3 ms·

Google had been running search in China up till 2010, and it has been censoring its results according to Chinese government wishes. Then, Google found out that

• randmeerkat 5y ago
  It’s a little bit more nuanced, China hacked Google, so Google stopped censoring search results, then China banned Google.
• cromwellian 5y ago
  Leaky censoring, you could still find the banned stuff. Sergey Brin was very anti-authoritarian given his background, and Google's decision to leave China was far more principled than "we have no choice". They were given a choice to comply with onerous government restrictions and decided to say no. (And yes, the "old" Google of the Brin area is gone. I also don't think Steve Jobs would kowtow to the CCP and compromise Apple like Cook is doing. The post 2010-era is now run on bean-counter ethics)
  • xyzzyz 5y ago
    Yes, you’re totally right. When I was growing up in 2000s, Google was the epitome of cool, and I dreamed of working there. Then, when I worked there in mid-to-late 2010s, it was not at all what it had been before.
• thenthenthen 5y ago
  They still maintain a rather large office in the university neighbourhood in Beijing. They even moved to bigger one few years back and there was a fire [0]. In Andrew Blum’s book Google is quotes to even “have left a couple of boxes there”, referring to network equipment. They have not really ‘left’. [0] https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2018/12/13/large-fire-erupts-roof-googles-beijing-offices-zhongguancun https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2018/12/13/large-fire-erup...