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Objectively, Google is extending its services to a billion people while maintaining the status quo of censorship. Stopping Google from expanding to China is bas

• 2bitmachine 8y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
• kodablah 8y ago
  These are also common arguments against country-level sanctions as well. People have differing opinions on the subject, but that something helps both the people and the regime doesn't always mean taking the good with the bad is worth it. I agree that both Google cooperating w/ China is wrong and that government interference to prevent it is wrong.
• jonathankoren 8y ago
  It’s not obviously wrong, nor is it objectively the same product since the censorship and surveillance makes it very different. It makes it a tool of control. Governments routinely regulate exports as matter of policy. Lockheed would very much like to sell Taiwan (or really anyone and everyone) F-35s, but as a matter of government policy, it’s not allowed to, as it runs counter to the policies of the American government. This maybe censorship in a broad sense, but it certainly doesn’t make it prima facie wrong.
• cryoshon 8y ago
  taking initiative to participate in maintaining a malicious status quo is being malicious. google isn't being coerced here, they're volunteering to help with oppression. put differently: what do you call an accountant who sings up to perpetuate the status quo of a criminal enterprise by updating their books? guilty. but they were "just extending the services of accounting to a new organization while maintaining the status quo of criminality".
  • Aunche 8y ago
    > what do you call an accountant who sings up to perpetuate the status quo of a criminal enterprise by updating their books? The difference is that the accountant is necessary for the criminal enterprise. Google isn't necessary for a censorship state, since China more than capable of handling that on their own. A closer analogy is that Google is the line cook of the restaurant the mafia hangs out in.
  • billfruit 8y ago
    US and Canada sell weapons and military equipment to Saudi Arabia. Sufficient moral outrage is hardly bandied about in the case of such deals.
    • cryoshon 8y ago
      actually there is an abundance of moral outrage with regard to these deals. it doesn't make the press. i'll give you one guess why.
    • int_19h 8y ago
      If another country wanted to sanction US for this reason, I'd be supportive of that, as an American resident.
• andrei_says_ 8y ago
  It amplifies censorship and creates and provides the tools for censorship, which tools will become available as a (hidden) switch everywhere else, including here.
• femiagbabiaka 8y ago
  Corporations aren't people and regulation isn't censorship.