Google’s censored search engine could actually help Chinese citizens
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
I find it repugnant to see the people in relatively free Western nations pull the ladder up after them; as if others don't deserve what we have (but now obviously take for granted). That's a form of soft bigotry. A condescending pat on the head and a tut-tutting, as if the simple people of China couldn't handle freedom and/or don't want it. The Tiananmen Square Massacre wasn't all that long ago, so we know that the latter is not true.
Obviously this decision is driven by money -- access to markets -- but what else? What is the ideology that makes this acceptable and justifiable in their minds, because I cannot understand it.
"Do you participate, or do you stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be?" -- Tim Cook
Partnering with evil is evil. Empowering evil is evil. As is ignoring it.
Does anyone doubt that a report of all searchers for forbidden knowledge will be generated and turned over to Chinese leadership for "followup"?
But there's undoubtedly a lot of money to be made so what do I know.
Their internet is already censored. This is the question of whether Baidu is doing the censorship of search results or Google is.
As it was mentioned before, presence of Google will add legitimacy to the practice of censorship in China (and not only in China).
My toy conspiracy theory is that China is inviting foreign giants on its own terms to deface them. That in turn will level appearance of their products with those of Chinese companies in some global markets (e.g. b2b software).
Why is it that more people seem to get riled up over a lady killing a cat with her heels, as in the horrifying event of a decade ago, than censorship of over a billion people? It's not exactly a secret.
Yes, the presence of Google might add a bit of legitimacy to censorship outside China, the slippery slope which is to me the real danger. Inside the country, though, I doubt it would make any difference. I have a hard time imagining millions or even just thousands waiting for Google to come in and... do what? Show uncensored results, only to get summarily blocked within minutes? I'd be surprised if there were that large of a group whose opinions would be swayed by what Google does or does not do. Or that they're ready to start protesting, only to be discouraged at the last minute by this new censored search engine. You'd think that by now you would have heard about them.
It's cultural relativism. Since every culture can only be judged within the value structure defined by that culture, every culture is good by default.
It tends to go hand in hand with the view that Western countries are destroying every other culture and thus are evil. It's a sickness spreading throughout the West, but in the US in particular.
Cultural relativism is amoral. It isn’t about good/evil, it’s about local norms. What is normal one place may not be normal elsewhere, from the national level down to the family level.
When paired with fatigue over the US’ complicated, open-ended interventions at home and abroad, you will often hear people provide a moralized version of cultural relativism as a reason not to engage. The real reason, obviously, is that these people no longer believe intervention will be effective and could even be damaging. In that framework, it’s understandable to have a “hey, it’s their house, they can do what they like” response.
I say all this as someone who believes it absolutely is the responsibility of liberated people to liberate others, while also recognizing how challenging it can be to achieve that goal on any large scale.
In conversations like these, I think it can be helpful to consider the context in which people arrive at their conclusions rather than casting ideas you disagree with as a “spreading sickness.” By that metaphor, we ought to focus on the cause of the disease, not the weakness of the ill.
They are thinking about taking this step because:
a) they are a business, China is a huge potential market they will lose if they don't try to compete for it, and
b) they believe their product does good in the world, and therefore they think a partial good (partial access to Google) is better than no good (no access to Google).
Whether b) is true or not is obviously in the eye of the beholder. I tend to think it's closer to a rationalization of a) than a sober evaluation of the objective truth.
For those wondering what cultural relativism actually is, it is a useful mental tool for thinking about the evolution of cultures other than your own. It is not moral relativism, nor is it a hatred of the west.
Perhaps, but good, for whom? It is useful to ask "What class of people benefits? Who is harmed?" and is the net change worse that if we did not meddle? Does it give power to some, at the expense of others?
China can make arbitrary changes to their rules at any time and force Google go along or go home. Google is free of this pressure by not participating but the more revenue they have in China the tougher it will be to say no.
I don't have very high hopes of Google somehow breaking Chinese censorship, but simply writing off their effort seems unfair.
Their efforts seem obviously futile, and open up the risk that the Chinese government will use it's new leverage over them to get them to to bad things. For instance, Yahoo once handed over the emails of two Chinese pro-democracy journalists [1], resulting in them getting 10 year prison sentences in China. Once Google is getting revenue from China, it will be a lot harder for them to say no such demands, especially ones they can comply with in secret.
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3862513&page=1
Google announced they were leaving not because of censorship, but due to Gmail hacking.
What I wonder is if China has a similar law like the US that let's them issue "National Security Letters" with secret gag orders.
If they did, then they shouldn't have needed to hack Gmail in the first place.
Google stands to gain a monopoly in the largest market on Earth by signing a deal with China. They stand to lose the largest market on Earth with no chance of ever competing in it if they stab China in the back. They will do nothing to "break" censorship. Doing no evil isn't even in their mission statement anymore, so starting a civil war over free speech certainly isn't on their radar.
Google wants market share. They want more GBs of personal data that they can use to profile the human race and target ads to the right people. The only concern about well-being in any of this is Google being concerned that their own employees will turn this into a media fiasco, which it slowly is becoming.
That's what Bing does, and China seems to be OK with it. It's also what WeChat does when an article published on their platform is censored. (Censored chat messages disappear without a trace, though.)
Of course the rules could change at any moment, but it currently doesn't seem like the government cares very much about people knowing that everything is censored.
All the Chinese government would need to do is fine google, and pull the plug on google. Simple as that. When it comes to China’s censorship laws, it’s very hard to overcome them if damn near impossible.
And quite frankly, most Chinese citizens could care less. Baidu and other services gives them what they need. Those who care get a VPN, and that includes Chinese businesses.
Author has never stepped foot in china or talked to its people. Google doesn’t stand a chance if they go against censorship laws, and they know it. They don’t care.
I am not sure I follow the argument, though - yes, it's true that the Beijing could just pull the plug on Google Lite(tm), but there would be some international PR damage. I doubt it would stop them, but it would at least influence the decision.
But I do agree that the overall sense I get of Chinese citizens is not that they are chafing at the level of control they live under, it's all bread and circuses, cashless WeChat fun.
"Governments are the real bad guys here. Trust us."
For a. Example of the engagement question, see the Golden Arches theory (and disagreement): https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/wiki/IPE/Golden_Arches_Theo...