If Google bows to China’s censorship, it will put tech giant on a slippery slope | Hacker News Reader

If Google bows to China’s censorship, it will put tech giant on a slippery slope

cjr.org

40 pointsilamont25 comments

What's the slippery slope here? According to the article:

> if [Google] accedes to the Chinese government’s demands, it will make it easier for others to do so, and will also embolden other totalitarian states to ask for their own custom censorship services from Google and other tech giants.

I think this is all premised on the belief that American corporations somehow have the moral obligation (and right) to change the way things in a different country work.

China has its own functioning tech ecosystem, so entrant companies need to play by its rules if they want to make a profit there. Period.

Even if I appreciate Western morality, I don't see reasons for outrage or bemoaning slippery slopes.

> I think this is all premised on the belief that American corporations somehow have the moral obligation (and right) to change the way things in a different country work.

> China has its own functioning tech ecosystem, so entrant companies need to play by its rules if they want to make a profit there. Period.

Nazi Germany also had "its own functioning tech ecosystem". So did Stalin and Mao's even more murderous regimes.

Moral obligations don't stop at borders.

Straight to Godwin's law (in this case, I think it's germane).

My argument is about American corporations imposing morality (or thinking they can). Corporations' main motivation is profit, not improving human rights. Google doesn't go to China with the primary intention of improving human rights, rather to make a profit from Chinese citizens.

Google would have to pay Chinese taxes to operate there, their presence puts money into the hands of the CCP, an entity the author of the article doesn't approve of. Google has no leverage: China has its own perfectly capable search engine[s].

So as I see it, the options are:

1. American corporation enters China, plays by rules, causes no political change.

2. American corporation doesn't enter China. Local Chinese companies fill the void, causing no political change.

In neither case is any political change effected. If the bemoaning comes from the point of view of "well Google could have changed something," I think that's naïve and I'd like to see evidence of this happening successfully

If it comes from the perspective of "Google is capitulating or funding a government that I as the author/Westerners don't support in general", then that's an argument involving moral absolutism, which is a longer debate.

If you have time, I'd like to hear your thoughts on what you think Google should be doing.

But by entering the Chinese market, Google allows itself to be influenced by the requirements of The Party. At this point the main motivation of profit can be turned into whatever The Party wants outside China.

> Corporations' main motivation is profit, not improving human rights.

You're not a corporation. Talk like the person you are, not like a corporation you are not, and which has no mouth and nothing to say.

> What's the slippery slope here?

What if a state is trying to push policies globally? E.g. If China requires companies to not recognize Taiwan globally, and then to censor, and report on anti-socialists and ... ? Or if Russia will start to require global recognition of Crimea on maps.

This is how it already works and America is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to pushing policies globally.

In the past few months therr have been endless complaints on this forum about China pushing their policies on foreign companies, or Russia pushing their policies, or the EU pushing their policies. This is exactly what the US has been doing this whole time, but now that we've lost our absolute dominance we are going to have to start dealing with other countries as peers again rather than semi vassals who will change their laws and policies as we demand

If you do business you have to cooperate with the government and the law of that land. It is up to the people of that country to change their laws and government.

I would be much more concerned if google gets an exception. In the west bigcorp gets their lobbyist army (google is #1) to get past laws and the people's will. I hope China won't bow down to Google. America is operated by corporations, some countries are not.

China is an authoritarian state. China isn't going to bow down to Google. The honorable, and the correct, thing for Google to do is not operate in China, but of course they aren't going to do that.

If Chinese people are fine with their government and great firewall, why should we or Google care.

Because China will have leverage over Google and it has used that leverage in the past to affect countries/people outside of China.

Ummm, is that not what another large powerful country does? Or going back to the Romans, did? Isn't that the whole point of being large and powerful?

So you're not a fan of laws then? Just might?

Baidu is many times more popular in China,makes little difference to mainland chinese people.

Shh, you'll alert the drones.

America is operated by the people (including corporations) whereas China is run by the party. It’s more likely that China will be coercing Google tonchange their business outside of China. But it doesn’t sound like that would worry you.

But the only two ways Google will ever become successful in China is by cooperating or by overthrowing the Chinese government (it's a joke, just in case).

I am not sure which one I would prefer: a corporation in charge of government, or a corporation known for "not being evil" being told what to do by an oppressive government.

When will the lesson be learned?

How many more dictators must be wooed, appeased - good God, given immense privileges - before we learn?

YOU CANNOT REASON WITH A TIGER WHEN YOUR HEAD IS IN ITS MOUTH.

You also can't reason with a tiger when it doesn't have copyright laws, and the only difference between your service and your competition is whether or not you're the one getting paid.

But, but, but, the Silly Valley Boys are all geniuses. Surely the other side will appeal to logic. ;-)

Please stick to substantive posts here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sadly, with what we know of ISPs and tech companies running fiber straight to Fort Meade, even giving them a room in the data center [1], I don't see this as surprising. Google might have been thinking of this when they altered their motto. [2]

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A 2: https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...

But all the other major, and most minor companies have already acquiesced. That's how one's allowed to do business in China, and China is a market one cannot ignore.

When google gets big enough in China they will be subject to blackmail by the chinese government when users (anywhere really) cause an upset for China's relations like a single user affirming the sovernty of Taiwan, or critisizing the mainland. They will chill free speech in this way.

Apple readily hand over the keys to their datacenters, why can't Google bend as well?

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