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Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

It's not just companies, it's US people too. The original HN thread on this subject (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17660872) had a truly depressing percentage of comments saying "No big deal" using some combination of whataboutism, false equivalence and simple fatalism. I seem to remember that when Google first pulled out of China the reaction among HN types was much more positive; what has happened to our morals since then?

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It's important to remember history a bit. Google left China[0] after it was hacked as part of Operation Aurora[1]. It had been serving a censored version of Google Search from 2006-2010.

[0] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-chin...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora

I think there are a lot more Chinese on HN now then 2010. Also, it is increasingly clear that any action to get China to open up and liberalize more can’t come from the private sector due to a successful policy of economic engagement (and some say entrapment) by the Chinese.

Uh, morals? What does ethics have to do with Google operating their search business in China?

I'm confused why I am supposed to be outraged. I don't have any particularly strong feelings about censorship in foreign countries - how does what the Chinese government do affect American speech? I guess censorship in general is _bad_, but it's purely an internal, domestic matter. The Chinese aren't scrubbing American textbooks of the historical record. Really, I think I've only noticed China's influence in cinema; I see more Asian lead roles in Hollywood films, but this seems more a corrective change than bad thing.

I'm not seeing how what happens to internet search in China affects Americans. Nor what ethical concerns there are.

The Chinese aren't scrubbing American textbooks of the historical record.

The Chinese government certainly would like to, though, and if they get powerful enough they will.

I believe the expected reaction is the same amount of moral outrage that would accompany the American government treating the American public the same way.

At what point does it become a moral imperative to stop doing business with a government? I assume we can all agree that US businesses should not sell more efficient gas chambers to Nazi Germany. So where does the line get drawn?

> "The Chinese aren't scrubbing American textbooks of the historical record"

However, the Chinese Communist Party is in fact coercing American websites to conform to its political preferences.

"It issued an ultimatum that expired last week, asking airlines around the world to refer to Taiwan as part of China on their websites."

What if China takes over the world? What if a ton of countries that act this way start appearing and people in our country start using them as examples to follow. I feel like these things are already happening, that's why I care. When parts of the world get worse off, it eventually will get worse for all of us.

I don't find it odd or wrong that companies are abiding to the law when they offer services within a certain jurisdiction.

Google pulled out because of hacking and attacks against their services, if I remember correctly.

Google pulled out because of the hacks, but remember both Page and Brin came from eastern block countries, so they had a more idealistic and personal outlook on the matter (at least at the time).

It remembers me a book: The Best Enemy Money Can Buy, by Antony C. Sutton.

Hacker news has been overtaken by evil insect-like people that hate freedom, and goodness itself.

This statement is delusional in the context of Google offering a censored search product. People in China who mind will leave China, most don't mind according to Confucianism values, this policy is not going to change because nerds in North America disagree with it, and neither is Google.

I don't think poor people from China don't have the ability or money to leave China. The poor of any country usually have limited mobility. Most people in China are poor. Also, it's not like the world has open borders, and people can move to another country without huge efforts.

It's increasingly hard to justify not doing business in China for moral reasons whilst doing business in the U.S. If the moral high ground could indisputably be claimed by the U.S. then peoples' views would be different. Now it's not a big deal that Google wants to do business in China since it's doing business in the U.S.

It's not necessarily that morality has gone down in the U.S; it's that trust in the morality of America's leaders has gone down. I see this as a sign of a decline in the faith of America's institutions. Also with globalization the distinction between nation-states begins to erode. This is especially so in the case of business.

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