7 ms·

It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. But even if we assume that there is no legal way for a company to op

by c3534l 8y ago

It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. But even if we assume that there is no legal way for a company to operate ethically in China, is the world meant to close our borders to them entirely? 20% of the planet lives there and we do business with China every day when we buy something manufactured there, but do not feel morally required to boycott them on account of their government. Edit: to all the comments saying I equated lawful with ethical, please read my comment again. In particular the second sentence in which I clearly distinguish between the two.

snek 8y ago
Google Search provides information. Blocking access to information is, by the nature of the action, disenfranchising and oppressive. If Google were to re-enter the Chinese market, their Search product would either be controlled by the current government or they would be kicked out. I would argue that Google providing censored results is harmful to that 20%, so it is better to stay out.
- caibkai 8y ago
  Baidu has monopolized power in Chinese market as a search engine. It sold advertisement to fake hospital and ranked the advertisement as a top searching result. A young Chinese student died because of the fake hospital advertisement (Wei Zexi scandal). A censored google can still create more competition. How could it be harmful to that 20%?
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Because everyone knows that Baidu is government-controlled. So google.cn, even though many would know that it's also compromised, would basically be a honeypot. It would be far better for access to Google to remain dependent on VPN and Tor. And in that regard, it'd be very cool if Google didn't block Tor exits.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Baidu is not government controlled, just submissive to it. Though it operates under the credo of “ask for forgiveness rather than permission” like almost every other Chinese tech company, so even that relationship is complicated.
      - reaperducer 8y ago
        Like a dog on a leash isn't controlled by its owner, it's just submissive to him? Riiiiiight. If Baidu was really doing anything independent, then it would get reined in, like the overseas Chinese real estate firms are. As for censorship: "According to the China Digital Times, Baidu has a long history of being the most active and restrictive online censor in the search arena. Documents leaked in April 2009 from an employee in Baidu's internal monitoring and censorship department show a long list of blocked websites and censored topics on Baidu search." I don't think Baidu came up with that list all by itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu#Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu#Censorship
        seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        I don't think you really get how Chinese businesses operate. Tech businesses, as long as they are Chinese, operate under an assumption of semi-impunity as long as they don't cross political boundaries. So healthcare fraud is in bounds, and if they get caught, they'll just get a slap on the wrist. Its not like the government condones the fraud, more like they don't care as long as it doesn't result in social instability. Real estate firms and other industries like taxi groups are more likely to be directly controlled by princelings, so those are something else altogether. The government has a direct channel into these industries, because they are basically like a state-controlled mafia.
        mirimir 8y ago
        > Tech businesses, as long as they are Chinese, operate under an assumption of semi-impunity as long as they don't cross political boundaries. So healthcare fraud is in bounds, and if they get caught, they'll just get a slap on the wrist. Wait. So are you arguing that Chinese tech businesses are under state control, or that they aren't? Your examples point to a horrible compromise: political censorship with freedom to defraud the public.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    A censored google can still create more competition. A censored Google isn't more competition. It's just more of what already exists, with different branding.
ben_jones 8y ago
> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. What about local laws in countries that are deeply homophobic? Is it unfortunate if countries don't hand over lists of gay users?
- amarkov 8y ago
  Certainly not. But is Google planning to hand over lists of users who search for banned terms? It seems like there's a big difference between handing over lists of users and restricting information.
  - xiii1408 8y ago
    They'll almost certainly hand over user data to the central government. They're required to partner with a Chinese firm, and this is a fairly common practice among Chinese technology companies.
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    > But is Google planning to hand over lists of users who search for banned terms? Yes? That's so obvious I'm a little stunned you're even asking. If the government orders them to hand over that information, they won't have any choice.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    > It seems like there's a big difference between handing over lists of users and restricting information. I think what you're not understanding is it's not Google doing this vs that, it's Google doing what they are told, whatever that may be, or leaving.
rhcom2 8y ago
> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. Laws anywhere are never a guarantee of ethics and not having Google help build part of a censored internet in China is not the same as closing our border to them entirely.
astebbin 8y ago
Local laws in East Berlin sanctioned the murder of Germans who sought to escape. Local laws in Vichy France required people to report hidden Jews to the police. Local laws in America under Jim Crow forbade interracial marriage, and denied Blacks their right to vote. Would you consider it unfortunate that some held these local laws to be unethical? I’d ascribe no more legitimacy to similar laws made by an unelected, authoritarian government with a history of kidnapping, torturing, and killing nonviolent dissidents. I’m privately amazed that the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights is now a subject of controversy. Why do we believe the Chinese Communist Party when it says, “China is special, and the Chinese people do not deserve basic human freedoms?”
- doombolt 8y ago
  "sanctioned the murder of Germans who sought to escape" I have read a page on capital punishment in Germany, found no such claims. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_German...
  - astebbin 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Peter_Fechter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Peter_Fechter Many similar cases.
    - astebbin 8y ago
      I'd love to know why the parent has been downvoted. Further evidence, if any is needed: "The use of lethal force on the Berlin Wall was an integral part of the East German state's policy towards its border system." "The Stasi took charge of "corpse cases" and those injured while trying to cross the border, who were transported to hospitals run by the Stasi or the police where they would recuperate before being transferred to Stasi prisons. The Stasi also took sole responsibility for the disposal of the dead and their possessions. Bodies were not returned to relatives but were cremated, usually at the crematorium at Baumschulenweg. Occasionally the cost of the cremations was covered by the victims themselves using money taken from their pockets.[25] Stasi officers posing as policemen would inform the relatives, though not before trying to obtain "valuable pieces of information on the border violation". Deaths would be stated as being due to "a border provocation of his own causing", "a fatal accident of his own causing" or "drowning in a border waterway". Every border death was investigated in detail to identify how the attempt had been made, whether there were any vulnerabilities in the border system that needed to be remedied and whether anyone else had been involved. If necessary, the family, relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours were put under surveillance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_at_the_Berlin_Wall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_at_the_Berlin_W...
xiii1408 8y ago
No. It's not fair to justify building the machinery of a totalitarian state as simply "abiding by local laws and regulations." Not when the consequences involve clear violations of human rights. You don't have to look far to see how bad things have gotten recently in China, from abductions of booksellers in Hong Kong to an activist being carted away literally during a phone interview with Voice of America. When Western companies act like this is totally normal and even develop censorship technologies for regimes in countries with poor records for human rights, it lends false legitimacy to these unjust systems and even emboldens them to commit more serious violations of human rights.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Don't forget them placing 1 million Uyghurs (and counting) in "re-education camps" designed to destroy their culture and religion.
  - justinjlynn 8y ago
    You mean engaging in actions that meet the UN-accepted definition of genocide? May as well just call it genocide.
  - vkou 8y ago
    The last residential 'school' (which was aimed to do the same for First Nations people) in Canada closed in 1996, with little more then a hummm-hummm. Our shit stinks almost as much.
    - denorm 8y ago
      Whataboutism is a really poor argument. The history of the West is full of atrocities, but that doesn't somehow excuse the Chinese government from current human rights abuses. Nor does it mean that I as a Westerner do not have the right to criticize the Chinese government. In fact we have an obligation to condemn human rights abuses wherever they occur.
      - 8y ago
Sangermaine 8y ago
>It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. What a disgusting comment. What is legal and what is ethical are not the same thing at all. I have difficulty believing this was written in good faith.
- throwaway8879 8y ago
  And what is ethical exactly? Objectively? And this is something that you get to decide? Maximizing profits seems pretty ethical to me.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    It's something that everybody gets to decide for themselves. And then judge others accordingly.
  - mmirate 8y ago
    Ethics are inherently subjective, which is why their only actual usefulness is as a shorthand/proxy for "unlikelihood to generate bad press".
  - buth_lika 8y ago
    How come others have to have "objective" morals, but for you "seems to me" is perfectly fine? Of course it's subjective, that doesn't take away from it at all, since any opinion that it being subjective is a problem is subjective as well. > Maximizing profits seems pretty ethical to me. Up to extracting gold teeth from people murdered in concentration camps, or is there a limit for you? > [Q: Isn't there a certain calculus that someone who is sitting in the shoes of a Condoleezza Rice can make, that they're responsible for the best outcome for American citizens, and there's an upside of going into Iraq which is we get one of the greatest material possessions in world's history, and there're downsides which are: we upset the international community, and maybe there's more terrorism. Couldn't you envision a calculus where they say, sure, that's the reason, and it's a good reason, let's do it. What's the flaw in the calculus?] > Oh, I think that's exactly their calculus. But then we ought to just be honest and say, "Look, we're a bunch of Nazis." So fine, let's just drop all the discussion, we save a lot of trees, we can throw out the newspapers and most of the scholarly literature, and just come out, state it straight, and tell the truth: we'll do whatever we want because we think we're gonna gain by it. And incidently, it's not American citizens who'll gain. They don't gain by this. It's narrow sectors of domestic power that the administration is serving with quite unusual dedication... -- Noam Chomsky, Talk titled "Why Iraq?" at Harvard University, November 4, 2002
lx3459683 8y ago
> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. Ethical and legal are two entirely different concepts. What's really unfortunate is there's a significant number of people who haven't been able to break out of their indoctrination to equate these things and to follow laws without questioning them or assessing the ethics involved. The overwhelming majority of laws is written by the rich and powerful to represent their interests, which are entirely divorced from ethics. It is the ethical responsibility of every individual to refuse to abide by those laws and act to change them. We can't pretend that your kind of viewpoint is acceptable. We have had too many historical examples of people committing some of the worst atrocities of all time while abiding by the laws of the time and 'just following orders'. I'm upvoting you so we can keep this terrifying sentiment at the top of the thread for all to see and discuss.
ataturk 8y ago
We don't have to close them off entirely, but we do have to acknowledge the problem in our faces. Google would be happy to apply the censorship worldwide, not just in China! If Western culture isn't dead, if our Western legal traditions mean anything at all (I'm talking about individual rights here) then we have to fight the good fight for ourselves and on behalf of those who can't. Otherwise we'll succumb to the least common denominator because technocrats simply don't care. I'll tell you the truth--I don' think the new generation in SV has any understanding of history whatsoever. I think they believe they are the most brilliant, infallible people in the world. So I don't have a great outlook on what our future holds because it's always like this when a generation arrogantly forgets the past and thinks that nothing bad can ever happen. SV is almost 100% Democrats, coincidence?
Leary 8y ago
Google's situation is similar to many American authors' experience when confronted with the choice of 1) not publishing in China. and 2) publishing a censored version of their book. The decision is not an easy one, even for those who support freedom of information. Those who deem Google's actions unethical often fail to realize that without Google or foreign books, Chinese internet users and readers will have less access to information. Peter Hessler, an American writer detailed such the discussion of censorship in the West https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/travels-with-my-censor https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/travels-with-m... "Western commentary about censorship often turns inward, portraying limitations in other countries in a way that celebrates our own values. One of the most striking qualities of foreign portrayals of censorship in China is the apparent lack of interest in Chinese readers and editors. "
- int_19h 8y ago
  There is a very simple and clear line, actually. The moment you have to write a single line of code to specifically enable political censorship, you're complicit in it. Such as in this case, where they're not just talking about e.g. taking down links in search results when asked, but inserting new code into the entire Android software stack, or even writing new apps outright, to enable such censorship. And yes, of course it celebrates our own values. Why should we use any other values to judge our companies? If they don't want to be subject to this, they can always split their Chinese branch away entirely, and let it be run by the locals. Then it would be a Chinese internal matter. But when software engineers in California are implementing censorship for Chinese government, they're going to be criticized by the standards that apply in California.
  - dcbadacd 8y ago
    > but inserting new code into the entire Android software stack, or even writing new apps outright, to enable such censorship. Let's not forget Apple already has done this with iOS. It's just worth mentioning that this isn't Google-specific.
- qudat 8y ago
  > portraying limitations in other countries in a way that celebrates our own values. This rings very true to me. Like others have commented in this thread, google is unethical because "they are disrupting the foundations of democracy by abiding by totalitarian rules" as if democracy is the one True form of governance.
chillacy 8y ago
Sounds like there's a parallel with boycotts of Apartheid South Africa? Anyways I think the best answer for society to the general question of "if there's no legal way for a company to operate ethically, should it not?" is a resounding yes. However game theory will ensure that in absence of external pressure (via regulation or public sentiment), companies will try to serve the market for profit.
est 8y ago
> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical No, it's that speaking up against local "laws" and quit, then come back again that's unethical.
denorm 8y ago
"Abiding by local laws and regulations" is a veil behind which international companies hide, claiming lack of responsibility for actions that many of us would consider unethical. Just as with Yahoo's outing of Chinese dissidents[0], at some point companies in China (like Apple, now hosting iCloud data in Guizhou) are going to be forced to hand over data to the Chinese government in order to "abide by local laws". Cue the "but the NSA collects all our data, anyway" arguments.. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Outing_of_Chinese_dissidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Outing_of_...
buth_lika 8y ago
> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. It seems unfortunate to you, because you are not aware of the thought and research that went into this insight, and the roughly 100 million dead people.
- dang 8y ago
  We've banned this account for continuing to use HN primarily for ideological warfare despite many requests to stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by c3534l 8y ago

snek 8y ago

Google Search provides information. Blocking access to information is, by the nature of the action, disenfranchising and oppressive. If Google were to re-enter the Chinese market, their Search product would either be controlled by the current government or they would be kicked out. I would argue that Google providing censored results is harmful to that 20%, so it is better to stay out.

caibkai 8y ago
Baidu has monopolized power in Chinese market as a search engine. It sold advertisement to fake hospital and ranked the advertisement as a top searching result. A young Chinese student died because of the fake hospital advertisement (Wei Zexi scandal). A censored google can still create more competition. How could it be harmful to that 20%?
- mirimir 8y ago
  Because everyone knows that Baidu is government-controlled. So google.cn, even though many would know that it's also compromised, would basically be a honeypot. It would be far better for access to Google to remain dependent on VPN and Tor. And in that regard, it'd be very cool if Google didn't block Tor exits.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Baidu is not government controlled, just submissive to it. Though it operates under the credo of “ask for forgiveness rather than permission” like almost every other Chinese tech company, so even that relationship is complicated.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      Like a dog on a leash isn't controlled by its owner, it's just submissive to him? Riiiiiight. If Baidu was really doing anything independent, then it would get reined in, like the overseas Chinese real estate firms are. As for censorship: "According to the China Digital Times, Baidu has a long history of being the most active and restrictive online censor in the search arena. Documents leaked in April 2009 from an employee in Baidu's internal monitoring and censorship department show a long list of blocked websites and censored topics on Baidu search." I don't think Baidu came up with that list all by itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu#Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu#Censorship
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        I don't think you really get how Chinese businesses operate. Tech businesses, as long as they are Chinese, operate under an assumption of semi-impunity as long as they don't cross political boundaries. So healthcare fraud is in bounds, and if they get caught, they'll just get a slap on the wrist. Its not like the government condones the fraud, more like they don't care as long as it doesn't result in social instability. Real estate firms and other industries like taxi groups are more likely to be directly controlled by princelings, so those are something else altogether. The government has a direct channel into these industries, because they are basically like a state-controlled mafia.
        mirimir 8y ago
        > Tech businesses, as long as they are Chinese, operate under an assumption of semi-impunity as long as they don't cross political boundaries. So healthcare fraud is in bounds, and if they get caught, they'll just get a slap on the wrist. Wait. So are you arguing that Chinese tech businesses are under state control, or that they aren't? Your examples point to a horrible compromise: political censorship with freedom to defraud the public.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  A censored google can still create more competition. A censored Google isn't more competition. It's just more of what already exists, with different branding.

ben_jones 8y ago

> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. What about local laws in countries that are deeply homophobic? Is it unfortunate if countries don't hand over lists of gay users?

amarkov 8y ago
Certainly not. But is Google planning to hand over lists of users who search for banned terms? It seems like there's a big difference between handing over lists of users and restricting information.
- xiii1408 8y ago
  They'll almost certainly hand over user data to the central government. They're required to partner with a Chinese firm, and this is a fairly common practice among Chinese technology companies.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  > But is Google planning to hand over lists of users who search for banned terms? Yes? That's so obvious I'm a little stunned you're even asking. If the government orders them to hand over that information, they won't have any choice.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > It seems like there's a big difference between handing over lists of users and restricting information. I think what you're not understanding is it's not Google doing this vs that, it's Google doing what they are told, whatever that may be, or leaving.

rhcom2 8y ago

> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. Laws anywhere are never a guarantee of ethics and not having Google help build part of a censored internet in China is not the same as closing our border to them entirely.

astebbin 8y ago

Local laws in East Berlin sanctioned the murder of Germans who sought to escape. Local laws in Vichy France required people to report hidden Jews to the police. Local laws in America under Jim Crow forbade interracial marriage, and denied Blacks their right to vote. Would you consider it unfortunate that some held these local laws to be unethical? I’d ascribe no more legitimacy to similar laws made by an unelected, authoritarian government with a history of kidnapping, torturing, and killing nonviolent dissidents. I’m privately amazed that the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights is now a subject of controversy. Why do we believe the Chinese Communist Party when it says, “China is special, and the Chinese people do not deserve basic human freedoms?”

doombolt 8y ago
"sanctioned the murder of Germans who sought to escape" I have read a page on capital punishment in Germany, found no such claims. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_German...
- astebbin 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Peter_Fechter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Peter_Fechter Many similar cases.
  - astebbin 8y ago
    I'd love to know why the parent has been downvoted. Further evidence, if any is needed: "The use of lethal force on the Berlin Wall was an integral part of the East German state's policy towards its border system." "The Stasi took charge of "corpse cases" and those injured while trying to cross the border, who were transported to hospitals run by the Stasi or the police where they would recuperate before being transferred to Stasi prisons. The Stasi also took sole responsibility for the disposal of the dead and their possessions. Bodies were not returned to relatives but were cremated, usually at the crematorium at Baumschulenweg. Occasionally the cost of the cremations was covered by the victims themselves using money taken from their pockets.[25] Stasi officers posing as policemen would inform the relatives, though not before trying to obtain "valuable pieces of information on the border violation". Deaths would be stated as being due to "a border provocation of his own causing", "a fatal accident of his own causing" or "drowning in a border waterway". Every border death was investigated in detail to identify how the attempt had been made, whether there were any vulnerabilities in the border system that needed to be remedied and whether anyone else had been involved. If necessary, the family, relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours were put under surveillance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_at_the_Berlin_Wall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_at_the_Berlin_W...

xiii1408 8y ago

No. It's not fair to justify building the machinery of a totalitarian state as simply "abiding by local laws and regulations." Not when the consequences involve clear violations of human rights. You don't have to look far to see how bad things have gotten recently in China, from abductions of booksellers in Hong Kong to an activist being carted away literally during a phone interview with Voice of America. When Western companies act like this is totally normal and even develop censorship technologies for regimes in countries with poor records for human rights, it lends false legitimacy to these unjust systems and even emboldens them to commit more serious violations of human rights.

throwaway2048 8y ago
Don't forget them placing 1 million Uyghurs (and counting) in "re-education camps" designed to destroy their culture and religion.
- justinjlynn 8y ago
  You mean engaging in actions that meet the UN-accepted definition of genocide? May as well just call it genocide.
- vkou 8y ago
  The last residential 'school' (which was aimed to do the same for First Nations people) in Canada closed in 1996, with little more then a hummm-hummm. Our shit stinks almost as much.
  - denorm 8y ago
    Whataboutism is a really poor argument. The history of the West is full of atrocities, but that doesn't somehow excuse the Chinese government from current human rights abuses. Nor does it mean that I as a Westerner do not have the right to criticize the Chinese government. In fact we have an obligation to condemn human rights abuses wherever they occur.
    - 8y ago

Sangermaine 8y ago

>It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. What a disgusting comment. What is legal and what is ethical are not the same thing at all. I have difficulty believing this was written in good faith.

throwaway8879 8y ago
And what is ethical exactly? Objectively? And this is something that you get to decide? Maximizing profits seems pretty ethical to me.
- int_19h 8y ago
  It's something that everybody gets to decide for themselves. And then judge others accordingly.
- mmirate 8y ago
  Ethics are inherently subjective, which is why their only actual usefulness is as a shorthand/proxy for "unlikelihood to generate bad press".
- buth_lika 8y ago
  How come others have to have "objective" morals, but for you "seems to me" is perfectly fine? Of course it's subjective, that doesn't take away from it at all, since any opinion that it being subjective is a problem is subjective as well. > Maximizing profits seems pretty ethical to me. Up to extracting gold teeth from people murdered in concentration camps, or is there a limit for you? > [Q: Isn't there a certain calculus that someone who is sitting in the shoes of a Condoleezza Rice can make, that they're responsible for the best outcome for American citizens, and there's an upside of going into Iraq which is we get one of the greatest material possessions in world's history, and there're downsides which are: we upset the international community, and maybe there's more terrorism. Couldn't you envision a calculus where they say, sure, that's the reason, and it's a good reason, let's do it. What's the flaw in the calculus?] > Oh, I think that's exactly their calculus. But then we ought to just be honest and say, "Look, we're a bunch of Nazis." So fine, let's just drop all the discussion, we save a lot of trees, we can throw out the newspapers and most of the scholarly literature, and just come out, state it straight, and tell the truth: we'll do whatever we want because we think we're gonna gain by it. And incidently, it's not American citizens who'll gain. They don't gain by this. It's narrow sectors of domestic power that the administration is serving with quite unusual dedication... -- Noam Chomsky, Talk titled "Why Iraq?" at Harvard University, November 4, 2002

lx3459683 8y ago

> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. Ethical and legal are two entirely different concepts. What's really unfortunate is there's a significant number of people who haven't been able to break out of their indoctrination to equate these things and to follow laws without questioning them or assessing the ethics involved. The overwhelming majority of laws is written by the rich and powerful to represent their interests, which are entirely divorced from ethics. It is the ethical responsibility of every individual to refuse to abide by those laws and act to change them. We can't pretend that your kind of viewpoint is acceptable. We have had too many historical examples of people committing some of the worst atrocities of all time while abiding by the laws of the time and 'just following orders'. I'm upvoting you so we can keep this terrifying sentiment at the top of the thread for all to see and discuss.

ataturk 8y ago

We don't have to close them off entirely, but we do have to acknowledge the problem in our faces. Google would be happy to apply the censorship worldwide, not just in China! If Western culture isn't dead, if our Western legal traditions mean anything at all (I'm talking about individual rights here) then we have to fight the good fight for ourselves and on behalf of those who can't. Otherwise we'll succumb to the least common denominator because technocrats simply don't care. I'll tell you the truth--I don' think the new generation in SV has any understanding of history whatsoever. I think they believe they are the most brilliant, infallible people in the world. So I don't have a great outlook on what our future holds because it's always like this when a generation arrogantly forgets the past and thinks that nothing bad can ever happen. SV is almost 100% Democrats, coincidence?

Leary 8y ago

Google's situation is similar to many American authors' experience when confronted with the choice of 1) not publishing in China. and 2) publishing a censored version of their book. The decision is not an easy one, even for those who support freedom of information. Those who deem Google's actions unethical often fail to realize that without Google or foreign books, Chinese internet users and readers will have less access to information. Peter Hessler, an American writer detailed such the discussion of censorship in the West https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/travels-with-my-censor https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/travels-with-m... "Western commentary about censorship often turns inward, portraying limitations in other countries in a way that celebrates our own values. One of the most striking qualities of foreign portrayals of censorship in China is the apparent lack of interest in Chinese readers and editors. "

int_19h 8y ago
There is a very simple and clear line, actually. The moment you have to write a single line of code to specifically enable political censorship, you're complicit in it. Such as in this case, where they're not just talking about e.g. taking down links in search results when asked, but inserting new code into the entire Android software stack, or even writing new apps outright, to enable such censorship. And yes, of course it celebrates our own values. Why should we use any other values to judge our companies? If they don't want to be subject to this, they can always split their Chinese branch away entirely, and let it be run by the locals. Then it would be a Chinese internal matter. But when software engineers in California are implementing censorship for Chinese government, they're going to be criticized by the standards that apply in California.
- dcbadacd 8y ago
  > but inserting new code into the entire Android software stack, or even writing new apps outright, to enable such censorship. Let's not forget Apple already has done this with iOS. It's just worth mentioning that this isn't Google-specific.
qudat 8y ago
> portraying limitations in other countries in a way that celebrates our own values. This rings very true to me. Like others have commented in this thread, google is unethical because "they are disrupting the foundations of democracy by abiding by totalitarian rules" as if democracy is the one True form of governance.

chillacy 8y ago

Sounds like there's a parallel with boycotts of Apartheid South Africa? Anyways I think the best answer for society to the general question of "if there's no legal way for a company to operate ethically, should it not?" is a resounding yes. However game theory will ensure that in absence of external pressure (via regulation or public sentiment), companies will try to serve the market for profit.

est 8y ago

> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical No, it's that speaking up against local "laws" and quit, then come back again that's unethical.

denorm 8y ago

"Abiding by local laws and regulations" is a veil behind which international companies hide, claiming lack of responsibility for actions that many of us would consider unethical. Just as with Yahoo's outing of Chinese dissidents[0], at some point companies in China (like Apple, now hosting iCloud data in Guizhou) are going to be forced to hand over data to the Chinese government in order to "abide by local laws". Cue the "but the NSA collects all our data, anyway" arguments.. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Outing_of_Chinese_dissidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Outing_of_...

buth_lika 8y ago

> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. It seems unfortunate to you, because you are not aware of the thought and research that went into this insight, and the roughly 100 million dead people.

dang 8y ago
We've banned this account for continuing to use HN primarily for ideological warfare despite many requests to stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html