Hacker News Reader

Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

The negative consequences are that Google are the best at cataloguing and searching information. This expertise can now be leveraged by the Chinese government to search for dissidents.

Edit: Do you honestly think that once the Chinese government has some leverage over Google (because they now make a portion of their revenue from the Chinese market) they wouldn't use that to get additional concessions?

As an example, Chinese citizens can still access Google if they can connect through an outside VPN. Google may be able to identify such users through cookies, reCaptcha or another Google tracking technology. What if China asked Google to censor results for Chinese users using VPNs too?

View on HN

There’s a big difference between Google making data available to the Chinese government, which is what Dragonfly would do, and Google making their expertise at cataloguing and searching information available to the Chinese government, which has not been reported.

The only information that the Chinese government would have access to from Google is info they already have from Baidu.

Dragonfly catalogues and indexes searches for dissident topics, linking them to the searcher's phone number. Literally a search engine for dissidents.

And that's different from Baidu in what way?

If it's not worse than the status quo, then it's not a negative impact of bringing Dragonfly to China.

How do you know that the number of atrocities committed in the future by the Chinese state is independent of Google being there or not?

Maybe people unaware of DragonFly will try riskier search phrases on Google than on Baidu.

And the problem gets especially bad if they find whatever they were looking for. As in this case the state has evidence on consuming "politically dangerous" material. (Not that they can't fake it otherwise.)

Do you have reason to believe that exceeds their current capabilities?

Sure, and right now Baidu is doing that for them. Baidu is likely not as good at it as Google, but Baidu is also much more likely to comply willingly. Google can drag their feet and build low quality censorship/anti-privacy tools for the Chinese government, and simply say "sorry it's the best we could do".

By abdicating that responsibility to an actor like Baidu, who is much more aligned with the Chinese government, they make the problem worse. By agreeing to their demands, and then doing the shittiest job possible of complying, they actually have a lot more power and influence.

> Edit: Do you honestly think that once the Chinese government has some leverage over Google (because they now make a portion of their revenue from the Chinese market) they wouldn't use that to get additional concessions?

Yes, but that's a two way street. Chinese citizens will come to rely on Google search, and will be unhappy when its taken away. So both sides become enmeshed.

> Baidu is likely not as good at it as Google, but Baidu is also much more likely to comply willingly. Google can drag their feet and build low quality censorship/anti-privacy tools for the Chinese government, and simply say "sorry it's the best we could do".

This is an argument akin to "I'm joining the system so I can change it from the inside".

This can work, but you need leverage. What leverage would Google have over the Chinese government in this case? Say what you will about the current Chinese leadership, but they're not stupid and they know what Google is capable of. If they think Google is dragging they're feet why wouldn't they just block Google again?

Or just...i'm joining the system, and i'm going to do whatever I can to help it as little as possible, while providing a valuable service to its people.

Sure, that's the known positive. But this makes Google 1984 compatible in other regimes too. And with the capability there it's a matter of configuration to run it in other countries too. Proliferation of totalitarian machinery is a worry.

> Google can drag their feet and build low quality censorship/anti-privacy tools for the Chinese government, and simply say "sorry it's the best we could do".

Why would they? They're out to make money and they'll make much less money by making enemies with the CCP.

We can also look at history: American companies have no problem doing business with authoritarian and repressive regimes. Sometimes they even prop them up.

>By abdicating that responsibility to an actor like Baidu, who is much more aligned with the Chinese government,

And how can companies establish a major presence in China unless they are aligned with the Chinese government?

What part of Google's behavior thus far makes you think they'll drag their feet?

You mean, other than the fact that they pulled out in the first place for ethical reasons? And that it's long been a contentious issue among the founders of the company, again, for ethical reasons? I'm not sure I can take this question seriously.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com