Human Rights Groups Tell Google to Cancel Its China Censorship Plan | Hacker News Reader

Human Rights Groups Tell Google to Cancel Its China Censorship Plan

theintercept.com

23 pointsjbegley15 comments

This is absurd. Why apply morals selectively to Google? Where were these organizations when Apple handed over Chinese iCloud operations to a government backed shell company, or recently removed hundreds of apps that facilitated bypassing the great firewall. There are scores of American companies operating in China, Microsoft even offered censorsed search, so why bully Google alone here?

It's almost as if internal Google employees have lobbied their favorite charities to take a stance, or else ...

If you want to make a change, you have to start somewhere. There is nothing absurd about that.

Of course it's absurd to ignore American companies of similar stature (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft,...) who set shop in China much much earlier, and selectively target Google.

Provide one logical reason that can back such hypocrisy

Why not start with google since they are the market leader?

We should be taking a stand with all of our corporations.

You shouldn't start with them because they have not started in China. Others have. This targeting is hypocritical. Especially for Apple, who promotes themselves as so privacy-focused. That was always a marketing gimmick, and this is part of the proof. Stop defending them and others by ignoring their actions.

This argument is a simple and straightforward example of Whataboutism [1].

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I think this is a perfectly appropriate critique regardless of the newly constructed "fallacy".

If a problem is systemic, "whataboutism" is an appropriate critique (in lieu of being able to articulate the underlying issue) as it typically makes reference to something that is a populist concept, to be effective as a recognizable objection.

In this case, the objection is apt and needs to be addressed with more than hand-waving because it's troubling.

Saying "google is different because it helps shape culture" as opposed to Amazon's Chinese presence. Amazon's service is an opaque service-oriented mechanism...is an appropriate response.

It’s not a rebuttal though.

If I propose: “X is doing something bad and should stop.”

And you respond with: “Y and Z are also doing that bad thing.”

You’re neither denying X is doing the thing nor that it should stop. You’re not addressing the original proposal. I can just say “Yes, Y and Z are also doing that bad thing and should also stop.”

> It’s not a rebuttal though.

So what? Discussion doesn't consist solely of logical arguments (or arguments in total). There's a salient difference between "whataboutism" and a non sequitor. One has no way to continue the discussion (it changes to something else) and the other has an underlying set of issues that are likely beyond articulation of the poster, but exist nonetheless.

> I can just say “Yes, Y and Z are also doing that bad thing and should also stop.”

Then why not say that? The underlying issue is that there's reasons people are objecting to Google and not others.

Responding with a dismissive reply devoid of content is a nonsequitor. Implying that the assertion is without merit because you object to the syntactical presentation, avoids the issues raised.

e.g. Google helps steer culture and would necessarily have to actively enforce totalitarian and oppressive rules in China.

Except we never hear about Y and Z.

Let's say you lived in the Jim Crow south, and noticed that a lot of laws were only enforced against black people, despite being broken by white people all the time.

Is it whataboutism to complain?

It's worth noting when different rules seem to apply depending on who's involved.

The other absurdity is the nerve of these western "human rights" organizations to believe that they should dictate morality and law for the entire world.

China's censorship is no different than censorship of hate speech in the west. They have just as much right as us to decide what acceptable speech is for their country and they have just as much right as us to demand that businesses operating in their country follow the law.

The Google-China human-rights narrative feels more like human-rights activists know they will get headlines with Google+Human Rights+China right now. The US heavily depends on China for raw materials and manufactured goods which arguably contributes more to China's financial well being than a new search engine. If anything HR activist should be stoking the trade war flame to nerf China even though IMHO free trade does more to spread freedom than isolationism.

I am genuinely frightened by how little respect a coalition statement from 14 human rights organizations is being given. Please at least read their arguments.

There are plenty of shills paid to dismiss these articles, and plenty of apologists who have dismissed morality and ethics for a variety of reasons.

Do not ever take internet comments as good representations of humanity's opinions. Most people don't have the framework to realize how bad these things are, but thankfully we have such Human Rights Groups around to help inform people.

These internet discussions are the first line of defense for the shills, they sow FUD which suppresses a lot of action because at the least people think "what's the point, no one else seems to care."

Thank you. I needed that.

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