and legitimating freedom opressing regimes is not very american, even if it is for money.
- afroboy 8y ago
  > Let me tell you that abiding and legitimating freedom opressing regimes is not very american, even if it is for money. This is really far from the truth,Israel and Saudi arabia are example how this is bullshit.
  - alexandercrohde 8y ago
    If you have examples where America puts money before the freedom of the individual to have a political opinion, then it's those examples that need to change, not our standard of America.
    - ainiriand 8y ago
      Nailed. I tried to convey both things. First how America is blocking some countries for political reasons linked with democracy and liberty. On the other side of the spectrum there is the need to trade with some shady regimes. This is the side in which America needs to be more firm. Regarding China, we should not celebrate that an American company legitimates this censorship. Moreso (more-so?) when the company itself made billions on top of a technology designed for sharing information in an open way.

jessesoo 8y ago

From a business standpoint, I think it's only stupid for Google not to revisit such a huge market, then I wonder if they really have other choices that make business sense?

baybal2 8y ago

Seeing how launching "a limited Chinese lite version" went for many many many Western companies in China, I can tell following: Communists are totally ok with these limited versions, they are more than eager to "lure in" foreign dotcoms. Their logic is: "let them grow business in China, when the time comes, their business in China becomes so big, that it can be held hostage, we can demand them anything" Look at AirBnB: They were swearing on the graves of their fathers that you ID verification data is gone the moment it is verified, .... yet you will be super surprised to see that if you book a place in China, ALL YOUR ID DATA will be automatically filed into the form that hotels have to send to Chinese ministry of interior.

justsomedude43 8y ago

Money doesn't stink.

matz1 8y ago

Nice, hopefully this will make my trip to China less annoying.

ainiriand 8y ago
If the joy of visiting a country like China depends on your access to the Google Search Engine you are either a Google engineer or a very sad person.
- matz1 8y ago
  I use a lot of Google service everyday as I'm sure many people do, if i don't have to worry about having to find vpn that works than yeah it will be helpful. I rarely need to look for those censored stuff anyway even in the US.

manigandham 8y ago

Why do the 1.4 billion people living there put up with it in the first place? Why they have just made Jinping a lifetime president? Why are they fine with their own Chinese tech companies doing this already? It would help to understand the geopolitical causes of this environment instead of the constant faux outrage over Google doing what any business does, which is provide services in accordance to the laws where they operate. I do not want a world where a few major US tech companies become political powers. This effort should be directed towards the government forces where it matters.

starbugs 8y ago
If you reach a certain scale you effectively are a political power, whether you want it or not. What you do and under which circumstances you offer your business is a political statement, whether you want it or not. There's no way out. You will be held responsible for what you do and what you don't do.
- pas 8y ago
  > There's no way out. You will be held responsible for what you do and what you don't do. And that's fair actually. After all, with great power comes great responsibility. (At least in strict utilitarian sense action, non-action, private-public policies and so on are undoubtedly very much fall under the same consideration. That is, is it possible for the big company to do something? To maximize its utility function? If yes, then they should, right? Now it's up to the people to keep that function useful for them.)
cryoshon 8y ago
it is common for people to genuinely not care about the freedoms they are denied. for instance, there is likely a law on the books in the USA which prohibits you from having your cattle graze on various lands. you would be incrementally more free if there was not that law, but do you care? no, the issue is not relevant to your life, nor is it relevant to any life you could imagine yourself realistically having from the starting point of the present moment. if you were a cattle farmer the issue would be more salient -- but there's still no guarantee that you would be railing against the law. now, imagine that the prospect of democracy was what was forbidden, as it is in china. it's abstract, and the benefits are purely hypothetical for the chinese -- but there are hypothetical liabilities that come with democracy too, which might seem just as salient if you don't start from a position of being in favor of democracy.

quirkot 8y ago

Small reminder that companies must submit all source code for review if they do business in China

wwhitlow 8y ago
Wait really?!? I'd love to see a link to that, so China has more knowledge about how the services that control everyone's digital lives function then we do in America. While I see the totalitarian effect that can have the lack of knowledge and trust in these brands is slowly turning me away especially since alternatives exist.
orbital-decay 8y ago
And?.. Many companies "submit" all their source code to anyone interested, regardless of doing business in China. Just saying. Among closed-source ones, Microsoft and many others have decades-long history of submitting the code for governments to review. Does it really matter for anything? Or you mean even the code which doesn't leave company servers? Do you have a source then, because I'd have a hard time believing that.
- mindfulhack 8y ago
  That's news to me, and if true, stronger evidence for the likelihood of NSA / government backdoors.
afroboy 8y ago
That seems not believable at all i'd like to see source for that, i find hard to believe Apple, Oracle and such companies that are very protective for their code to submitted to one of most copy past countries in the world.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
  I've heard about this in the form of "if you want to sell hardware, you have to give them the blueprints", and companies doing it because they want to do business there. I wouldn't be surprised if this included the source code of everything that ships with the device, but I'd think it doesn't extend to server-side code.

aurizon 8y ago

Google has two choices:- to be outside - looking in, or to be inside - and engaged. It is axiomatic that China has roots in an oppressive communist titled government. I say titled because it was not communist in the classical sense, any more than the former USSR was communist - again in title only. China will gradually change and adapt - converge, to a more truly representative government as the middle class expands and the government learns they have nothing to fear but fear itself. Both former communist countries are doing far better than under their former party dictatorships. I suggest everyone read "Gulag Archipelago" I hope North Korea also is also opened up - engaged, in a similar manner.

bilbo0s 8y ago
"...doing far better than under their former party dictatorships..." Not trying to split hairs or anything, but China is "...under their former party dictatorship..." It's the same party, the only difference is that the leaders today are mostly trained engineers and scientists instead of the mainly political thinkers who preceded them.
- aurizon 8y ago
  Hopefully change will proceed at a faster rate as political hacks go to pasture.

throw2016 8y ago

People who are neck deep in the surveillance economy and have long sold out can't suddenly pretend to care about ethics without looking insincere. Given the large majority seem to have no problem with Google, Facebook and others, and their ability to attract employees is unaffected it's obvious ethics is not a high priority for current or prospective employees, if anything the fawning is often cringy. That also explains why inspite of Snowden's revelations no one really cares and there is no change. So there is little basis for ethical concern about China, unless the motive is purely posturing and grandstanding.

novaRom 8y ago

Search terms about human rights, democracy, religion and peaceful protests will be among the words blacklisted in the search engine app This is disgusting! I am not using Google Search anymore because of Firefox+DDG, but where are alternatives to YouTube, Gmail, Gmaps?

dartf 8y ago
PeerTube as a YouTube alternative Fastmail, tutanota, protonmail, etc. as a Gmail alternative OpenStreetMap as a Google maps alternative.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- 394549 8y ago
  > Fastmail I can wholeheartedly endorse them. One other benefit is that they actually have real live humans doing customer support. I haven't needed it much (only when I was setting up my custom domain and feature requests), but it's very reassuring to know it's there. It was the stories of people who were permanently locked out of their gmail accounts with no recourse and no one to call that ultimately caused me to abandon Google.

skc 8y ago

Why should Apple be the only ones making money hand over fist from China (and be lauded for their eye popping revenues every quarter)

enitihas 8y ago
Not just that, but their CEO was even invited to a Chinese government conference where he backed their vision of the 'open' Internet.
hahahaha23 8y ago
Making phones is different from helping censorship. Although admittedly, their phone operation is also controversial by letting works work extensively.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Yeah, why censor when you can collect all your users' data and give it straight to the government. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/17/apples-icloud-user-data-in-china-is-now-handled-by-a-state-owned-mobile-operator/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/17/apples-icloud-user-data-in... Do you honestly think that's less bad than blocking a few websites that are already blocked and can be bypassed by VPN?
est 8y ago
FYI Google makes money in China alright. It only closed the search function, not AdWords.

jillesvangurp 8y ago

There are lots of tech companies active in countries like China, Russia, Iran, and other countries with varying ideas about privacy, human rights, etc. This generally requires complying with local legislation, whether you agree with that or not. Singling out Google for not opting to exclude a fifth of the population of this planet from their products is a bit overkill. I'd rather they offer choice to the Chinese people on their terms than opting to not be in China at all. Google has huge stakes in China with Android, related production of many Android devices, and a lot of their other products. I imagine pulling out of China is not very practical for them at this point nor is selling phones without Google search. When I was still working on search Nokia Maps (now Here maps) we had to comply with all sorts of rules internationally, including for China. In addition to being weird about certain POIs (e.g. Tien an mien square) we also had to deal with their obfuscated GPS coordinates. They use some weird shifting algorithm that you have to license from them. The point is not the algorithm (you can find it online if you dig hard enough) but the fact that you had to talk to them to get a license. It's a control point for them. Another weird thing was that Iran insisted on referring to the Gulf as the Persian Gulf. One nice edge case there is the inflight maps of planes flying over their territory. The point here is that doing business internationally is hard and taking the moral high ground basically means not doing business with a lot of countries.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
the_grue 8y ago
How precisely does the fact that these countries exist 'require' complying with local legislation? Google is free to host their servers in other countries, which are free from censorship laws. It's not like Google needs to be present in that market to survive. In a bigger context, the Internet business, and Google in particular, is a product of a free, liberal society. It couldn't have existed without freedom. Thus freedom is linked with success. So, as long as Google is innovative, it has that inherent advantage over its Chinese competitors.
- betterunix2 8y ago

DBCerigo 8y ago

For those inclined to disengage with Google and its products, this is a previous HN post on exactly that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280558

enitihas 8y ago

When Tim Cook backs China’s vision of an ‘open’ Internet in a Chinese forum, HN says that at least Apple is providing some service to the Chinese users, who will have worse services if apple drops out of China. Apple routinely blocks apps on the request of the Chinese government. But if Goole too decides to provides services to China, in accordance with Chinese law, the reaction is so different here. Not taking any sides here, just highlighting the different ways different companies are judged on HN.

chadmeister 8y ago
You got any links to some of those discussions with such overwhelming support for censorship on HN? Because your claim doesn't sound even remotely true from my own personal experience on here. Your response does however sound like a typrical Whataboutism comment on here.
- enitihas 8y ago
  See the top comment on this thread(and other comments too) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16414703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16414703. I am not able to find the HN thread on Tim Cook's comments, but here is a WaPo link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/12/04/apple-ceo-backs-chinas-vision-of-an-open-internet-as-censorship-reaches-new-heights/?utm_term=.5e7331c4a9c9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/12/04... For some more info on apple helping censorship in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_the_iTunes_Store#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_the_iTunes_Store... I am not saying Apple is wrong in choosing to operate in a very lucrative market, but just that other companies are no worse than Apple.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    The top-level comment is not representative because sub comments may be voted higher. It is unfortunate that you base your opinion on a site by top-level comments instead of top-quality ones. I have unwaveringly been against Apple's approach here, made it clear in posts like the one you linked to, and yet still as a whole we're branded. It seems the real problem is volume (in frequency and loudness) and the inability for people to look beyond it.

bad_user 8y ago

There might be many tech companies in China, no doubt, including big names, and companies should comply with local regulations if they want to do business, however the fact that Google pulled their search engine out of China, defying their censorship attempts, is one big reason for why I respected Google, in spite of my reservations for them. So let me tell you what I think as an EU citizen that's actively concerned about both freedom of speech and privacy ... I couldn't give a crap about what companies are active in China and complying with their local regulations. That Google took a stand showed they valued freedom of speech above their bottom line, but now if they are going back in, we can talk about the primary concern with Google ... Google is the destroyer of privacy. Google tracks their users at an unprecedented level in the whole history of humanity and if they do this, we now have concrete proof that they don't have values that are above their bottom line. Therefore we have a problem and the next time the EU slaps them with another multi-billion fine for violating EU's anti-trust or privacy laws, I'll cheer them for it, because it's all about the dough.

at-fates-hands 8y ago
> we now have concrete proof that they don't have values that are above their bottom line. I had the same reaction. Back in the day, there was this common belief tech companies had a certain set of values and would draw a line. Now? It's always about the money. Welcome to the decline of Western Civilization.
- fullshark 8y ago
  That previous position seems insanely naive now. I wonder if western civilization is actually propped up by a collective naivety among its population.
bilbo0s 8y ago
"...Google is the destroyer of privacy. Google tracks their users at an unprecedented level in the whole history of humanity..." In fairness, you never had a problem with that privacy invasion before. You still respected them in spite of the fact that they were Gestapo-like privacy invaders. As evidenced by your claim that, "...the fact that Google pulled their search engine out of China, defying their censorship attempts, is one big reason for why I respected Google..." I've always been wary of Google. They are not our friends. They are here trying to make money off of us. They would sell any one of us out to any number of governments if they were asked. And they would do so without hesitation. That's the reason that we need to be mindful of what we disclose to companies like Google, Facebook, et al.

cutler 8y ago

Brilliant business strategy. 1. Profess "Don't Be Evil" 2. Dominate the market. 3. Be as evil as you like.

gt_ 8y ago
Americans call this simply “business strategy”. The “brilliant” descriptor depends how many millions of dollars they make.

bokertov 8y ago

IMO, obeying Chinese law is similar to obeying GDPR. It's not smart for any corporation to fight governments.

blub 8y ago
With the small difference that GDPR is empowering people while Chinese law is subjugating them. Actually the law itself is probably not so bad... in my experience communist states always have decent laws, with various rights enshrined into them. It's just that in the implementation one always ends up with a boot stomping their face somehow.
phyzome 8y ago
And many corporations that don't specifically do business in the EU chose not to comply with the GDPR, which is fine. (I mean, I like the GDPR, and wish they would comply, but it's valid.) The consequences for Google not obeying the demands of China are just... getting blocked in China, no?

influx 8y ago

Google employees practically rioted when they found out their employer was trying to get a contract with the American Government, but will just cash their RSUs when they help the Chinese government censor its citizens. Sad.

cirenehc 8y ago
The Chinese government is going to censor its citizens regardless though.
- influx 8y ago
  Will they be able to do it as well as google can? I guess as long as the stock price goes up. Cool man.
- 394549 8y ago
  What's your point? The US military is going to engage in drone warfare regardless of the the objections of Google employees to Project Maven.
- bsamuels 8y ago
  The US government will just give the AI contract to Raytheon/Northrop instead of Google. What's your point?
  - ehsankia 8y ago
    The difference is that providing a censored service is better than no service. Android for example is a much more limited experience in China. Do you honestly not think a Chinese citizen would prefer having a limited Play Store than none at all? Chinese people don't go around searching about Tiananmen Square every day, and they would much rather have access to all the cat videos on Youtube than none at all. Whereas the Maven project, there wasn't really a user benefiting.
- tomohawk 8y ago
  This is not about what the Chinese or any other government is doing. It is about the decisions of Google and certain employees of Google. Deciding to not join with others in the national defense is a very divisive and political decision. Deciding to aid totalitarian governments with censorship and other activities is likewise divisive and political. Deciding to back one major political party, but not the other - similarly divisive and political. If they didn't want the criticism, they would just take the bucks and do the business for whoever is paying. They are at least giving the appearance of making these decisions on ideological grounds. This moves them more into the arena of being an political organization. In which case, saying you're just doing business is pretty lame.

bkohlmann 8y ago

I'm having a hard time understanding how Google employees will shut down "immoral" project's for the US Dept of Defense programs like "Project Maven," yet hold their tongues in building an application that limits speech, aiding a repressive regime.

mc32 8y ago
Because it was less about principle and more about politics. If let’s say Bernie had won, this would not been raised as big issue.
panarky 8y ago
Where does the article say Google employees are holding their tongues?
- Mindwipe 8y ago
  Indeed, the fact that only a small amount of staff appear to have access to this project and one of them has leaked it for moral reasons suggests rather the opposite tbh.
  - mc32 8y ago
    The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Will this project be derailed? I’m betting not.
  - justinzollars 8y ago
    These employees are heroes. If you are reading this: Thank you for standing up for Human Rights.
    - lorenzorhoades 8y ago
      Why is software that can be used by the military to more effectively label drone targets a violation of human rights? Bias: I am in the Air Force.

tyu100 8y ago

This is less of a moral cliff than it was a few years ago, given how many restrictions the EU is placing on Google right now, between right-to-be-forgotten and hate speech laws.

gremlinsinc 8y ago

There was another hn post a week or two ago, about how China is basically taking over the world, and could leave the USA in it's dust. Google, may be aware of this 'transition', which is a scary one, considering the 'big brother' scheme they have in China, but if China becomes the king of the world, Google and many other companies will have to play ball to stay viable. I'm reminded of a commercial where Americans are speaking Chinese, and there are also I think Japanese commercials that show poverty and feature American kids. Kind of disconcerting, and dystopian, but not out of the realm of imagination.

novaRom 8y ago
can you find a link to this HN post please?
pathseeker 8y ago
China surpassing the US as an economic powerhouse doesn't imply poverty or the inability to have viable companies there. What a silly dichotomy.

alexandercrohde 8y ago

I would not tolerate a company that build physical handcuffs to keep an entire population from expressing their opinion. I feel comparably icky about "mental handcuffs."

iamshs 8y ago
What a beautiful description.

hahahaha23 8y ago

if this is true, google has lost its soul! So disappointed... I will have to switch to duck duck go

_zachs 8y ago

Where are the troves of Googler's who were against helping the US military? They're totally cool with helping China censor information?

dragonwriter 8y ago
Yes, people that support the PRC regime tend to also oppose the US military. How is this even the least bit surprising?
- brainfog 8y ago
  Are you seriously arguing that folks against maven were PRC shills?
  - pathseeker 8y ago
    Nobody said anything about shills. You can be anti-US and pro-China without being a shill.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - brainfog 8y ago
      I guess I just don't get the original comment. Even if some prc supporters oppose the US military, what on earth does that have to do with the (equally silly but for different reasons) "where are all the people who were against maven?" question if not to paint the majority of maven opponents as prc shills?
  - friedman23 8y ago
    You actually don't believe there is a sizable group of PRC shills/ Chinese nationalists currently working at google?
    - brainfog 8y ago

idoescompooters 8y ago

Just when I thought the US-China tensions would lead to positive progress in reducing China's censorship.

benologist 8y ago

The $100b+ they have in the bank made it inevitable they needed to open a massive new oppressive market ASAP. Succumbing to an onerous government is something companies with $100b+ in the bank just have to do to survive, like classify workers as contractors to not pay health care or move profits around to not pay taxes.

hnbroseph 8y ago

"chinese government controversies" google: "your search did not match any documents" "alternative political parties" google: "your search did not match any documents" ...that said the titanic amount of noise and misinformation on the web itself becomes a sort of censorship.

fortythirteen 8y ago

They have crossed a threshold and, if you continue to use Google products, you have crossed a threshold. Google is now a willing and active participant in the coverup of massive human rights violations, including the open air murder of political protesters. If you pay for AdSense or G Suite, or even consume the "free" services, you are financing this.

mike_ivanov 8y ago

I don't get why people are complaining about Google doing it in China. They obviously need to test their innovations somewhere. Do you expect Google to drop new features like this on the North American market without proper QA?

h4b4n3r0 8y ago

I wonder if this will be met with the same intensity of internal backlash as their participation in that DoD object detection competition (AKA project Maven). I mean, helping the authoritarian Chinese government censor the web seems worse than helping the US government recognize whether there are people and cars on the ground.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

DSingularity 8y ago

I love free speech. I love individual liberty. I respect the sovereignty of nations. I believe societies are feee to choose. Should we impose our value system on the Chinese? No. We should try to relate and understand why the Chinese people have taken their route. If and when we find our value systems at odds with those of other people we cannot conclude that ours is superior and undermine their freedom to choose. That’s just arrogant and — most importantly — unbecoming when you describe yourself as an advocate for freedom.

xvector 8y ago
> We should try to relate and understand why the Chinese people have taken their route. The people have not taken this route. The people were mowed down in the thousands during a peaceful protest in Tienamen Square. > undermine their freedom to choose They never had the freedom to choose in the first place.

quotemstr 8y ago

The hypocrisy of western activist types on this issue is astounding. One week, they demand that tech companies across the US censor what they find "harmful", but the next week, they condemn the Chinese for doing exactly the same thing for content they find "harmful". Either you're in favor of free speech or you're just partial about which content you want to censor. The activist crowd in the west lost all moral standing on this subject years ago.

tanilama 8y ago
That entitlement of self-righteous is jarring. They need to have some awareness/consciousness what is happening around the world. They are losing, power talks, value is overrated.
Vinnl 8y ago
Another explanation of course would be that "activists" is not a homogenous group, and that different people might be calling for different things.
fauigerzigerk 8y ago
I think there is an important distinction to be made. Censorship that is meant to block all criticism of the current rulers to keep them in power forever is unlike all other kinds of censorship because it is self-referential and self-reinforcing. If a government censors, say, sites that distribute pirated movies or sites that glamorise suicide, I can still protest against that ban or campaign to get a different government elected. But if a government censors both those sites and my criticism of the ban, then that is a wholly different kind of censorship. Making that distinction is not hypocrisy.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Any censorship is almost be definition self-reinforcing. If you censor something, there's less of it and the ideas that aren't censored proliferate more, getting stronger.
  - 8y ago

mrnobody_67 8y ago

Related: https://gizmodo.com/setsession?r=https%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2Fgoogle-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393&sessionId=e6dccfad-0392-4efb-9a49-18d4cd9b7023 https://gizmodo.com/setsession?r=https%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2...

kyrra 8y ago
Except that story headline is a lie. See my post in the other Google thread from today about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17663090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17663090

jdlyga 8y ago

China slows down all non-domestic traffic. Even using a VPN, sites still load slow. It's kind of a tariff system to encourage local internet companies and discourage outside companies. Which is why they have WeChat and not Facebook dominating their society. And anyone who doesn't want to play by the government rules is blocked.

xs 8y ago

This is interesting timing. I just released a podcast episode today about the history of the relationship between Google and China. To get caught up on what's going on listen to this. https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/19/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/19/

notbeevil1 8y ago

not be evil changed to: Why not be evil

smsm42 8y ago

What I recently heard is that there are Google workers actively protesting against Google's involvement with projects connected to US DoD and US Army. What I am not hearing now is Google workers actively protesting against Google enabling censorship and oppression in China. I wonder whether this is an artifact of how news are reported (or how I am consuming new) or a genuine phenomenon? And if the latter, why is that?

ibrault 8y ago
It sounds like the source for the leak is an insider, although the author is very cautious to tiptoe around saying that. > which is being planned by a handful of top executives and managers at the company This quote also paints it as a very hush-hush project that isn't under development yet, so maybe not widespread internal knowledge?
- smsm42 8y ago
  > It sounds like the source for the leak is an insider Possible. Then again, why public open protests in one case and a clandestine leak in another? Does it imply protesting some things would be tolerated much easier by the management than the other - like protesting working with US government is OK, but protesting working with Chinese government is risky? > This quote also paints it as a very hush-hush project Possible. Though not that hush-hush anymore, so let's see what happens now.

mehblahwhatevs 8y ago

Wow hopefully this means I'll be able to use Firebase in China.

squarefoot 8y ago

As much as I don't like Google, lets not forget that corporations aren't subject to human morality, which is the number one problem in our current economic model. All companies soon or later become "evil" if that translates into more profits. That evil has nothing to do with the biblical evil or a comic book villain concept ("Muhaha, I'll conquer the world!") but rather with total lack of empathy which in a human is usually a sign of serious, more often dangerous, mental issues. We gave corporations the power of ruining lives; that's the problem, not just Google which is simply a creature adapting to the environment it lives in.

mindfulhack 8y ago
But they are subject to the law, which I know ≠ human morality, but it is a machine that our economic model does interact with in the real world. And on this, maybe there could be international / trans-national legal rules (enforced by major legal jurisdictions like US/EU) that could ban companies who economically operate in the west (with all our human rights freedoms), from breaking these human rights institutions in the east (i.e. even outside the US/EU jurisdictions) - forcing them to choose between one region's human rights standards or the other.

longcheng 8y ago

Trade War - US is barking and CN is ignoring. Google - Google bluffed and CN called. Now Google seems to stop bluffing. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to be the case.

Kenji 8y ago

Google have become bootlickers of fascists in the name of greed. Who would have thought. It's interesting how you can be so infested by "liberal" and antifa people yet hate free speech and individual liberty so much. Truly schizophrenic.

schuke 8y ago

Thank God please bring it back. Some Google is better than no Google at all. Freedom of speech sounds and looks aloft but in reality Google’s absence does far more harm to Chinese customers and citizens than a censored version.

tomohawk 8y ago

Wonder if there will be another internal petition of google employees, this time demanding that google not kowtow to government of China.

est 8y ago

another thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661214

known 8y ago

Google already has a winsome search engine for mobile platform

j45 8y ago

Once this happens once... for one country, is it too far off to be available to any other country, regardless of it's interpretation or practice of politics?

your-nanny 8y ago

Do no evil... unless it's gonna make us a TON?