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Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

theintercept.com

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Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#351

Post by betterunix2 »

the_grue wrote: post #342
betterunix2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure the Internet is a product of a free and liberal society? It may just be coincidence; America happened to be the largest economy on Earth when the Internet was developed. I would argue that the basic design of the Internet is the most efficient way to build a large-scale, general-purpose computer network; this is why it has subsumed or is in the process of subsuming every other system. Had China been the…

Is it a coincidence that USA was the largest economy on Earth? I don't think so. On the contrary, I think it became the most powerful country on Earth due to the free competition of talent and ideas, which is impossible without free speech. Besides, Internet, being as wide open to anonymity as it is, simply never would never have been developed in a country like China, it would be deemed too dangerous. They may compe…

Keep in mind that in 1776 when the Continental Congress declared independence, Britain was the largest economy in the world. America's declaration of independence lists out all the abuse of power and lack of freedom people endured under British rule. Despite all that, Britain had become the wealthiest country in human history at the time, commanding the most cutting-edge technology (the USA copied steam engines from the British) and having the most extensive system of trade to have ever existed up to then.

Sure, a measure of freedom is necessary to allow an economy to grow, but not nearly as much freedom as people enjoy in the USA. China is a case-in-point: their economy has rapidly expanded as the communist party has started to understand how far a bit of economic freedom goes. For all the freedoms people have in Japan, China managed to unseat Japan as the world's second-largest economy, and is on track to become the world's largest economy within our lifetimes.

China is not the USSR. China has embraced certain capitalist approaches -- like capital markets. The Chinese have figured out what the USSR never fully grasped: economic freedom is not the same thing as political freedom. The USSR tried to micromanage every aspect of the economy, but the Chinese have figured out that it is good enough to have a party member seated on the board of directors.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#352

Post by tomohawk »

cirenehc wrote: post #217
influx wrote: post #150

Google employees practically rioted when they found out their employer was trying to get a contract with the American Government, but will just cash their RSUs when they help the Chinese government censor its citizens. Sad.

The Chinese government is going to censor its citizens regardless though.

This is not about what the Chinese or any other government is doing. It is about the decisions of Google and certain employees of Google.

Deciding to not join with others in the national defense is a very divisive and political decision.

Deciding to aid totalitarian governments with censorship and other activities is likewise divisive and political.

Deciding to back one major political party, but not the other - similarly divisive and political.

If they didn't want the criticism, they would just take the bucks and do the business for whoever is paying. They are at least giving the appearance of making these decisions on ideological grounds. This moves them more into the arena of being an political organization. In which case, saying you're just doing business is pretty lame.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#353

Post by mrep »

influx wrote: post #150

Google employees practically rioted when they found out their employer was trying to get a contract with the American Government, but will just cash their RSUs when they help the Chinese government censor its citizens. Sad.

This is a leak. It is likely most employees didn't even know about this project until it just now hit the news. We will probably know more in the coming months if/when the broader employee population finds out about it and reacts to it.

Shit, I don't know about 99% of the projects my company has been working until they hit the news.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#354

Post by mindfulhack »

dan-robertson wrote: post #340
quotemstr wrote: post #265

The hypocrisy of western activist types on this issue is astounding. One week, they demand that tech companies across the US censor what they find "harmful", but the next week, they condemn the Chinese for doing exactly the same thing for content they find "harmful". Either you're in favor of free speech or you're just partial about which content you want to censor. The activist crowd in the west lost all moral stand…

I think there are two things to say. The first is that you aren’t comparing like for like. In the Chinese case, the Chinese government gets to choose what is censored and any search engine has to censor the same things, whereas in the US it would presumably be Google that gets to decide what to censor and so someone could conceivably go to another search engine to avoid it. It’s also worth noting that even if search…

There really is a way to balance these two things: you don't censor outright, but you just don't rank it highly. So it's not easy to find, but the moment someone searches about something, or spends more and more time narrowing down results in search of something that matches a piece of data - if they really want to find data pertaining to their query - then in the index they can.

It might result in a resources problem (or storage and computing power), but theoretically it could even exhaustively apply to spam. Even spam would be indexed in a radical free speech database, but with good algorithms it'll just take longer to find because a very small (almost zero) people in the world algorithmically denote it as content of worth.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#355

Post by realradicalwash »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #310
quotemstr wrote: post #265

The hypocrisy of western activist types on this issue is astounding. One week, they demand that tech companies across the US censor what they find "harmful", but the next week, they condemn the Chinese for doing exactly the same thing for content they find "harmful". Either you're in favor of free speech or you're just partial about which content you want to censor. The activist crowd in the west lost all moral stand…

Google isn't really in favor of free speech, they fired James Damore for stating quite mild facts that are quite known among clinical psychologists.

they fired Damore, because he was pushing an agenda. he presented those 'mild facts' selectively and then used the selection to argue for something bigger that is very questionable/false, i.e. that women have no place at top STEM positions

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#356

Post by HaHa31 »

quotemstr wrote: post #265

The hypocrisy of western activist types on this issue is astounding. One week, they demand that tech companies across the US censor what they find "harmful", but the next week, they condemn the Chinese for doing exactly the same thing for content they find "harmful". Either you're in favor of free speech or you're just partial about which content you want to censor. The activist crowd in the west lost all moral stand…

Very few people believe in absolute free speech; few people think it is okay to falsely say someone is a paedophile, which gets them lynched. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44709103 Absolute free speech is very rarely the actual debate. The actual debate starts after we all, mostly, agree that people shouldn't be lynched or defamed from comments.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#357

Post by mindfulhack »

squarefoot wrote: post #309

As much as I don't like Google, lets not forget that corporations aren't subject to human morality, which is the number one problem in our current economic model. All companies soon or later become "evil" if that translates into more profits. That evil has nothing to do with the biblical evil or a comic book villain concept ("Muhaha, I'll conquer the world!") but rather with total lack of empathy which in a human is…

But they are subject to the law, which I know ≠ human morality, but it is a machine that our economic model does interact with in the real world.

And on this, maybe there could be international / trans-national legal rules (enforced by major legal jurisdictions like US/EU) that could ban companies who economically operate in the west (with all our human rights freedoms), from breaking these human rights institutions in the east (i.e. even outside the US/EU jurisdictions) - forcing them to choose between one region's human rights standards or the other.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#358

Post by amaccuish »

mywacaday wrote: post #63
throw_way8882 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eh.... I think I agree in principle with you, BUT something doesn't sit quite right. I'm currently in China (hence the throwaway account) and I think any level of collaboration with their government on restricting access to free information for the Chinese people should ABSOLUTELY BE CHALLENGED. Not doing so prolongs their government's ability to not reform vs getting caught in middle-income trap from lack of 0 to 1…

This is the key comment for me. A person in China has an opinion that does not agree with the government and feels so threatened voicing an opinion that would't merit a second thought in the EU/US that they have to go anonymous. How can we be comfortable with google or any company going to China and effectively saying yup, thats ok.

Yes, because he's in a foreign country and potentially breaking their rules. He should wait and post when you're back.

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#359

Post by [deleted] »

smsm42 wrote: post #298
DINKDINK wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in general Google protects user data How is storing and cataloging reams of private data 'protecting' it? If your significant other was constantly noting every friend you talked to, every purchase you made, videotaping your every move, would you call that protecting them? To protect a user's data, it shouldn't even be collected in the first place. I think a better choice of words is that Google does a better job at…

I think the parent meant that they are very vigilant about not giving access to this data to anybody who is not affiliated with Google. Which makes a lot of sense for both business and privacy reasons - you don't want to let others access your valuable assets, and the backlash for leaking out the data usually is much larger than for just having it. Nobody cared about Equifax knowing everything about everyone until it…

[deleted]

Re: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

#360

Post by mindfulhack »

orbital-decay wrote: post #87
quirkot wrote: post #68

Small reminder that companies must submit all source code for review if they do business in China

And?.. Many companies "submit" all their source code to anyone interested, regardless of doing business in China. Just saying. Among closed-source ones, Microsoft and many others have decades-long history of submitting the code for governments to review. Does it really matter for anything? Or you mean even the code which doesn't leave company servers? Do you have a source then, because I'd have a hard time believing…

That's news to me, and if true, stronger evidence for the likelihood of NSA / government backdoors.
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