Somehow I think the Chinese people are better off with access to Google than without. It’s not like Google is actively developing next gen censorship and oppression technology by applying a url blacklist.
> Somehow I think the Chinese people are better off with access to Google than without.
I think the Chinese people are better off without the Chinese government having access to Google. Google is at it's core an advertising and surveillance company. Its true customers are not the users but the advertisers. Political advertising (AKA propaganda) would only get more powerful in China with Google as an outlet.
Possible. But it will also mean that Google probably does the same in other countries and you should not think you would be exempt from this.
It also does justify and support censorship Chinese people are subjected to. You can argue that is not up to Google to judge the chinese government and that might be correct. It still cooperates with the regime, so the accusation of supporting censorship is valid.
> It still cooperates with the regime, so the accusation of supporting censorship is valid.
Google is following the local laws, like they try to do everywhere. That doesn't make the Chinese government any more of a "regime" than the US government.
Which doesn't even need to make many laws like that because companies like Google and FB will happily comply [0], with what they expect might ruffle some feathers [0] before having the regulation forced on them.
> Google is following the local laws, like they try to do everywhere.
If only that was true. They routinely fight against government rulings in democratic countries because they can. For example, fines from European Union. They don't simply rollover and pay the fines rather exhaust all measures to try and avoid it.
All the while they will rollover in China because that might hurt their chances of getting into a rather lucrative market.
Part of being a democracy means that Google is free to contest any rulings. Also, how do you know that Google isn't negiotiating with the Chinese government?
"Just following the rules" is a poor excuse when the rules are obviously, unequivocally evil. We established that at Nuremberg, if not before.
Someone's going to say that letting companies make moral judgments is a slippery slope. But someone's gotta do it. I don't claim access to universal truth, but some things are clearly wrong.
Lots of things are unequivocally evil. Rape is evil. Genocide is evil. If you think they're okay, you are wrong.
I don't claim universal moral authority. Lots of things are complicated. Some things aren't. Morality can be relative, and there's some interesting philosophical discussion to be had there, but eventually you have to take a stand on something.
Sure, anyone can say anything is morally acceptable. That doesn't make them right. The fact that different opinions exist does not mean that morality is meaningless.
> Just saying its wrong/right its useless without any concrete action behind it.
Of course. That's why I think concrete action should be taken. In this case, Google should not support totalitarian government censorship. I'm honestly not sure what your point was here.
For starters, do you actually believe that, or are you just playing devil's advocate?
Discussing the definition of evil can certainly be an enlightening exercise, and people have been writing about it for thousands of years. But if, say, you see a guy roofie a stranger's drink, you don't sit back and ponder whether the rape he's planning has meaning in the grand sense. You do something about it. Or at least I hope you do.
> For starters, do you actually believe that, or are you just playing devil's advocate?
I do actually believe morality is essentially a preference, like taste for chocolate. I have read some works arguing the opposite; I did not find them convincing, as very few presented any kind of evidence (scientific or otherwise).
Moral relativism is the agnostic position, anything else must be supported by evidence, or it's just faith.
> if, say, you see a guy roofie a stranger's drink, you don't sit back and ponder whether the rape he's planning has meaning in the grand sense. You do something about it. Or at least I hope you do.
This question arises from the confusion that moral universalists get into due to their own position. They assume the universally shared moral value that if two things have equal worth (in this case, my morality and the roofier's), one must treat them the same. But one shouldn't assume such shared values, let alone with moral relativists.
I can recognize that my morality is no "better" than the roofier's, and still stop him, just because I want to. A football player doesn't have to assume they are more worthy of winning to try to score more than their opponents.
Yes, I don't sit bank and ponder because I won't be able to know his true intention (because he is not me). I can only response based on what I think about the situation. If I think its evil I might try to stop but if I think its not than might I not. There no one true objective answer. Ultimately its boil down to my preference.
>That doesn't make the Chinese government any more of a "regime" than the US government.
They are both "regimes", if you're American. Are you British perhaps?
From Wikipedia:
"Webster's definition states that the word régime refers simply to a form of government, while Oxford English Dictionary defines regime as "a government, especially an authoritarian one"."
Also from Wikipedia, the sentence right before the one you quoted:
> While the word régime originates as a synonym for any type of government, modern usage has given it a negative connotation, implying an authoritarian government or dictatorship.
And that's by far the most common context for using the term. Barely anybody uses "regime" as a neutral term, it's usually used to denounce a government/administration as "bad/illegitimate/not democratic". For the same reason "regime change" is called like that to give it a semblance of being a legitimate course of action to "build democracy", while a forced "government change" suddenly doesn't sound all that nice anymore.
Google also drops child pornography and copyright-infringing search results.
It's a quality you can dislike, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a search engine with anywhere near the same order of magnitude of quality that doesn't adhere to these rules also. DDG does. Yahoo does.
For a corporation, to refrain from working with the government is to be hounded by the government. That's semi-incompatible with providing services.
I guess Google would be better off building a technology that comprehensively defeats any attempts of censorship? That way Chinese users will also have google, but an unrestricted. Maybe by becoming openly hostile to China in the most direct sense, like recognizing Taiwan as the only China. Google has resources to do it.
How long until Google will (be forced to) feed back information about searches and visited websites* into China's social scoring/citizens score system and will thereby actively help the government in their effort to oppress any dissent?
"url blacklist" is a gross oversimplification of Dragonfly. If it was that simple Google would already be back in China. It would be naive to think that China isn't making sophisticated demands of Google and that they won't continue to make more now that Google has morally backtracked.
You're absolutely correct. The Party don't want us to access that tiny percentage of Google results that are political. Yet most in the west want us to have fuck-all. It's good intention. But the result is even worse.
No. No it's not better. Half-truths are worse than outright lies. The difference between my parent's generation and my generation of Chinese is that my generation actually believes the Party whereas my parent's generation take everything the Party say with a huge dose of skepticism. It's not that the current generation is any dumber but rather the Party has gotten a lot smarter about censorship to give the illusion of truth. The most insidious lies are those built on selective "truth". There is a reason why you are asked to not just tell the truth but also the whole truth when you give your testimony in court.
Another question: if they do all this just to make the Chinese government happy (to earn more money), what is done to make the USA government happy (to earn more money)?
How should I trust that they won't "sell" my personal data to a government paying the most for that? How should I trust such an entity which makes the government happy, not the people? Are we really just the product sold to the people who have power?
It's hard to avoid Google totally as many of the emails I send are stored later on Google's servers, even if I don't send it from a Google account.
"Don't be evil" should rather be changed to "Don't be evil (whatever makes money is fine)".
At the same time China switched off the corruption AI, the rumor says that because it was too efficient in tracking the officials. If Google supports such a system, what would be next? Covering for selling children?
On the other hand, when Nazis were making the death camps, many companies happily provided lots of help, all for money. Seems like for too many stakeholders the money is the only thing that matters, not the people. Even if this is behind "don't be evil" faded unreadable flag.
I'm not living in the USA, should I assume that Google will work with my government to do evil against me?
Appreciate that you have more rights. Look at the Huawei saga where the CFO was able to sue for false imprisonment in Canada and compare it to those Canadians arrested/affected by Chinese government in retaliation for Canada arresting the Huawei CFO.
> The claim states that Meng's rights under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms were violated. Meng, who remains under house arrest in Vancouver, suffered "mental distress, anxiety and loss of liberty", it says. The claim seeks declarations that her Charter rights were infringed, various damages and costs, all unspecified. [https://www.afr.com/news/politics/world/huawei-cfo-files-sui...]
Can you? I’m not the original commenter, but in my country (South Korea) every person is expected to have a gmail account :-(
I have a google account, but it’s not gmail and people always get confused...
We have to use Google Classroom for submitting homework, Google Docs for collaboration of team projects (sometimes MS Teams), Google Blah for something else... heck we even need a Google/FB account for upvoting a president e-petition!
Do you have any tips for living without trusting Google/FB?
Could it be an issue local to your school / university? Frankly, I can understand many institutions using those services simply because they actually do provide convenience.
I live in Korea and haven't really noticed anything like the "have a gmail account or be excluded from life" dichotomy you have described. Not sure what "upvoting a president e-petition" is, but you don't need neither FB nor Google for voting in elections.
While the Google Classroom thing is local to our school, the general expectation that everyone has an gmail account is present and real, as far as I experienced.
For example, the reason why I made a Google account was because one of my academies was only willing to share videos with Google Drive. Also, most of my friends (even ones that are aware of this kind of problems) have a Google account for similar reasons :-(
I think it’s partially due to the fast spread of Android smartphones (and it’s high market share) circa 2010 ~ 2012 when you were mandated to make a Gmail account to download apps from the Play store.
While off topic, the e-petition I said about is actually pretty popular, after the new government came in in 2017. (I’m talking about “국민청원”, if you read Korean.)
To express your opinion, you need a Google/FB account.
Disclaimer: Since we're from different countries (I'm from the US), I realize that I am necessarily speaking from a position of privilege. If I tell an employer here that I deleted my Facebook account, they'll usually understand because we're all seen the drama in our local news. Still, if you want to cut ties with Google/FB, I think it's best to start small.
Basically, you can start by coming up with a list of those Google/FB services that you use, and then figure out what alternatives (ideally open source, or self hosted) might be able to replace them. Don't feel pressured to do this all at once, just keep an eye out for alternatives and give them a try as time permits. The idea is not to keep all your eggs in one basket: what happens if Google decides one day to delete your account? You should ideally be able to brush that off and keep going.
If you're technically minded, a lot of those services can be self hosted on a cheap VPS. Granted means you're now trusting your VPS provider, but there are ways to mitigate much of that risk and since you're in greater control, it's easy to spread out. This is a good place to start:
For email, I personally use a privacy-conscious provider, because I find self-hosting email is more complicated than I care to keep up with. I'm using Fastmail and have been pretty happy with them so far. It helps that they're not ad-supported, and their entire pitch is built on that trust, so I feel that they're a bit less likely to violate it; the PR backlash would ruin them. To each their own though.
And of course... some of the big services are genuinely useful! Even though I've reduced my reliance on Google, I still have that old account for the small handful of places where it's needed (rare) or where I personally find that it's the best choice on the market (Maps and Docs) which makes the risk worth it for some of my tasks. Just because I use their services sometimes though doesn't mean they're the only option; by this point I've got an alternative lined up for everything on my list.
Each task is independent, and each risk its own. Take the time, do the research, and learn to make your own informed decisions. You'll be glad you did.
When it comes to being accepting of people who distrust and/or don't use mainstream things (like Google/FB) for reasons that sound tinfoil related to laymen the US is definitely in a position of privilege.
... you're right. I chose my words poorly there; I was meaning to call out a potential difference in culture (not knowing anything about South Korea) but it came out wrong. Apologies!
Thanks, I’ll try :-)
I guess that the problem is that we generally don’t understand deleting accounts for privacy/data? Everyone is concerned, but nobody would ever delete it :-(
Trusting something goes beyond using it. You can use a product you don’t trust if you have to. It just means you’ll have to be a lot more careful with how you use it and have no expectations of privacy.
It means you don’t let your guard down and don’t give that service anything more than you need to make it work.
What I’m saying is to never give Google or FB something and assume they would always be on your side. Assume the worst even if you continue to use their services.
They are for-profit organizations. They will make happy those who pay more. Simple rule of capitalism. Don't know why some are still wondering about this.
What do you mean? There's a difference between for profit and for profit only. If we set aside all moral and ethical arguments in favor of money then where do we stop with this? Why give corporations only free pass. Can we not just pass thugs, dubious professionals as just plain old capitalism. This argument and line of thinking is absurd and very animalistic.
Yes. I think @tzfld meant that the current system of capitalism encourages (or rather, is very late to discourage) these companies skip over "moral and ethical arguments in favor of money" and that they are turning quite "animalistic"
> On the other hand, when Nazis were making the death camps, many companies happily provided lots of help, all for money
Was it all because of money? Wouldn't they (the companies and their executives) have faced consequences if they turned down an "offer" by the Nazi government?
You're generally right but I don't think bringing Nazis into this discussion is a good idea.
I think the parent comment was referring to IBM in the Holocaust. Foreign powerful companies that would really have little to lose for not helping the Nazi regime.
a more cogent rebuttal is to point out that US companies like IBM didn't really need to do business with Nazi Germany for their survival.
I trust Google to not be generally evil, but when they still do something evil or with bad consequence we should still hold them (and any other capitalist behemoth) accountable.
interesting, I will take a look. Granted, I would still imagine that it is not the same type of censorship that the PRC is pushing. In the states, I can still talk badly about the government and trump, in particular, that is in no way the case in China.
I've been online for around 25 years and figured I know most of the nasty stuff going on.
But that documentary made me question my understanding of the Internet and had me realize how much of our "reality" is nowadays mostly perceived and shaped through social media. If it doesn't exist on social media, it might as well never have happened.
To give one of the worst examples: Pictures of "enhanced interrogations", performed by US soldiers on "terrorist suspects", are being deleted from social media with the reasoning "This is a known torture method by ISIS, deleted for being terrorist propaganda" because these Phillipino moderators, many just young students, often completely lack any real context or understanding of what they see.
As we discuss this Facebook is meeting with the government. Politicians are concerned that Internet comments were used to 'manipulate' the previous election. The suggested solution is verifying the identity of online commentators.
interesting, i would actually be in favor of that on FB and other mainstream social networks and I would not consider that censorship in the traditional sense.
I agree that government concerning its self with tracking and quantifying the political views of citizens is not censorship. I find it disturbing and reminiscent of the German Democratic Republic.
I think we always approach news like this with the concept that it is, indeed, evil.
Especially when it concerns censorship, which us in the democratic world view as paramount to freedom.
I'm not convinced that China is outright evil. I think they're just taking a different approach. Speech can do good, and it can do very bad (as we've seen in the information age - people are increasingly prone to believing falsehoods).
While I don't agree with China's approach to speech, I can't say that they're straight out evil b/c of it.
For those that might reply, I do know that they've done terrible things - and you have to admit - our country has too.
If you ban Winnie the Pooh because you don't like a meme... I think it is pretty close their approach to speech is purely about self interest for those in power.
I think there is a dramatic difference in money being speech, and the government feeling the need to shut down Winnie the Pooh.
I still have speech even if money talks too....
There is no free speech if Winnie the Pooh is where a government draws the line... and I think it is disingenuous to claim that money is speech in America, is that implying it's not in China? Those in power in the government certainly work to enrich themselves. Money is a motivator there too.
I can't understand why people believe that when Google compromise with the Chinese government on censorship things will become worse in the long run. As if it's okay to put Chinese in a position where only not-that-good search engines like bing are available - some people probably will consider that OK because they do not live in mainland China so they simply wouldn't have to care. To be fair, that's just hypocrisy.
As for the censorship bit - you guys really believe that when the US one day do the same thing as the current mainland government do Google will not compromise, aren't you?
Tbh their greatest product in my opinion was their marketing in hiding that fact for as long as they did. It’s so effective that even after all of this the vast majority of its users still view google favorably.
I wonder how much of that has to do with FB also existing and being considered the much worse offender, thus acting like a "lightning rod" for pretty much the majority of privacy issues?
Can people stop sharing paywalled content that can easily be shared from literally any other source for free? If it's primary content then that's one thing, but generic news is not something that needs to be shared with a paywall link
Given the increasing orthodoxy of non-chinese search results, I think Google is developing in a wrong direction and that it needs more competition.
Funny, but Google has indeed turned its most important service to something that serves selected content.
In that case it should really be responsible for its content in my opinion.