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Comment by khc | Hacker News Reader

As an overseas Chinese (born and grew up in Hong Kong but have relatives in China) I am sadden by this and HN comments. Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored. Because laws in this area are often vague, I can see that dragonfly would apply varying levels of censorships and as a side effect, allow people to access some information that they otherwise wouldn't be able to. And by surfacing better information for queries, it can also help people finding what they want for things that are not censored.

I know some people prefer to stick their noses up and hold what they perceive as the moral high ground, but do consider how lives of hundreds of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions.

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If Google had more business in China, the CCP could blackmail them into censoring their results in other countries as well. Just look at how the CCP bullied international airlines about Taiwan, the laws being awfully vague hasn't helped one bit.

Letting the CCP export its censorship back into the West in the hopes that Google will improve life in China is a hell of a gamble.

Yes exactly until CCP reforms itself there is no point in deepening business relationships which we know will lead to more censorship against what are mostly unjust, inhumane, undemocratic policies of the CCP. Mostly to protect the party and its chosen form of governance which has been rejected by most of the rest of the world.

Imagine this is an online discussion board for doctors, and now we are having a discussion on this topic in the news: "China is harvesting organs from detainees, tribunal concludes" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/17/china-is-harve...

And now imagine this comment goes on the top:

> Our best surgeons in the U.S. should fly to China to help them with organ transportation. Without us, they will do organ transportation using those organs anyway. But we have better technology and higher successful rate. So why don't we just go there to help them save more lives?

>bullied international airlines

Airlines only remove Taiwanese paraphernalia when flights operates in China - you know complying to domestic Chinese laws. That's completely reasonable stuff that doesn't extend beyond Chinese borders. Has Bing exported censorship back to the West. Has EU right to be forgotten even made it's way to US and Canada? This is just fear mongering.

>> Just look at how the CCP bullied international airlines about Taiwan

> Airlines only remove Taiwanese paraphernalia when flights operates in China - you know complying to domestic Chinese laws. That's completely reasonable stuff that doesn't extend beyond Chinese borders.

Three biggest US airlines bow to China Taiwan demand as deadline passes https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-44948599

Giving In to China, U.S. Airlines Drop Taiwan (in Name at Least) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/business/taiwan-american-...

Airlines switching to ‘Taiwan, China’ https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/21... Associated Press found 20 carriers, including Air Canada, British Airways and Lufthansa, that now refer to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing considers Chinese territory, as a part of China on their global websites.

"Of course we hope that when they operate in China they respect China's laws and rules, China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and the feelings of the Chinese people."

>Three biggest US airlines bow to China Taiwan demand as deadline passes

That was interim solution, if you check AA / United / Delta, they removed references of "China" for Chinese/Taiwanese cities name altogether. Also asking companies to conform to UN recognized sovereign states as bullying is pretty silly.

Also asking companies to conform to UN recognized sovereign states as bullying is pretty silly.

Your argument appears to be "an independent body also recognizes Taiwan as part of China so airlines should do the same". Here's the problem: the United Nations did so at the behest of China and thus your argument becomes "China dictated that the United Nations recognize Taiwan as part of China and the airlines should bow to the same request." This is circular logic at best.

Your argument is basically that a multilaterally decided upon recognition of nations is bad because China bad.

Your argument is basically that a multilaterally decided upon recognition of nations is bad because China bad.

Which would be true if it weren't a unilateral decision. Obfuscating that through the United Nations doesn't change anything.

The comment you're replying to said Air Canada, British Airways, and Lufthansa. I just tried searching for a flight to Taipei in all three of them, from California, and all of their autocompletes indeed mention China.

You are also incorrect that AA / United / Delta removed references to "China" for Chinese cities. I just tried them, Beijing, Shanghai etc all continue to mention China. Only Taipei's autocomplete does not include a country name. Again, I'm in California, so this contradicts your claim that: "Airlines only remove Taiwanese paraphernalia when flights operates in China".

I was initially referring to the Emirates Taiwanese flag pin incident, and other cockpit paraphernalia drama from a couple years ago. Airlines had existing protocol of scrubbing physical Taiwanese references when operating (i.e. landing) in China. I wasn't of airline site scrubbing Taiwan, which again, I don't see a big deal. Making countries recognize dejure sovereignty is only "bullying" if you drank too much US koolaid. The fact that US is the holdout in including China shows whose being childish. But US circumventing UN resolutions is nothing unexpected.

> The fact that US is the holdout in including China shows whose being childish.

I'm trying to understand your position. Is it that having ethical reservations about UN resolutions is childish, and the mature thing is to treat UN resolutions as ethically authoritative? Is it that resistance to treating Taiwan as a Chinese possession is childish? Something else entirely?

> Making countries recognize dejure sovereignty is only "bullying" if you drank too much US koolaid. ... But US circumventing UN resolutions is nothing unexpected.

I honestly don't understand why US whataboutism comes up in every China thread. I have no relation to the US, and we hardly drink their koolaid here in Germany.

Cold hard cash already rules most of the world, including the UN (Saudi Arabia on the Human Rights Council, anyone?). That doesn't mean we have to accelerate this trend for the sake of consistency.

That's factually incorrect making your whataboutism in this comment and one where you replied directly to my comment seem like a deliberate attempt to rationalize the Chinese censorship apparatus.

https://www.newsweek.com/american-airlines-bows-china-delete...

I was referring to the Emirates Taiwanese flag incident, and other cockpit paraphernalia drama from a couple years ago. Airlines already had existing protocol of scrubbing physical Taiwanese references when operating in China. I wasn't aware of the website change, but China compelling airline operators to adopt UN recognized countries... is somehow unreasonable or even bullying is more than a little stupid characterization and almost a unique airline situation since most do not operate regional sites. The original point still stands, what Chinese filtering in western companies have generalized abroad?

> rationalize the Chinese censorship apparatus.

This is easy to rationalize, though I don't endorse how far China went - China started internet censorship apparatus in response to calls of ethnic violence after the XinJiang riots a decade ago. Facebook and Twitter was blocked post incident primarily because they refused to censor/filter these calls for violence (from both sides). Domestic terrorism doesn't fly in the west anymore, you can say China was prescient in this regards and many western companies lost out due to misplaced naivety. Now Google wants to crawl back when winds in the west is shifting.

> China started internet censorship apparatus in response to calls of ethnic violence after the XinJiang riots a decade ago

Who fucking cares? The PATRIOT Act was in response to the worst terrorist attack on US soil in US history. Three thousand people. I have friends who were in New York then. The Japanese internment camps were in response to Pearl Harbor. If an action is wrong, the impetus doesn't fucking matter, the action is still wrong.

6-4 (Tiananmen) was not ethnic violence, do we agree on that? And the Chinese government does use internet censorship to suppress discussion of it, are you going to deny that?

Where did I deny Chinese censorship was used to suppress discussion? I specifically said I don't endorse how far the Chinese system went. The point was censorship for prevent violence has it's place, and the west now recognizes that.

As far as information control in terms of individual freedom, folks in PRC can just grab and VPN and shitpost or find competing narratives abroad. Access is possible and not even inconvenient. People in the west believes the effects of censorship is so overwhelming that it cannot possibly be circumvented to reach the "truth" that only they can attain. But most PRC folks are complacent with being ignorant. Similar to the plurality of low information readers in the west, who has access to diverse sources but somehow converges to western propaganda talking points comparable to the effects of censorship. Someone posted a western brand awareness and usage article yesterday, where 17% of Chinese internet users regularly use facebook and are aware of western perspectives. Do you think 17% of the west would go out of their way to learn the Chinese perspectives? Potential to be informed =/= informed citizenry.

> The point was censorship for prevent violence has it's place, and the west now recognizes that.

???

The West recognizes what? The West now endorses Chinese Internet censorship? Western governments now also enforce Internet censorship? Did the White House start calling to Build The Firewall? What are you talking about?

> Access is possible and not even inconvenient.

The Chinese government spends billions of dollars on a system that doesn't work?

> Someone posted a western brand awareness and usage article yesterday, where 17% of Chinese internet users regularly use facebook and are aware of western perspectives.

Who cares about Chinese internet users' fucking Western brand awareness? I care about Chinese people knowing our own history, warts and all.

Western social media companies are increasingly censorial, following Chinese censorship in spirit not structure.

If you're ignorant about how trivial it is to access vpn and outside info in China then I'm not sure to say. The firewall and grey legislation around vpns is calibrated that low information audience gravitates towards party line while those seeking information has access.

Usage not brand awareness. The numbers suggests more Chinese people are aware of western and Chinese perspectives than vice versa. Leading me to ask, in general, who is actually more informed? Being immersed in both media landscapes allows better critical appraisal of what is actually happening then to pretend that just being in a free media environment somehow makes one more informed.

> Western social media companies are increasingly censorial, following Chinese censorship in spirit not structure.

The structure is what matters. Kings and despots throughout history have frequently ruled fairly and justly. Out of all the decisions they made in that role, they probably made many more fair ones than unjust ones. But their making the right call in any particular case is not a reason they should have had that much power in the first place.

Western social media is stepping up moderation of harassment and calls for violence, but they're making an effort to do so in an accountable and transparent way while doing so. And I don't think even they are accountable enough; I hope that Instagram and WhatsApp really do get split off from Facebook.

> The firewall and grey legislation around vpns is calibrated that low information audience gravitates towards party line while those seeking information has access.

Am I understanding correctly that your position is that this is a good thing, or at least fine? Because this placates the masses which tend more towards violence or other destabilizing actions, while allowing elites to continue to have a robust debate? Is that an accurate characterization of your position?

> The numbers suggests more Chinese people are aware of western and Chinese perspectives than vice versa. Leading me to ask, in general, who is actually more informed?

I'm not worried about American awareness of Chinese perspectives. I'm worried about Americans' missing or inaccurate understanding of American history, e.g. the Lost Cause.

I'm not worried about Chinese awareness of American perspectives. I'm worried about Chinese suppressed or sanitized understanding of Chinese modern history, e.g. June 4th.

I don't give a fuck about Chinese people being able to read Americans' sanctimonious takes on Tiananmen. I want Chinese people to be able to read Liu Xiaobo's take on June 4th, on Charter 08, on 996.

>tend more towards violence or other destabilizing actions / allowing elites to continue to have a robust debate

This is actually crux of the issue for me. People are losing their minds over alt-right operating openly and undermining western institutions without applying the parallel to China. China is not a woke place. Chinese nationalism is legitimate problem - widespread calls for retaliatory killings after Uighers terrorist attacks, extreme dissatisfaction with foreign/white privileged of expats, out of control anti-HK/Taiwan/Korean/Japanese sentiment during diplomatic spats - all this is suppressed for civic order and development, and occasionally, very judiciously weaponized. Social media in the last few years have demonstrated that a broadly unfiltered public commons is not conducive to social order. See the shitshow that is Indian MSM nd increasingly runaway Hindu nationalism for the alternative. It's not that I don't value western liberal values, I just don't think China is ready for it now. Escaping middle income trap is more pressing than liberalization in the mid term. Also consider that the Chinese demographic pyramid is dangerously composed of angry, unmarried men. We're all familiar with that demographic right? So yes, the current system is fine in my opinion.

Brief touch on other points: I'm not inclined to give western corporate posturing brownie points until they actually deliver, which by and large China has. Doesn't matter if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice. Well one cat's not catching mice.

>Chinese people to be able to read Liu Xiaobo's take on June 4th, on Charter 08, on 996.

Again, any Chinese person can read this via VPN that takes 10 minutes to setup, by and large the people who are interested does. There's something to be said about the greater Chinese cultural apathy towards politics deliberately engineered by the CPC, but to insinuate that a curious person in the mainland can't be just as informed as someone in the west is false. Personally, I'm more worried about misinformed Americans with enfranchisement and the ability to select loony presidential candidates that upends world order every 4 years than a revisionist Chinese state that has every geopolitical interest to continue the current world order, albeit with a more influential role.

China compelling airline operators to adopt UN recognized countries... is somehow unreasonable or even bullying is more than a little stupid characterization

Taiwan lost their seat at the United Nations in an attempt to appease mainland China. So, no, the United Nation isn't an objective source of naming conventions for Taiwan. And, yes, that is absolutely bullying.

Kind of like how they pushed Apple to move their iCloud data onto local Chinese datacenters:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...

Or how they then nationalized the company that has access to all the iCloud encryption keys for accessing Apple user messages, pictures, videos, files, etc. at rest:

https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-d...

Yikes.

This is concerning but not surprising. After the Snowden leaks, a buddy of mine kept telling me that it was the tip of tmthe iceberg, that the private sector was even more dangerous than prism. I guess this is what he was talking about.

Google's sensorvault keeps track of hundreds of millions phone's location data for the past TEN YEARS and share those data with police.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/googles-sensorvault-ca...

Which is only shared when a court-ordered subpoenaed is presented for the individual's data by the U.S. Government. If Google didn't comply then we would be complaining how they think they are above the law.

> If Google had more business in China, the CCP could blackmail them into censoring their results in other countries as well.

It's easily forgotten that the nation currently lead by Donald Trump already has this power of international censorship. Doesn't even need hypothetical scenarios to be scary.

You're assuming that Google would act as a mole, implementing the censorship in bad faith. Why wouldn't they advance the state of the art for censorship, making it even more effective in an attempt to please the Chinese government? In fact, if China is allowing them in, the party must have some reason to believe the second one will come to pass instead of the first.

Or china quietly takes direct control over the machines biult and run by google. Google then, from the user's perspective, has become that problem governmemt.

They could. Do you know that's the case? China allows a lot of foreign investments and to think that the only reason is to further their censorship is silly.

Of course there are other reasons, such as co-opting foreign technology.

They could. Do you know that's the case? China allows a lot of foreign investments and to think that the only reason is to further their censorship is silly.

And to think that Google would never submit to Chinese censorship in earnest is naive. Yahoo![1], Google, Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel all willingly partook in aiding the censorship apparatus. Yahoo! even went so far as to out journalists and political targets for the Chinese government. Why wouldn't Google do the same?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Work_in_th...

The question is not whether they would do the same - but whether they would the practice to other regions. Did Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel?

The question is not whether they would do the same - but whether they would the practice to other regions. Did Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel?

Well AOL, Skype, and Nortel don't really exist as independent entities anymore. Microsoft already censors Skype globally (for profanity) the last I checked. Unfortunately censorship in other countries outside of China doesn't seem to get as much attention, but none of those tinpot dictatorship seem to have any trouble getting their hands on censorship technology from the west.

That Google already went down the road of developing a censorship platform with Dragonfly reveals their willingness to aid in government censorship.

Cisco's been accused of have assisted China in identifing members of Falun Gong.

The first news story I came a across searching (it seems fairly unbiased): https://m.sfgate.com/technology/dotcommentary/article/Cisco-...

In China.

Ah, it happened in China, so that makes it totally cool and justified.

I am not the kind of person to swing the morality flag pretty much ever, but if you don’t see what’s wrong with this, then I don’t know what else to say.

It's an appraisal of the article in relation to the original comment. What western companies do in China so far seems to be siloed from what happens in other regions, just like what happens in EU, given sufficiently incompatible regulations. Especially ones that are costly to enforce. It doesn't make it cool or justified, it just makes these appealing slippery slopes arguments not grounded in evidence.

As for the moral flag, I think in context of Sino-US topics, that ship has sailed long ago. It's more useful to contextualize these decisions in a geopolitical / great powers competition lense. Having Google in China is good soft power opportunity for the US. Chinese people are eager for a baidu alternative. I'm not going to pretend that more engagement with China is going to lead to liberalization in the short-term, but I do think it goes a long way towards preventing future hostilities. And I think google being incentivized to operate in China and becoming proficient in bridging the Chinese-open web is a net good.

What exactly does "submit to chinese censorship" mean in this case? China is already blocking these censored websites- linking them in search results isn't going to magically allow the website to load in the browser.

Even in the example you linked, Yahoo! said "it must respect the laws of governments in jurisdictions where it is operating." How is complying with this different than complying with a U.S. Government subpoena?

> China is already blocking these censored websites- linking them in search results isn't going to magically allow the website to load in the browser.

Unless the user clicks the little down arrow next to the URL, which opens the popup menu with "Cached".

And even if that were also censored, the titles, URLs and the first couple of lines of text returned by Google would speak volumes about what's going on. Imagine googling Tiananmen and getting page after page of search results which all turn out to be inaccessible. What would that tell you?

How many users browse the internet through Google's cache? Splitting hairs over cache vs. linking the dead website is ignoring the point.

> How many users browse the internet through Google's cache?

A more pertinent question is how many Chinese users would gladly browse the internet through Google's cache, if it were available to them.

A fair guess is a number at least as large as the number of Chinese users who used to browse the internet through VPNs before the government cracked down on those (nearly 1 in 3 of all Chinese internet users, according to [1], i.e. hundreds of millions).

> Splitting hairs over cache vs. linking the dead website is ignoring the point.

The point, which you appear to have missed, is that you can't expect the censorship to work as implied by the statement I responded to. Google wouldn't be allowed to simply serve up the same search results as outside China. It would have to remove them entirely.

[1] https://www.goldenfrog.com/blog/china-cracks-down-on-vpn-use...

How is complying with this different than complying with a U.S. Government subpoena?

Are you asking how censorship and subpoenas are different?

Foreign corporations have to give up a lot of control to do business in China.

This is a weak argument. The base response to a repressive totalitarian regime is non-cooperation, not support them and hope they will be marginally less oppressive. Any support legitimizes their actions and further entrenches their oppression

Yes and yes again. This is so key for people to understand. And this is why google should have never touched this fucking project in the first place. Many continue to push this logic that somehow we should continue to engage with the PRC. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in China, have relatives there...etc, and I’m convinced that this approach is 100% FLAWED. The CCP derives its authority from economic growth--next year will be better than this year, so don't challenge us. At this point in their development, for this growth to continue, it now requires science/tech innovation (see “middle income trap” theory / many of my acquaintances have moved factories elsewhere due to cost in PRC). Any work we do with them in those are areas only make the oppression problem worse, both for Chinese people and for us now/eventually (e.g. Hollywood will never criticize China; not the same with Russia).

EDITS: typo

"The CCP derives its authority from economic growth"

Why is it a bad thing?

That's not a bad thing, but it means that you can't help the economy without helping the party. It's either both or neither.

But if a party policies help economy grow, why is it bad to help party?

I mean if you really dont know, China is an incredibly oppressive totalitarian regime that maintains their power through violence and censorship. Political opponents are routinely disappeared and murdered

Why do you call it "incredibly oppressive"? It's nothing like Mao's China or Stalin's USSR or Pol Pot's Cambodia or Hitler's Germany. Saudi Arabia comes to mind with their executions of political opponents and whatnot.

If you really don't know, CCP's regime through economic growth has lifted from extreme poverty over 700 million people [0]. It's the same economic growth HN's well-wishers are lamenting about. Extreme poverty is not inability to buy the latest iPhone, it's malnutrition, lack of medical care, hard work, illnesses and likely early death.

You care about people who, you say, disappeared because of CCP's regime and at the same time absolutely don't care about hundreds of millions, most of whom would've still been suffering from extreme poverty and accompanying excessive mortality. The statistics of democratic India are lagging behind by very big margin and give an estimation of what could've been China's alternative reality [1].

[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/peoples-daily-online/opinion/pov...

[1] https://qz.com/india/1385642/after-china-india-pulled-most-p...

I wish people would stop arguing that democracy and lifting millions out of poverty are mutually exclusive. They're not. Taiwan. South Korea. Japan. Though the first 2 were fairly authoritarian in the 1950s, they all progressively marched toward democracy. CCP is taking China the other way. Meanwhile India, which is the CCP's favorite parrot for justifying their means, actually has lifted out of abject poverty just about as many people as the CCP.

That is a straw man. The point is that democracy doesn't automatically mean economic growth and the best example falls short of China's success. In case of China, CCP's policies worked spectacularly well and you need a reason that outweighs economic growth to wish for its demise.

"just about as many"

The second link specifically says that it is not so.

Sorry, you are correct; what I had in mind and should have written was more along the lines of "within the same order of magnitude." I'm guessing/hoping India will be caught up by 2035-2040. Anyways, I'm not denying that there are benefits to top-down, non-democratic planning in the early stages of economic development. Again Taiwan, and its use of eminent domain in the 1970s, 80s. But I don't think long-term it leads to the most stable & innovative society. Last but not least, I don't agree with your assertion that the "best democratic examples have fallen short of China's success." How are we measuring that? GPD per capita? Life expectancy? General happiness? Anecdotally, I've spent enough time in the PRC these past few years to tell you that on what I'd consider all the relevant dimensions, Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea respectively just crush the average quality of life & wealth levels you get in China's Tier 1 cities today.

"I don't agree with your assertion" I meant the reduction of extreme poverty in China vs. India.

You need to prove that China's totalitarian policies are A) responsible for the growth and that B) all the deaths and lack of freedom attributable were somehow justifiable (they aren't). A big problem for your argument is that Hong Kong is a bigger, brighter, and longer burning success story than mainland China. Hong Kong avoided the totalitarian nastiness that the CCP's government currently employs (great firewall of china, no free press, no freedom of travel, etc.). In some ways China today is worse than in the days of Mao since the government has the technological means to monitor everyone's communications and travel at a very large scale.

Well, in the same vein you need to prove that democracy is responsible for Hong Kong's success.

I said that Hong Kong avoided totalitarianism and is an much larger success story than mainland China (both of which are objectively true). I never claimed that democracy is responsible for Hong Kong's success.

So why do you say "You need to prove that China's totalitarian policies are A) responsible for the growth"?

Isn't that the kind of policy that creates places like North Korea?

And we're already heavily tied to china's economy why would forcing just one company to not cooperate help deligitimize their government?

US government policy didn't create North Korea. In fact the Chinese government had a huge hand in that.

How has that worked out for Cuba, North Korea, and Iran? Or Afghanistan, Iraq until we invaded them?

I hear you since I have a similar background (born and grew up in HK). I really wish that the Chinese people can benefit from better services (search, social media) and also the people in the west can benefit from some the the innovation in China.

Though I find that as a company, this is a slippery slope that it's better not to get on in the first place.

Can Google enter China and slowly affect change? Possibly

But from the track record of China and especially what's happening in Hong Kong, cooperating seems to be just feeding the beast. There needs to be genuine interest in opening up and making a change. So far, I do not see that but perhaps one day we can get there.

Enabling censorship and oppression should not be a race to the bottom - which is what you are advocating for.

I don't understand how any search engine approved in China could be "surfacing better information in queries" - they are all effectively under the same authoritative control. Are you placing your believe in hopes and prayers that real information will be "accidentally" leaked to the oppressed masses in China? How cute.

How am I advocating for race to the bottom?

If a condition is already bad, why bother trying to make it better? ie:

> Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored

"...so it isn't helping, it's just business as usual."

The counterpoint is that having choice is helpful, especially when the choices include user segments, even if you don't experience it. Also, participating in oppressive behavior is immoral, regardless of the outcome.

My claim is that Google entering China is making a bad situation better

While I understand the instinct to collaborate, I don't see it. No one is better than Google at correlating and extrapolating data about people. Any relatively minor improvements that Google provides would seem to be overwhelmed by handing these new data gathering and correlation capabilities to the Chinese government.

You can make your same point without being dismissive.

I don't follow. If Google helps entities that censor, they censor, or at least are complicit in some way.

Further, there's the whole 'national security' angle. Whether real or imagined, some people don't like the idea of US entities helping foreign entities gain a competitive advantage.

Not sure how pointing to a feigned moral superiority of 'those who stick their noses up' helps your argument either.

In this comment, you're expressing concern that Google would be implicated by participating in the censorship, but you're not expressing any concern for the welfare of the 1.6B Chinese who would gain access to Google.

I'm not OP but I'd consider that a very 'sticking your nose up' take on the situation. It seems to consider westerners' self-image as more important than Chinese access.

Your argument assumes Chinese citizens using Google is somehow better for them than Baidu. I have no idea. But I will not make the claim to know what's best for 1.6B, as you do.

But to go down that road, I'd argue it's worse for the citizens. As others here have pointed out. Google's software enables advanced citizen tracking for the Communist Party of China.

Prove me wrong though. Show me how Google China is better for 1.6B Chinese.

More options better than fewer options.

Especially for English language search.

Yes as someone who has used Baidu, I am making the argument that using Google is better than using Baidu, at least Baidu as it exists today. It's possible that once Google enters China, Baidu would get better. But we won't find out now.

Much of Google’s revenue comes from the ability to track individual users. A Chinese Google Search would not be any more censored than Baidu, but it may be a much richer source of information for Chinese law enforcement agencies.

Well, it does help people reduce the chance of victimized by Baidu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi

Most of Google's revenue comes from search ads, which are intent-based on the individual query. The display/admob/etc. networks that use demographic targeting don't make up as much of the search take.

Agreed. Some of the criticism of the censorship also shows a underlying lack of understanding how search engines works. The Chinese firewall blocks the websites, not the search engines.

What was Google supposed to to? Show links to dead sites that don't load in the browser?

> What was Google supposed to to? Show links to dead sites that don't load in the browser?

All other operational problems aside: Yes, I think that would be great! Let users know what their government is censoring.

The purpose of a search engine is to give results wanted for the user query - showing a dead website probably isn't want the user wants.

Google already handles this with DMCA takedowns in the US. If you search a website that has been removed by DMCA, Google will notify you at the bottom of the screen. Telling the user that N number results are hidden because of censorship is probably a better approach.

No, it's probably not what the user wants in that moment, but it's what they should see.

And under some circumstances, it may quite literally be the most helpful result. If someone searches for Tiananmen Square, what they really need is a hint that it's time to switch to a VPN.

This comes down to the difference in underlying values of different cultures. Forcing what you think people should want onto others when it's not what they really want isn't effective, even despite your relative moral justifications. There are ways to accomplish notifying the user of censorship which isn't shoving it in their face.

Users simply won't use Google if it's beating them with a stick to remind them that websites are censored and that users should use a VPN. Chinese citizens know about the censorship and most, outside of specific provinces, simply don't care. Those who do already use a VPN.

This is one of a very few places where I don't mind projecting my cultural values, and in fact consider it morally unjust not to do so.

Another would be equal rights for women and ethnic minorities. I don't care if someone else's culture dictates that men should have legal control over their wives, or what have you—that's abhorrent, and human rights should be universal.

That's precisely how, throughout the history of mankind, one tribe of people have forced their viewpoint onto others - because they thought it was right.

The false equivocation of protecting minority groups and human rights with "Should we notify of censorship in the results or the bottom of the screen?" is telling in this regard.

Showing search results that are based only on the websites themselves isn't "beating them with a stick to remind them that websites are censored".

So you think all Google needs to do is just filtering out websites blocked by the Chinese government? Really?

You have a underlying lack of understanding how censorship works. They don't just block websites. The Chinese government wants to filtering out results they don't like on accessible websites.

> Because laws in this area are often vague, I can see that dragonfly would apply varying levels of censorships

"Vague" is a neutral way of putting it.

The laws are "whatever the party declares today. Also, whatever the party declares tomorrow."

The whole value proposition of doing business in China is a gamble that tomorrow's set of party strictures will be equal or better than today's.

(Spolier: they won't!)

And yes, "the party" isn't a single monolithic thing. It's shorthand for "whichever levels of authority have influence and interest in what you're doing."

And no, this isn't comparably similar how the US or any other democratic nation operates.

I think this sort of attitude is how most of the evils in the world are justified by those perpetrating and excusing them.

Are we even helping them at that point? It's just another censored search engine. They already have that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi

> Because laws in this area are often vague, I can see that dragonfly would apply varying levels of censorships

It doesn't follow to me. The reverse actually. 'laws in this area are often vague' for a reason - so that You Can't Do That becomes not a judicial matter with precise as possible definition, but a matter of personal feeling. Then the rulers can come down hard on whoever just because they didn't like something.

That's more likely to pressure companies into being on the conservative side of things; censoring a little more rather than a litte less. And google's in it for the money in a big, rich market.

That's definitely the intend of having vague laws. But whether Google is in it or not doesn't change that

> ... doesn't change that

Doesn't change what? The vagueness of the laws? Whether google's in it or not? I'm sorry, I don't understand your point.

It is not, strictly speaking, about censorship. Google is the best in the world at gathering information about people. If they operate in China, they will have to give over all that information to the Chinese government, of course. They have already built the largest surveillance apparatus in the Western world that has ever existed - imagine what the CCP could do with that?

Yes, Baidu already does this. But no one can do it as well as Google.

And the CCP could force to give up information about people who aren't in China and who have never been Baidu users. Or information about people who are in China now, but the information was collected while they were outside China.

For people who against this, please take a look at the Death of Zexi Wei[1].

And just for context, Baidu is, currently, the only big player, and in most of the time considered to be the only player in the search engine market of Mainland China.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi

Do you think Google would need to surrender some of my personal information to China, if they are pressured to do so by the Chinese authorities? I live in Hong Kong.

Not taking totalitarianism itself seriously, but talking about minor, gimmick pieces of information, is not seeing the woods for all the trees. The damage that does outside of China more than outweighs the ultimately meaningless benefits of appeasement that might result within China.

> Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored.

so, maintaining the status quo is not 'help'?

> I know some people prefer to stick their noses up and hold what they perceive as the moral high ground, but do consider how lives of hundreds of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions.

so which is it if one says no? sticking ones nose up or considering how the lives of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions?

or is it only sticking ones nose up when you disagree with the decision?

It's not just censorship. It never was. Dragonfly also includes actively assisting the Chinese Communist Party in identifying and persecuting people who look for information about freedom or for information about crimes committed by the Party/government

any article or press to support your claims?

Searches would be linked to identifiable information for logged in users: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l...

The Chinese government would be able to access that data through Google's joint venture partner in China who actually controls the data.

The proposal for dragonfly had two conditions set by the Chinese government - the first was to provide censored search results in compliance with the firewall. The second was to link search queries to user phone numbers, which a director tried to hide and many employees revolted against: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/google-suppresses-memo-r...

> Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored.

So what? That does not make censorship morally acceptable. This would be the same as saying that using slave labor is ok, if you do it in a country that already accepts slavery anyway, and you are treating you slaves better.

> And by surfacing better information for queries, it can also help people finding what they want for things that are not censored.

Once the state is performing censorship there is no such thing as "better information". If all information is filtered by the government, then all information is suspicious.

> but do consider how lives of hundreds of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions.

I have profound sympathy for the victims of authoritarian regimes, and I absolutely do not believe that the way to help them is to collaborate with the very system that oppresses them. Pretending otherwise sounds like Newspeak to me.

> I know some people prefer to stick their noses up and hold what they perceive as the moral high ground

Maybe some people are like that, but this is unimportant. The important thing is this: you have to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. If we in the west allow our companies to collaborate with systems that hold values that are repugnant to our own, then we will become like those systems, not the other way around. There will be nowhere to hide. No thank you.

Let's not be naive: say what you want about the Chinese government, but they are not imbeciles. If they did not perceive Dragonfly as something that would help them maintain their repressive apparatus, they would not allow it.

Your problem is that you're seeing this issue as black and white, which never does good.

Hundreds of millions of people are "negatively affected" by their government and a concerned human being appealed to compassion. Realists can acknowledge that countries and companies will negotiate according to their own self-interest.

Google is right in sustaining that it's up to Chinese citizens to uphold said government to standards (whatever they will be): it's a technology company that wanted an access to the Chinese market, not a charity working for the good of foreign people. That's extremely practical, not something that's on a scale of black and white.

When employees define Dragonfly internals as disturbing I'm prone to honestly think that it wouldn't have helped in finding censored material. Smells like something management would say to justify a money-driven decision. Looking for a gray scale in choices like these is a distraction.

See no evil - Hear no evil - Speak no evil - Accept moral ambiguity

Let's respectfully disagree then. I firmly believe that this would have improved the status quo for everyone, and that a vocal minority who also firmly believe they are right prevented that.

They are kind of like Rorschach who refused to compromised in the last pages of Watchmen, even though it was the right thing to do (in my opinion).

I have no problem listening to the nuances. Please feel free to educate me, but give counter-arguments to what I wrote and spare me the clichés.

> I have profound sympathy for the victims of authoritarian regimes, and I absolutely do not believe that the way to help them is to collaborate with the very system that oppresses them. Pretending otherwise sounds like Newspeak to me.

I have relatives in China. Censorship is the least of their worries when the current Baidu monopoly is allowing promoted results that are sometimes flat-out evil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi).

I'm heartened by the response, though. Shares fell 14%, the government announced an investigation, and Baidu set aside $150m USD equivalent for people harmed by promoted results. Especially considering that the ad buyer was a government military hospital, that seems.. more just than I'd expect.

I guess it could be all for show, but I've seen worse behavior from Facebook here

Do you not realize that hundreds of millions of people deserve better than an authoritarian government? If you indeed want a better life for these people, censorship is something you must fight, not acquiesce to.

Agreed. And let’s not forgot that China used to have an open internet. It was not until the xinjiang riots around 2009 that google and others got blocked.

Not true, I was in China prior to 2009 and a VPN was required.

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