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Comment by qubax | Hacker News Reader

So china wanted google news and google search censored. Honestly, what's the big deal?

Google news and google search is also censored in the US, Europe, Middle East and everywhere.

Why is it that so many vocal ex-employees are against censorship in china, but demand censorship in the US?

I'm against censorship everywhere but the self-righteousness of these people when it comes to china is getting to be unbearable.

These ex-employees are saying google has to censor news and search because the internet is "too toxic" and causing too much division. This is precisely what the chinese authorities say to justify censorship.

And with the recent revelations of how politically driven and manipulative google is ( and has been ), I highly doubt the chinese or any country would allow google in without certain restrictions.

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China is doing something different entirely here. Denying facts to keep the population under control, for instance. That is different entirely from what the typical Western country censors: advertising illegal drugs, child porn, hate speech, etc.

https://www.businessinsider.com/words-china-banned-from-sear...

> Denying facts to keep the population under control, for instance.

This is different from us how?

> That is different entirely from what the typical Western country censors: advertising illegal drugs, child porn, hate speech, etc.

China also censors illegal drugs, child porn, "hate speech", etc.

You are right. China censors for the good of their own citizens and our censors do so for the good of us. Oh wait, that sounds exactly the same.

I love people who conflate "hate speech" with child porn and illegal drugs. Is physics "hate speech" to flat earthers? Should we censor physics? What's next? Hate thought? Should we monitor people's brain for hate thought. Science itself is hate speech to religious people. Should we censor science?

There are lots of facts that people on both sides consider "hate speech". For example, I consider your support of censorship hate speech. Should you be censored?

Just as I said, these people love censorship in the US but hate censorship in china. Makes me wonder who and what is pushing and funding such anti-liberal and anti-western "hate speech" in the US. In all my time on the internet, I haven't come across such openly fascistic and anti-liberal "hate speech" until fairly recently.

> Is physics "hate speech"

If it's somehow an incitement to an immediate illegal action then it may be. Otherwise it's not.

In the US, hate speech isn't like being offended, it's not in the eye of the beholder. It's been covered a number of times by the Supreme Court.

And China is quite different from the US wrt free speech. US courts take a very dim view of restrictions to political free speech. It's quite a stretch to say the same about China. In fact, I'd argue that there are plenty of Western democracies who are less lenient in that regard than the US.

> If it's somehow an incitement to an immediate illegal action then it may be. Otherwise it's not.

So it's not.

> In the US, hate speech isn't like being offended, it's not in the eye of the beholder. It's been covered a number of times by the Supreme Court.

I know. The point is that these people want hate speech to be illegal like it is in many other western nations. They want more censorship for the US, less in china.

>Why is it that so many vocal ex-employees are against censorship in china, but demand censorship in the US?

When have google employees demanded censorship in the US?

Youtube frequently boots popular creators- is this not an established fact or do names need to be named?

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