Comment by o10449366 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by o10449366 | Hacker News Reader

Google's pursuit of Dragonfly is only going to exacerbate this situation and they will actively be complicate in the censorship of these human rights violations and further enable the Chinese government's ability to suppress dissent.

When Google left China they did so because they had "...evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists."[0]

Since then, by Google's own numbers, the Chinese government has become significantly more suppressive and demanding: https://transparencyreport.google.com/government-removals/by...

Given the status quo, what message does it send to the Chinese government that Google is willing to backtrack on their statements and work with a government that is even more evil than the one they left? It's naïve to think that the Chinese government won't use Google's re-entry as a tool for suppression, and it's also naïve to think that Google doesn't understand this. Their greed will only further facilitate these human rights abuses.

[0]: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin...

On the other hand, censorship isn't perfect, and giving more access to the internet means more access to west and censored ideas by the masses. I can't predict how it will play out, but I was hoping that Dragonfly, if launched, would result in better access to information for Chinese who currently are already censored AND have worse access to the treasure trove of info on the internet than us in the West.

That's the hope and the current justification for the project, but I don't find that argument very persuasive. Like I said, the situation in China has only gotten worse since Google said "enough is enough" and left. I find it hard to believe that Google's willingness to work with the Chinese government under current circumstances will somehow result in a more expanded internet than existed before.

No one can predict how it will play out, but censorship technology has only improved since Google left. Having another search engine to choose from doesn't necessarily mean Chinese citizens will have access to more information, it just means that the Chinese government will have more avenues to disseminate misinformation. I could easily see millions of Chinese citizens being lulled into a false sense of security by Google's presence and fall prey to government watchers.

My only strong opinion is that I'm completely unqualified to opine on this as a white american westerner. When the Dragonfly outrage was happening within the company, many people stood up and helped kill the project (by leaking, by complaining internally, by refusing to work on it, etc.). But the Chinese nationals I work with weren't particularly pleased with all the westerners speaking on their behalf. Obviously my sampling doesn't represent the population, but the general attitude was that Baidu is woefully subpar and denying access to information, censored or not, was against Google's stated mission.

Believe me, I'm greatly disturbed by China's censorship. Talking shit about my own government is a right I can't imagine losing, let alone access to the treasure troves of anti-US thought. I also know how terrified I would be if my own government had the ability to lock down information. Imagine Trump and the GOP having that power, even for 4 years, and what damage they could do. (And GOP voters would make the same argument, of course, the other way around, and already do fear that tech companies are censoring their freedom of thoughts).

So believe me, I'm not trying to defend China here, nor am I trying to shill for the project. But it's not my lane to opine on, and I had hopes that if the project did launch, that some good could come out of it. But your concerns are absolutely valid too.

> But the Chinese nationals I work with weren't particularly pleased with all the westerners speaking on their behalf.

Just because someone thinks their company shouldn't engage in a specific project due to ethical concerns, that doesn't mean they're speaking on behalf of the people affected by those ethical violations.

It's perfectly reasonable to want to stop the project due to the ethical principles alone.

It got a little more complicated than that. I can't speak too much about the specifics, but people were definitely defaming the country itself and overall going out of line in hopes to amplify their protest. It's one thing to say that the project doesn't align with your ethical standards. It's another to attack the country (and by proxy its citizens) for high level political decisions that the people are powerless over, then imply that the people are complacent with it.

> Just because someone thinks their company shouldn't engage in a specific project due to ethical concerns, that doesn't mean they're speaking on behalf of the people affected by those ethical violations.

It however presumes that they know enough about the situation to apply those ethical principles to decide what's best for the people affected.

It's hard to find an analogy for this, but consider milk powder. Due past scandals about contaminated milk powder, Chinese parents who can afford it prefer importing milk powder from overseas. Now suppose China bans halal products. Should a milk powder manufacturer who previously exported both halal and non-halal milk powder to China continue to export their non-halal powder, or should they stop exports of both product lines to avoid complying with what they believe to be an ethical violation, knowing full well that Chinese consumers will then be exposed to the hazardous milk powder manufactured domestically?

The alternative to Chinese people getting censored search results from Google isn't getting uncensored search results from Google, it's getting censored search results from Baidu.

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