Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 436 posts

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

#411

Post by ionised »

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…

The US became the largest economy on Earth because it had 1700's era technology with which which to settle a colossal landmass rich in natural resources and with no real enemies to contend with, plus all the immigrants from all over the world to help make it a reality.

The US started a game of Civilization on easy mode.

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

#412

Post by zaarn »

brainfog wrote: post #363
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.

Hi, googler opposed to Maven here. I found out about this today, just like you. Fuck right off with your assumptions.

Are you planning to protest against this? Threaten to resign if google does not back off?

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

#413

Post by philipov »

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…

Despite the 15 minutes of outrage-entertainment it provided, it seems no one really cared about Equifax getting hacked either.

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

#414

Post by pytyper2 »

ehsankia wrote: post #386
pytyper2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember the "Don't Be Evil" campaign? Google literally rose to prominence with this as their slogan. I would expect a company whose slogan is "Don't Be Evil" to completely shun a country who wants censored search.

Following local laws does not imply you approve of it. That's like saying, if your company has business in a country that doesn't allow same-sex marriage, you as a company are against same-sex marriage too. They don't make the law, neither should they. It's not Google's job to decide how China runs its country. And offering legitimate users legitimate service is neither immoral nor greedy. The majority of Chinese peo…

Your first comparison is pretty much a poorly formed Straw man, shame on you. It's doing business with an immoral government, Google and every other business that helps China (Saudi, etc. insert country here) censor the internet is just as immoral as those who ask them to do the censoring. Simply because other companies do it and the ignorant people are 'ok' with it does not mean they get a moral pass. They enable an oppressive government simply for more ad revenue. It's evil because those in control will use it as a tool to spy on and manipulate the population, I know I know, this goes on everywhere. But again, this is the company whose slogan was "Don't be evil". Restricting the information that the population has access to is the first step in hiding information that might cause the readers to question the authoritarians legitimacy. See manipulation vs. persuasion, https://aeon.co/ideas/how-to-tell-the-difference-between-per..., China seeks to hide relevant information that would likely cause the readers to change their opinion of the leaders. What would happen if the entire country could read about Tienanmen Square, identify the military personnel that would have been in charge of those troops, then attempt to track familial wealth and document any misdeeds the perps did before the event and after? This is likely a situation they hope to avoid, not hiding porn or rap videos, they want the population to have no access to information that will help them research the government and its institutions. Why are you so passionate about this being ok? Reading your comments you seem like a shill for google. What information do you think they want to hide, what exactly will be censored, that will tell us their intentions. Looking forward to your response.

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

#415

Post by macspoofing »

pytyper2 wrote: post #414
ehsankia wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following local laws does not imply you approve of it. That's like saying, if your company has business in a country that doesn't allow same-sex marriage, you as a company are against same-sex marriage too. They don't make the law, neither should they. It's not Google's job to decide how China runs its country. And offering legitimate users legitimate service is neither immoral nor greedy. The majority of Chinese peo…

Your first comparison is pretty much a poorly formed Straw man, shame on you. It's doing business with an immoral government, Google and every other business that helps China (Saudi, etc. insert country here) censor the internet is just as immoral as those who ask them to do the censoring. Simply because other companies do it and the ignorant people are 'ok' with it does not mean they get a moral pass. They enable an…

>Your first comparison is pretty much a poorly formed Straw man, shame on you.

What is with this shaming? OP made a cogent, reasoned point. I don't necessarily agree, but it's not 'shameful'.

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

#416

Post by pnw_hazor »

sdkaufman wrote: post #382
jillesvangurp wrote: post #121

There are lots of tech companies active in countries like China, Russia, Iran, and other countries with varying ideas about privacy, human rights, etc. This generally requires complying with local legislation, whether you agree with that or not. Singling out Google for not opting to exclude a fifth of the population of this planet from their products is a bit overkill. I'd rather they offer choice to the Chinese peop…

> I'd rather they offer choice to the Chinese people on their terms than opting to not be in China at all. Very much agreed. And I'd add that by offering that choice they're making Chinese internet users strictly better off, rather than worse off. By operating in China, Google isn't making any _less_ information available to Chinese internet users, since Baidu, Bing etc are already censored anyway. If anything, it wi…

And Google gets to make money off the backs of people stuck in an ever darkening dystopian society.

Win.win.

Monsters.

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

#417

Post by pnw_hazor »

tanilama wrote: post #275
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>hyper-moralising over google's business decisions People are hyper moralizing because Google is hyper powerful. "With great power comes great responsibility". >google employees' attempts to sabotage the company's business prospects. Perhaps they are doing so because they see these as attemts to sabotage Google's mission: "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

It is because Google put that hyper moralising hat on itself. In their hay days, they crafted that hippy/liberal/sensible young alpha image to win customer approval, reducing government regulation and eat market shares against those faceless corporates. Now they are the new baddies in town, the image no longer does them any good. They will retire it by then and be a normal company.

No, they will concentrate their hyper-moralising and virtue signalling on the US.

China, et al, will get a pass.

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

#418

Post by joshuamorton »

thatcat wrote: post #399
bad_user wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People mistake privacy for security . Google has one of the most secure services on the Internet. At the same time Google is the biggest threat to privacy. These two statements are not mutually exclusive. People simply don't get what privacy is about.

Security is complicated. I think the point was that if you don't store the unnecessary data then that data is 100% secure.

Sure, but the corollary to that is that security is complicated. Do you really expect the average user to have a more secure system than what they would otherwise have. In other words, is a Gmail account more or less secure than what you would have otherwise.

I think the answer depends, but it certainly isn't always "less". There's some information that you have to store somewhere, and is having a world class security team who works to actively mitigate things like phishing better than storing it yourself?

Post reply on HN