OK.
Is it more or less messed up than that a private corporation can and is willing to perform surveillance on foreign citizens on behalf of those citizens' government that would be unacceptable anywhere else?
Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?
No but it would be nice if they at least upheld the same values of the country that they themselves are a product of. Or are values just things you can draw arbitrary borders around when it's convenient?
The US already enforced some laws on its citizens as they travel regardless if the behavior is legal overseas. These tend to be done to actions that are deemed the worst of the worst. Minor crimes are not enforced globally.
At what point is supporting and working with China going to cross that line, given many of their current actions against unpopular groups?
I'm only being mildly pedantic here. Obviously, there are some silly laws that don't work here; I'm talking about the large obvious ones that everyone knows about.
Do you really believe that's true when a country has had only a single political party since 1949?
it would be nice if they at least upheld the same values of the country that they themselves are a product of.
IBM was following the law when it sold the nazis tools for tracking 'undesirable' people. Google's search engine will be used to track the Uyghur, and the Uyghurs are being sent to reeducation camps at this very moment.
We're talking about an apples to apples comparison here. It's controversial _as hell_ to sell tools used to do genocide! In a democracy the government should be able to restrain businesses that perform abhorrent practices.
But in must be written
There is a vast difference between Hugo Boss making Nazi uniforms and IBM selling them high tech machines designed to increase the efficiency of their extermination.
Not at all. At most - if you assume that the political system is meaningfully representative of moral sentiment, which is a very big "if" - it is the lack of explicit disapproval, which is not the same as the lack of disapproval in general (because it could just be that most people don't judge because they don't know), and certainly not at all the same as approval.
Governments routinely regulate exports as matter of policy. Lockheed would very much like to sell Taiwan (or really anyone and everyone) F-35s, but as a matter of government policy, it’s not allowed to, as it runs counter to the policies of the American government. This maybe censorship in a broad sense, but it certainly doesn’t make it prima facie wrong.
put differently:
what do you call an accountant who sings up to perpetuate the status quo of a criminal enterprise by updating their books?
guilty.
but they were "just extending the services of accounting to a new organization while maintaining the status quo of criminality".
The difference is that the accountant is necessary for the criminal enterprise. Google isn't necessary for a censorship state, since China more than capable of handling that on their own. A closer analogy is that Google is the line cook of the restaurant the mafia hangs out in.
The people who don't find authoritarianism morally wrong are generally elites who enjoy privilege on account of their being ranking members of that authoritarian regime.
Can you provide any examples of a 21st century authoritarian regimes where this hasn't been true? Mugabe? Bouteflika? Quaddafi? Assad? I don't think so.
Strongmen often enjoy broad popular support. They get things done. Mussolini made the trains run on time.
A cult of personality is how an authoritarian leader defends themselves from being overthrown by other members of their regime. They ensure that they are associated with all the good that their government does, while deflecting blame for the bad towards scapegoats.
Worrying about fairness or the rule of law is a luxury. A lot of people just see a weak and ineffectual government replaced with one that actually does something for them and they don't care how it was achieved.
I wish you were right. It would be much easier to defend against authoritarians if they were unpopular.
>"Strongmen often enjoy broad popular support."
"Strongman" is not even a real political term its a media term invented in the US media and first applied to General Noriega of Panama. The term doesn't even necessarily apply to official the head of state as was the case with Noriega.
>"Mussolini made the trains run on time."
No this is not actually true. See:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/
And my question was regarding authoritarian regimes of the 21st century. The rise of Mussolini was very much tied the consequences of World War 1 on Italy.
Yes. That's why I mentioned him. He is a legitimately popular politician with a strong authoritarian streak.
If I wanted to give you other examples of authoritarians, I would have suggested Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They've all had their ups and downs in popularity, but mostly based on economic conditions.
China would have been the most relevant example to use, but it's more difficult to prove popularity without elections. Still, both official approval ratings[1] and anecdotal discussions[2] suggest that the government is particularly popular among those in rural areas who have seen rapid modernization.
[1]: https://www.economist.com/china/2015/04/11/the-critical-mass... [2]: https://www.quora.com/In-general-how-popular-are-the-Communi...
If you are looking for examples of people who aren't part of an authoritarian regime but still think it's not a fundamentally immoral system, just take myself. If you are looking for authoritarian regimes that satisfy some quality, I can't tell what quality you're referring to.
My goal here isn't just to be annoying and nitpicky. It's to try to make it clear that there are a million different questions interacting here.
One is a regulation with restricted scope and consequences in a system that otherwise has human rights and individual freedom as core values. (Which doesn't make the regulation itself any good)
The other is a system with control of individual knowledge at its root and then developing regulations to further that goal as needed.
So, actually, yes, I have thought about it and no, I don't think you can.
By itself, no.
If you're making it specifically for the government that has stated that it intends to use it in that manner, or if, based on their past actions, a reasonable person with the same amount of knowledge as you would deduce that it will be used that way, then yes.
> What if the camera company itself is in France, but it's _suppliers_ are in the US?
Same thing. If suppliers didn't know, they're not responsible (but once we told them, they know, and from there on they'll be judged accordingly). If they did know, or reasonably believed, then they're complicit.
> My goal here isn't just to be annoying and nitpicky. It's to try to make it clear that there are a million different questions interacting here.
There is, but this isn't really any different from law in general. Governing the behavior of people is always going to be nitpicky; that's why we have centuries of experience with law and its application. Most of these issues have been tackled there, and while they're not resolved to perfection, they are resolved.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/05/asia/gallery/afghan-women-pas...
You're either misinformed on the French legislation or, less charitably, willfully misrepresenting it. The legislation [1] passed by the French government was a ban on face coverings in public spaces. It included covering the face with balaclavas, full face helmets, masks and yes, full face veils such as the niqāb.
All the other stuff has zero relation to why it was created in the first place.
It would be like banning cross-shaped necklaces, and trying to pretend that this isn't targeting Christianity, because it technically targets all cross shaped necklaces and not just religious ones.
To be fair, maybe the article is that way because it was written by non-Frenchmen with non-French sensibilities. I understand that French attitudes about religion and assimilation are different from American ones, and that I'm missing all sorts of other context besides. My "oh deary me how troubling" reaction probably isn't worth very much, and in any case my broader point is that I'm not advocating jumping to conclusions or boycotting France or whatever else.
But at the same time, if you want to call it "misinformed" to worry about the law's effect on religious minorities, that comes across as pretty one-sided in its own right.
But I agree, government forcing a company to do something isn’t particularly in line with Republican ideas and it’s hypocritical in the context of limited government.
It's easiest to see how useless the "slippery slope" concept is when noticing that it can be applied to absolute everything:
"if I start by feeding my own kids, I will soon have every needy kid at my door, asking for food"
"If we start to expect politicians not to be murders, a parking ticket will soon be disqualifying"
etc. etc.
Specifically here: government makes decisions based on morality all the time. I'd argue every single decision by the executive, legislative, and judicial branch is based on morality. It's obvious for the criminal justice system. For everything else, like deciding between different uses of tax money (aircraft carrier or social housing), making decisions requires some sort of function to optimize, and that function can ultimately only rest on morality.
The electorate defines our morality through government. Companies should play no part in this definition outside of the rights of their employees as private citizens.
You should also be very careful when imposing your own personal views on people living in an entirely different country. Our (western) moral superiority is something we have justified to ourselves many times and it has rarely worked out in our favor.
It's not Google's job to go to every government in the world and tell them how they should run their country.
The west, particularly the US made a policy decision years ago that engaging with China commercially would yield benefits to China, the US, and the world. Arguably that was correct, although the predictions that making money would create a democratic society proved to be inaccurate.
If you wear men's undershirts, you're objectively abetting an authoritarian regime that allows companies in Bangladesh to systematically abuse textile workers. Is that ok?
At the end of the day, the Chinese have nukes and will do whatever they want to do. Why should Google suffer, when nothing is preventing Chinese services from launching in the US and competing with their properties?
1. I reject any notion that Google is somehow "suffering" if they don't go into China.
2. You're making it seem like Google is entitled to all the business it wants. That's not true in the least.
2. You're making it seem like Google is entitled to all the business it wants. That's not true in the least.
So, if we as a society decide that American companies shall not aid and abet human rights violations elsewhere in the world, then that's what they do. Or else they can dissolve and go incorporate in China or wherever.
So, if we as a society decide that American companies shall not aid and abet human rights violations elsewhere in the world, then that's what they do.
Imo, however, restricting globalism just makes markets less efficient. Thus hurts everyone, regardless of the moral questions in any specific circumstance.
I'd rather have companies be extensions of US policy, than make US policy themselves.
Depends on what those laws are. Imagine if Google was deliberately helping out with some genocide to make a dollar? And given some stories coming from China, that isn't exactly a what-if situation.
>Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?
They have to be extensions of US morals to the extent voters don't push for them to be punished for not being so. That's a byproduct of using democracy.
There is a line somewhere. Where it is, is debatable.
And people have been condemning companies for working for those governments as well.
If you want to look at some history, I will unfortunately have to invoke godwins law, by using the example of IBM, which everyone condemns now for working with the Nazis.
So to answer your question, I am happy to have companies be an extension of US foriegn policy, in cases where the US foreign policy is correct, and the other country is wrong.
Godwin's law has been repealed: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/06/19/27874178/godwins...
By virtue of the US' historically strong support for open democracies (albeit often flawed or failed), and historical accident, it essentially now falls to the US to attempt to maintain it around the world.
To the extent that we have failed to maintain and support democratic institutions and traditions around the world, they are lost.
To the extent that these free, open, democratic governments, institutions, and traditions are lost around the world, those remaining in free societies will find ourselves under threat of losing those societies.
So, yes, if a company wants to enjoy the fruits of being able to grow and prosper in the greatest open society and largest economy on the planet at this time, it is not too much to ask it to avoid supporting adversaries who would undermine our society and economy at the first opportunity (and are actively doing so right now).
[recommend reading Garry Kasparov's "Winter is Coming" & other titles -- Fmr World Chess Champion, Russian Presidential candidate, author -- he's been there, done that, and buried his friends doing so]
The extensive use of Chinese products by the US will likely turn out to be a great geostrategic blunder of historic magnitude.
While the US companies and govt thinks they're exploiting cheap Chinese labor, China is strategically exploiting our myopic weakness for short-term profits to steal IP and gain global economic & military power.
I don't want Google making decisions based on anything other than how to make money legally.
2) that the USGovt simply ban them from doing biz in those countries, or
3) that the USGovt ban doing biz of a certain type, with likely arguments around the edges of that type.
4) or something else that I'm missing.
Which are you proposing?
I think the large portion having no problem continuing to do business with China on such a large scale is a folly of historic proportions.
Since that folly is unlikely to be abated, it'd be good if we at least cut off companies actively helping to undermine human rights and democratic institutions.
There is certainly a line somewhere, selling weapons for example is a pretty clear one. But this line hasn't been established on the data side, and I don't think the US is in a very good position to establish it given its poor track record in this area. But to the extent this line is written, it should be a law applying to all US companies, not cherry picking Google or other politically unfavourable companies.
Do you want your search engine company to be an extension of Chinese policy?
[0] United Fruit.
Make no mistake, with all the stuff going on in China (political imprisonment, "Social Credits"), it is almost certain that if Google was to share data with the Chinese government it will lead to human rights abuses, ruined lives, imprisonment and maybe even death penalties, not because somebody is a hardened criminal, but merely because they (unknowingly) googled the wrong things.
See, that's where you and I differ; you're just referring to them as "that country's laws", and not considering what those laws actually are. I, on the other hand, prefer to take into account the context of the situation, which includes considering what those laws are.
Stopping your analysis at legality/illegality is morally bankrupt. Local laws can be explicit tools of oppression and malice, and I would say its very controversial for western companies to follow such laws in authoritarian countries like China.
For an utterly obvious example of why this is true: look at Nazi Germany. Everything it did was in compliance with its local laws, but now many of its actions are universally considered crimes against humanity. Foreign companies and individuals that collaborated with it on those crimes are not excused by those laws.
> Do you want your companies to be extensions of US foreign policy?
I want them to be extensions of some basic liberal values, not agents of profit uber alles. For instance, I applaud European pharmaceutical companies for refusing to sell the anesthetics used for lethal injection to the US states that use them for executions.
Because the laws are controversial: They entail people get sent to prison, for speaking up against sexism or toxic air, or because they want some privacy, or because they criticize the government (well, dictatorship).
That is controversial. Unless one is fine with, or is clueless about, toxic air, sexual harassment, others going to prison because they disagree with the government (dictators).
edit: Not saying that because other companies do something similar that Google should get carte-blanche, just trying to see what the differentiation is.
1: https://qz.com/990662/microsoft-released-a-new-version-of-wi...
2: https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/18/apple-icloud-data-china-...
3: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy-congress...
Under laws that are selectively enforced, either drawing the ire of the ones in charge of enforcement or drawing the ire of the general public enough they pressure the ones in charge of enforcement to act. In either case, what draws ire could be actions largely unrelated to the laws themselves and may be based on actions that people generally would not support making illegal. This is a flaw with selective enforcement, and why I support ending selective enforcement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/0...
(note that "tens of thousands of cameras throughout Xinjiang" is an error — that's tens of thousands in one county alone https://twitter.com/BenjaminDooley/status/104420148593903616...)
If Google, Facebook etc don't like it, they're welcome to move their headquarters and main campus to China. Then it will be an internal matter of China. So long as they're here, they should not be allowed to do things that our culture considers deeply inappropriate.
Similarly, if China would punish any company that, say, does not censor information about Tienanmen protests here in US, that's their business. That does not push their censorship laws on me in any meaningful sense - it means that if I deal with a Chinese company, I get Chinese censorship, which is reasonable and expected; or I can deal with an American or a European company instead. There's no law applied to me either way.
I'm saying that you should abide by the law of the nation where you're performing an activity - say, designing and implementing some piece of software - regardless of where the fruits of your labor will eventually be deployed. And the law of that nation will, of course, be based on its cultural values. So if the culture of that nation frowns upon helping to oppress people in certain ways, then you shall not do so while in the jurisdiction of that nation, regardless of where the oppressed people are located.
None of this imposes any cultural values on anyone who is not in the jurisdiction of our nation. If China wants to have their Panopticon, they can still do it - themselves. But Google doesn't get to help them to do so, because it is an American company, and people who implement these tools of oppression are American residents, subject to American laws and cultural values. China doesn't have any natural right to the fruits of their labor.
Really, this is no different from prohibiting or regulating arms exports. Do you have similar objections to, say, arms embargo on DPRK?
But even setting that aside, my emphasis isn't on the corporation itself so much so as individuals working in it, who are the ones actually doing those things. I don't see why we can't impose restrictions on our residents, saying that they e.g. can't enable oppressive foreign regimes. And that, in practice, would have the same effect on the corporation - they wouldn't be able to do it here, and they'd have to relocate that entire operation into China or another place that would allow it.
Or prohibit any resident from profiting from it, for that matter, e.g. by investing in a foreign corporation that does such things - which would also preclude US corporations from establishing foreign subsidiaries to dodge the responsibility but still partake in the profits.
It actually happens a lot more places than just China. The only reason its getting headlines now is because its Google.
There are a TON of information security companies who deal with sketchy foreign governments to develop tools to spy on their own citizens.
- Israeli company NSO helping the UAE spy on pro-democracy activist Ahmed Mansoor
- BAE Systems actively shopping surveillance tools to countries like Algeria, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE during the Arab Spring.
- Procera Networks who sold deep packet inspection tools to Turkey to spy on its citizens
- Hacking Team's surveillance software was sold to the Ethiopian government (among others) to spy on journalists and other activists in their country.
You also have Mitnick who threw his hat in the ring and said he has a team of hackers uncovering zero-day exploits that he hopes to sell to the highest bidder - even if the bidder is a repressive regime.
Should we break them up or just fine them into nonexistence?
Business use this sort of hand wavy excuse all the time “government shouldn’t be involved.” Truth is they don’t want the American people to have any say in the operation.
Sure, you could say we vote with out dollars but they keep as much info secret as humanly possible.
They need regulation for basic things like “users own their information” and “don’t corporate with foreign governments to censor or monitor citizens”.
How the US public bought this corporate lie so hard is beyond me, people are actively rooting for companies to get more and more power.
And, what if we extended this across the board to all corporations, not just Google?
I feel uneasy when thinking about the society China is trying to build overtly, and the society that Washington is building covertly. It’s sad that 15 years after the Patriot Act, we’ve just accepted domestic surveillance as a requisite function of governance.
And here, we're going to judge our companies by the standards of our society.
But there's a whole sliding scale of space between the two, and the question of which tool to use when is the day-to-day meat of a livable and happy society.
I'm against all forms of surveillance, but it seems hypocritical to criticize Google for complying with immoral foreign laws when they also comply with immoral domestic laws.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
Edit: Ah, apparently conforming with Chinese laws doesn't just extend to surveillance, but aiding in the genocide of the Uyghur people. That's a lot worse.