4 ms·

> does Dragonfly make the world a worse place? Yes. Read the open letter by Google employees[1]. One of their main concerns is how Dragonfly will be used to pu

> does Dragonfly make the world a worse place? Yes. Read the open letter by Google employees[1]. One of their main concerns is how Dragonfly will be used to put people into political prison camps[2]. From the open letter by Google employees: > Our company’s decision comes as the Chinese government is openly expanding its surveillance powers and tools of population control. Many of these rely on advanced technologies, and combine online activity, personal records, and mass monitoring to track and profile citizens. Reports are already showing who bears the cost, including Uyghurs, women’s rights advocates, and students. Providing the Chinese government with ready access to user data, as required by Chinese law, would make Google complicit in oppression and human rights abuses. [1] https://medium.com/@googlersagainstdragonfly/we-are-google-employees-google-must-drop-dragonfly-4c8a30c5e5eb https://medium.com/@googlersagainstdragonfly/we-are-google-e... [2] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-camps-china https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-...

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Could it be that the letter authors are misguided? Google probably has 5000 Chinese national employees. Where are they on the issue? Wouldn't they be in a better position to judge than a bunch of Americans who grew up hearing that our system is the only workable one?
- fucking_tragedy 8y ago
  > Could it be that the letter authors are misguided? No. China is taking millions of political prisoners and putting them into camps[1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-camps-china https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-...
  - yourbandsucks 8y ago
    You've pivoted away from "what's best for Chinese people" to "how best to oppose China's rise", here. Did you notice that you did that? Was it intentional?
manfredo 8y ago
But again the question is: 1. Is this the case in existing Chinese search engines? 2. If yes, Do you have evidence to suggest that Google's Chinese search engine would be any more harmful than said existing search engines in China? If these points cannot be proven, then it does not seem intellectually honest to claim that Dragonfly is making China a worse place. To say that it fails to make China a better place, sure that makes sense. But to say that it makes it worse necessitates proving that the status quo in China without Google is better than a China with Google. Most commenters in this thread aren't actually outlining the impact of the product iself, choosing instead to criticize the fact that Google isn't signalling American or Western values as much as they want . I'd be opposed to Google entering China if the majority of Chinese were opposed to it, but this does not seem to be the case. It seems patrimonial on my part to think that I'm better equipped to judge how a society on the other side of the world functions than the people that actually live there. No doubt some Chinese oppose censorship, but the majority seem to accept it or even support it as a necessary means to ensure social stability.
- fucking_tragedy 8y ago
  Implicating another party, in this case Google, in state-sanctioned censorship and political imprisonment makes the world a worse place.

yourbandsucks 8y ago

Could it be that the letter authors are misguided? Google probably has 5000 Chinese national employees. Where are they on the issue? Wouldn't they be in a better position to judge than a bunch of Americans who grew up hearing that our system is the only workable one?

fucking_tragedy 8y ago
> Could it be that the letter authors are misguided? No. China is taking millions of political prisoners and putting them into camps[1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-camps-china https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-...
- yourbandsucks 8y ago
  You've pivoted away from "what's best for Chinese people" to "how best to oppose China's rise", here. Did you notice that you did that? Was it intentional?

manfredo 8y ago

But again the question is: 1. Is this the case in existing Chinese search engines? 2. If yes, Do you have evidence to suggest that Google's Chinese search engine would be any more harmful than said existing search engines in China? If these points cannot be proven, then it does not seem intellectually honest to claim that Dragonfly is making China a worse place. To say that it fails to make China a better place, sure that makes sense. But to say that it makes it worse necessitates proving that the status quo in China without Google is better than a China with Google. Most commenters in this thread aren't actually outlining the impact of the product iself, choosing instead to criticize the fact that Google isn't signalling American or Western values as much as they want . I'd be opposed to Google entering China if the majority of Chinese were opposed to it, but this does not seem to be the case. It seems patrimonial on my part to think that I'm better equipped to judge how a society on the other side of the world functions than the people that actually live there. No doubt some Chinese oppose censorship, but the majority seem to accept it or even support it as a necessary means to ensure social stability.

fucking_tragedy 8y ago
Implicating another party, in this case Google, in state-sanctioned censorship and political imprisonment makes the world a worse place.