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>"Yet, a little more than a week later, Google CEO Sundar Pichai attempted to invoke an engineering defense by arguing that Google would not need to censor 'wel

>"Yet, a little more than a week later, Google CEO Sundar Pichai attempted to invoke an engineering defense by arguing that Google would not need to censor 'well over 99 percent' of queries." This is one of those egregious misuses of statistics that really gets to me: while Sundar's point might be valid, not all queries deserve equal weight. To the author's point, equating "human rights" to "pictures of kittens" is not a fair way to frame the problem.

mulmen 8y ago
That is an astounding defense. If the censorship is working they will not have to censor any searches because all those wrong thinking people will be dead or in prison.
- gowld 8y ago
  Or sufficiently chilled that they self-censor. That's the "best case" here -- users get non-censored results for non-banned topics (better than today), and still get no support for banned topics (same as today).
  - mulmen 8y ago
    Sure but that’s not how it works if your search activity is an input to your social score. Looking for information that “doesn’t exist” can have material negative consequences. I don’t think your “best case” is actually a possible outcome in modern China.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
creaghpatr 8y ago
>"Yet, a little more than a week later, Google CEO Sundar Pichai attempted to invoke an engineering defense by arguing that Google would not need to censor 'well over 99 percent' of queries." That's Statistics for "Go Fuck Yourself"
justicezyx 8y ago
The point is that Google should not be held as moral entity. If it's held onto the moral standard, Ads should not be Google's business at all, as Larry Page stated sometime in the early days of Google. (I cannot find the reference though, the statement is on the line of "advertising is fundamentally immoral). On the other hand, if you look at what search service is provided in China (Baidu would sell online groups to advertisers entirely and let the advertisers to pretend to be genuine community member and manipulate the content), by simply providing a censored Google search is a morally noble service to Chinese Internet users. I do not support or disapprove censored search on the human rights level. I do support censored search on the basis of providing a more normal search service, and make non-political high-quality information available to normal Chinese citizens.
- gowld 8y ago
  A source on the Page claim would be helpful. He may have said that then-current ads are morally flawed and that Google could do better, which is what Google did (yet saw degradation over the years)
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Appendix A: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html Larry and Sergey contend that ads incentivize providing poorer quality search results so that users click on ads, that ad-funded search engines are inherently biased towards advertisers and against the needs of consumers, and that it's crucial that we have a transparent search engine in the academic realm. It's amazing how prescient Larry Page and Sergey Brin truly were at the time. If we ever invent time travel we should introduce college-age Larry and Sergey to their own ad-based corporate monopoly with a completely secretive search algorithm.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > The point is that Google should not be held as moral entity. Any company is just a bunch of people doing stuff. Those people always remain morally responsible, there's just legal exceptions, but no moral ones. If one doesn't question something, or even seeks to remain ignorant of it, they could be argued to even be responsible even for something they didn't know about -- since it wasn't despite, but because of their efforts that they were ignorant of it. > simply providing a censored Google search is a morally noble service to Chinese Internet users There is nothing "noble" about slightly better product, any more than making a slightly thinner laptop is "noble". > "We could have taken a moral stand, but what good would that have done?" But the moral good of a moral act inheres in the act itself. That is why an act can itself ennoble or corrupt the person who performs it. The victory of instrumental reason in our time has brought about the virtual disappearance of this insight and thus perforce the delegitimation of the very idea of nobility. -- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment To Calculation" (1976) It's a disappearance of insight, not new insights. Some regressed into a moral stone age, but they didn't change the world as much as just themselves with that.
just_myles 8y ago
Agreed, it really is a false equivalency. Completely.
Waterluvian 8y ago
Listen, we won't have to execute over 99% of people.
- andromeduck 8y ago
  Full disclosure, Chinese expat and non-search Googler here, I don't think that's fair. As with most issues, where you come out depends largely on where you draw the baseline and I don't think it's fair to say that the baseline for Chinese consumers is no censorship or that for no access to Google and no censorship on Google is better than limited access to Google because of censorship. I know I personally would much rather have limited access than no access - especially if there was a search censored disclaimer like before.
  - randrews 8y ago
    It's okay to contribute to their oppression, because they're not used to freedom anyway?
    - andromeduck 8y ago
      Perfection is the enemy of progress. I'm not a fan of censorship but you must work with what you have, work at the margins. Crying about it won't do a thing - especially from outside.
  - kelnos 8y ago
    > I know I personally would much rather have limited access than no access Sure, access that makes you (more?) complacent. Give people just enough to keep them from protesting or rioting. Further normalize censorship: if a non-Chinese company is willing to do it, then it must not just be the Chinese government that's bad, or worse, it must mean that censorship overall isn't that bad. If non-Chinese entities take a hard line against censorship -- especially when doing so keeps them out of a lucrative market -- it sends a message. Bowing to pressure is just tacit acknowledgement that bad stuff is ok as long as they get paid.
    - 8y ago
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
But there is some truth to this. As a user, I found cn.bing.com to be much more useful than Baidu even if it was also censored. Most of my searches are non-political anyways. More to the point, I really appreciated how, when Google was in China, that they would say something like "some results not returned because censorship!", which Bing had to copy despite the Chinese government being annoyed by that. If Google was committed similarly to censoring in a more transparent way (being forthcoming when censorship is happening), that would be a huge improvement over the status quo.
- alonmower 8y ago
  I think some of the concern stems from the fact that China will start to make up a material percentage of Google’s revenue and that gives China leverage over Google. So maybe it’s starts out being transparent and then two years from now China threatens to kick Google out of they don’t remove the warning, or if they don’t give them information on a dissident, etc... It’s much easier to say no now before they get used to the new revenue stream
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I don’t see that ever happening. China already makes up a substantial share of Microsoft's profits, yet any Chinese interference is extremely frowned upon in Bing and all other properties (even if it happens by accident, it would become a huge scandal).
- mulmen 8y ago
  This completely misses the point. The problem is not "most searches". The problem is those banned ones and what is done with access to that search history. Search activity is linked to a phone number so it could be used in the social score. Do you think a message on the result page will help with that consequence? Don't delude yourself into thinking Google is somehow making China a nicer place to live because it's easier to search for pictures of cats.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
kgwxd 8y ago
Percentages are for sales pitches. 1 in 100 queries, 1 in 1,000 queries, 1 in 10,000 queries all sound way worse. If you hear 99.9 percent, you know you're being sold to. Also, censoring is only the minor problem, it's the reporting to authorities that is the real threat. "We only have to report 1 in 1,000 of your queries" doesn't sound very good. I do 1,000 queries a month.
guelo 8y ago
What a garbage CEO Pichai has been. I suspect that Brin and Page's decision to hand over the reins was because they didn't have the courage to lead Google morally but they also didn't want to get their hands dirty.
- BinaryIdiot 8y ago
  I kinda got the impression they wanted to leave Google without actually leaving Google. I think they're just done.
peripitea 8y ago
Yes, this is baffling. "It's okay to say 99% of things" is like a mission statement for oppression.
- ALittleLight 8y ago
  "Can I double check that 99% statistic?" "Sorry, the source data underlying that statistic is part of the censored 1%. We'll forward your interest to the relevant authorities though." "Thanks Google!"
mikeleeorg 8y ago
Censorship is only a piece of what is disturbing too. Linking searches to personal phone numbers is way more frightening. The articles don't say if phone number logging was only going to be done for users searching for censored keywords, or all users making any kind of search. I suspect the latter. And that is a very, very problematic.
praptak 8y ago
I've heard this argument when there was full blown War on Drugs. Over 99.9 substances are legal, so how can you say it limits your freedom?

mulmen 8y ago

That is an astounding defense. If the censorship is working they will not have to censor any searches because all those wrong thinking people will be dead or in prison.

gowld 8y ago
Or sufficiently chilled that they self-censor. That's the "best case" here -- users get non-censored results for non-banned topics (better than today), and still get no support for banned topics (same as today).
- mulmen 8y ago
  Sure but that’s not how it works if your search activity is an input to your social score. Looking for information that “doesn’t exist” can have material negative consequences. I don’t think your “best case” is actually a possible outcome in modern China.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

creaghpatr 8y ago

justicezyx 8y ago

The point is that Google should not be held as moral entity. If it's held onto the moral standard, Ads should not be Google's business at all, as Larry Page stated sometime in the early days of Google. (I cannot find the reference though, the statement is on the line of "advertising is fundamentally immoral). On the other hand, if you look at what search service is provided in China (Baidu would sell online groups to advertisers entirely and let the advertisers to pretend to be genuine community member and manipulate the content), by simply providing a censored Google search is a morally noble service to Chinese Internet users. I do not support or disapprove censored search on the human rights level. I do support censored search on the basis of providing a more normal search service, and make non-political high-quality information available to normal Chinese citizens.

gowld 8y ago
A source on the Page claim would be helpful. He may have said that then-current ads are morally flawed and that Google could do better, which is what Google did (yet saw degradation over the years)
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Appendix A: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html Larry and Sergey contend that ads incentivize providing poorer quality search results so that users click on ads, that ad-funded search engines are inherently biased towards advertisers and against the needs of consumers, and that it's crucial that we have a transparent search engine in the academic realm. It's amazing how prescient Larry Page and Sergey Brin truly were at the time. If we ever invent time travel we should introduce college-age Larry and Sergey to their own ad-based corporate monopoly with a completely secretive search algorithm.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
> The point is that Google should not be held as moral entity. Any company is just a bunch of people doing stuff. Those people always remain morally responsible, there's just legal exceptions, but no moral ones. If one doesn't question something, or even seeks to remain ignorant of it, they could be argued to even be responsible even for something they didn't know about -- since it wasn't despite, but because of their efforts that they were ignorant of it. > simply providing a censored Google search is a morally noble service to Chinese Internet users There is nothing "noble" about slightly better product, any more than making a slightly thinner laptop is "noble". > "We could have taken a moral stand, but what good would that have done?" But the moral good of a moral act inheres in the act itself. That is why an act can itself ennoble or corrupt the person who performs it. The victory of instrumental reason in our time has brought about the virtual disappearance of this insight and thus perforce the delegitimation of the very idea of nobility. -- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment To Calculation" (1976) It's a disappearance of insight, not new insights. Some regressed into a moral stone age, but they didn't change the world as much as just themselves with that.

just_myles 8y ago

Agreed, it really is a false equivalency. Completely.

Waterluvian 8y ago

Listen, we won't have to execute over 99% of people.

andromeduck 8y ago
Full disclosure, Chinese expat and non-search Googler here, I don't think that's fair. As with most issues, where you come out depends largely on where you draw the baseline and I don't think it's fair to say that the baseline for Chinese consumers is no censorship or that for no access to Google and no censorship on Google is better than limited access to Google because of censorship. I know I personally would much rather have limited access than no access - especially if there was a search censored disclaimer like before.
- randrews 8y ago
  It's okay to contribute to their oppression, because they're not used to freedom anyway?
  - andromeduck 8y ago
    Perfection is the enemy of progress. I'm not a fan of censorship but you must work with what you have, work at the margins. Crying about it won't do a thing - especially from outside.
- kelnos 8y ago
  > I know I personally would much rather have limited access than no access Sure, access that makes you (more?) complacent. Give people just enough to keep them from protesting or rioting. Further normalize censorship: if a non-Chinese company is willing to do it, then it must not just be the Chinese government that's bad, or worse, it must mean that censorship overall isn't that bad. If non-Chinese entities take a hard line against censorship -- especially when doing so keeps them out of a lucrative market -- it sends a message. Bowing to pressure is just tacit acknowledgement that bad stuff is ok as long as they get paid.
  - 8y ago

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

But there is some truth to this. As a user, I found cn.bing.com to be much more useful than Baidu even if it was also censored. Most of my searches are non-political anyways. More to the point, I really appreciated how, when Google was in China, that they would say something like "some results not returned because censorship!", which Bing had to copy despite the Chinese government being annoyed by that. If Google was committed similarly to censoring in a more transparent way (being forthcoming when censorship is happening), that would be a huge improvement over the status quo.

alonmower 8y ago
I think some of the concern stems from the fact that China will start to make up a material percentage of Google’s revenue and that gives China leverage over Google. So maybe it’s starts out being transparent and then two years from now China threatens to kick Google out of they don’t remove the warning, or if they don’t give them information on a dissident, etc... It’s much easier to say no now before they get used to the new revenue stream
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I don’t see that ever happening. China already makes up a substantial share of Microsoft's profits, yet any Chinese interference is extremely frowned upon in Bing and all other properties (even if it happens by accident, it would become a huge scandal).
mulmen 8y ago
This completely misses the point. The problem is not "most searches". The problem is those banned ones and what is done with access to that search history. Search activity is linked to a phone number so it could be used in the social score. Do you think a message on the result page will help with that consequence? Don't delude yourself into thinking Google is somehow making China a nicer place to live because it's easier to search for pictures of cats.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago

kgwxd 8y ago

Percentages are for sales pitches. 1 in 100 queries, 1 in 1,000 queries, 1 in 10,000 queries all sound way worse. If you hear 99.9 percent, you know you're being sold to. Also, censoring is only the minor problem, it's the reporting to authorities that is the real threat. "We only have to report 1 in 1,000 of your queries" doesn't sound very good. I do 1,000 queries a month.

guelo 8y ago

What a garbage CEO Pichai has been. I suspect that Brin and Page's decision to hand over the reins was because they didn't have the courage to lead Google morally but they also didn't want to get their hands dirty.

BinaryIdiot 8y ago
I kinda got the impression they wanted to leave Google without actually leaving Google. I think they're just done.

peripitea 8y ago

Yes, this is baffling. "It's okay to say 99% of things" is like a mission statement for oppression.

ALittleLight 8y ago
"Can I double check that 99% statistic?" "Sorry, the source data underlying that statistic is part of the censored 1%. We'll forward your interest to the relevant authorities though." "Thanks Google!"

mikeleeorg 8y ago

Censorship is only a piece of what is disturbing too. Linking searches to personal phone numbers is way more frightening. The articles don't say if phone number logging was only going to be done for users searching for censored keywords, or all users making any kind of search. I suspect the latter. And that is a very, very problematic.

praptak 8y ago

I've heard this argument when there was full blown War on Drugs. Over 99.9 substances are legal, so how can you say it limits your freedom?