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Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

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Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#101

Post by Aunche »

carapace wrote: post #78
justicezyx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That dictatorship now has imprisoned close to 1 million people in Xinjiang. Sources please? Xinjiang is not that big, they have 20mm people in total, 1mm will be fractional big enough to make the street appear more empty...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/world/asia/china-xinjiang... "U.N. Panel Confronts China Over Reports That It Holds a Million Uighurs in Camps" Twenty seconds on a search engine...

That article has about as much intellectual honesty as claiming that the US is imprisoning Native Americans and poisoning them with drugs and alcohol.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#102

Post by cageface »

dnomad wrote: post #90
ansy wrote: post #45

At the risk of sounding nationalistic, I think companies in the United States and other democratic countries should reconsider any and all business relationships with authoritarian regimes like those in China and Russia. And I say regimes because most "companies" in these countries are really just instruments of the state. There may be money to be made, but not only are companies like Google tightening these authorit…

> At the risk of sounding nationalistic, I think companies in the United States and other democratic countries should reconsider any and all business relationships with authoritarian regimes like those in China and Russia. It just sounds stupid. Looking at the situation rationally it is the US that has in just the last 20 years (a) attacked several countries and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people and (…

You’re right that the USA has committed many sins of its own but freedom of expression in the USA is still protected to a degree unthinkable in places like China or Russia or Vietnam.

I can go on Facebook right now and post any opinion I like of my government. See how long you have to wait for a knock on your door if you try this in one of those other countries. The censorship demands made by China, for example, absolutely are of a different character and breadth than any made in the west.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#103

Post by astebbin »

doombolt wrote: post #92
_iyig wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local laws in East Berlin sanctioned the murder of Germans who sought to escape. Local laws in Vichy France required people to report hidden Jews to the police. Local laws in America under Jim Crow forbade interracial marriage, and denied Blacks their right to vote. Would you consider it unfortunate that some held these local laws to be unethical? I’d ascribe no more legitimacy to similar laws made by an unelected, a…

"sanctioned the murder of Germans who sought to escape" I have read a page on capital punishment in Germany, found no such claims. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_German...

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

Many similar cases.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#104

Post by throwaway2048 »

eigenvector wrote: post #86

A common refrain that you will likely soon hear from Google executives and board members is that it's better to have access to a censored Google than no Google at all. The problem is that when Google took a stance against censorship, users behind the Great Firewall or other censorship regimes knew that if they managed to reach www.google.com through VPN or other means they were getting uncensored results. Now, no one…

Yep you can guarantee that the Chinese Government will use its newfound leverage with Google to pressure it on a wide array of fronts.

What about global searches about Tienanmen square or Falun Gong, is Google going to walk away from billions and billions of profit to say no to that?

Its pretty clear they have no moral issue with censoring for profit.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#105

Post by throwaway2048 »

Aunche wrote: post #100
mobmobmob wrote: post #62

These US corporate elites are selling out US and the rest of the democratic free world in order to meet shareholder's expectations (and of course, MONEY!). And giving into a dictatorship and giving that dictatorship jobs, money, capital, knowledge, and power. That dictatorship now has imprisoned close to 1 million people in Xinjiang. Shame on you, Sundar Pichai. At least when Google was lead by Erich Schmidt, Google…

Shame on you for writing this comment on what's probably a Chinese-manufactured device. Even if you don't, you're definitely reaping the benefits of open trade with China. Google entering China doesn't help the PRC in any way, but buying Chinese goods definitely does.

It absolutely legitimizes the PRC's censorship of the internet further, and gives them massive leverage over Google.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#106

Post by TeMPOraL »

eigenvector wrote: post #86

A common refrain that you will likely soon hear from Google executives and board members is that it's better to have access to a censored Google than no Google at all. The problem is that when Google took a stance against censorship, users behind the Great Firewall or other censorship regimes knew that if they managed to reach www.google.com through VPN or other means they were getting uncensored results. Now, no one…

A corollary to what you wrote: maybe Google is the worst player to do that, because capabilities of this company create a moral hazard here - China knows what Google can do, and so they'll ask Google to do it (or else no market). A search company that does not have such surveillance infrastructure already in place couldn't be asked for such deep filtering.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#107

Post by buth_lika »

seventhtiger wrote: post #99
mstaoru wrote: post #98

For once, I am on Google's side with this one. Somewhat of a discourse. In the last years, "China and Russia" became a new racist norm against anything and everything there. My mom and dad are absolutely against totalitarianism, but their "cardinal sin" is that they were born in Russia and they lack the financial means to move to another country. For years, they can't even buy any good cheese because the cheese was "…

You're right. Here's food for thought: have sanctions ever resolved authoritarianism or dictatorship? Economic war should only be used to disable aggressive enemies, because it has never actually helped anyone better their human rights or political rights. In fact, among "passive" abusers of human rights we see that more contact with the rest of the world improves conditions.

Not partaking in evil IS the result. Any further ulitarian calculations are just rationalizations. You cannot predict the ultimate outcome of any course of action fully, but you can treat others like you want to be treated. If you wouldn't others to look the other way if you got disappeared, don't look the other way when people get disappeared. Period. Not because of how it affects world history, but because of how it affects you.

It's not our job to "fix China". It's like some abusive alcoholic -- it's basically their problem, but if you go out drinking with them, and hold their beer when they kill random strangers, and then continue the conversation like nothing happened, you're helping making it worse, and are direct party to normalizing it.

Companies don't have to pull out of China, they'd just have to speak up and never shut up, and China would kick them out. And maybe one day, when the hangover is particularly bad, there might be a hazy memory of an upright person saying "call me when you realized this isn't working".

When people protested against Hitler, it was with slogans such as "murder isn't politics". Likewise, cooperation with murderers isn't business.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#108

Post by dang »

mobmobmob wrote: post #62

These US corporate elites are selling out US and the rest of the democratic free world in order to meet shareholder's expectations (and of course, MONEY!). And giving into a dictatorship and giving that dictatorship jobs, money, capital, knowledge, and power. That dictatorship now has imprisoned close to 1 million people in Xinjiang. Shame on you, Sundar Pichai. At least when Google was lead by Erich Schmidt, Google…

You've copied and pasted this comment from a few days ago. That, plus the fact that it's written in high flamewar style, indicates an account that is using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed on HN, regardless of the ideology you're battling for/against, so I've banned this account until we get an indication that you want to use HN as intended. HN is intended for intellectual curiosity, not smiting enemies.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#109

Post by buth_lika »

c3534l wrote: post #2

It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. But even if we assume that there is no legal way for a company to operate ethically in China, is the world meant to close our borders to them entirely? 20% of the planet lives there and we do business with China every day when we buy something manufactured there, but do not feel morally required to boycott them on account of t…

> It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical.

It seems unfortunate to you, because you are not aware of the thought and research that went into this insight, and the roughly 100 million dead people.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#110

Post by dang »

denorm wrote: post #52
vkou wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last residential 'school' (which was aimed to do the same for First Nations people) in Canada closed in 1996, with little more then a hummm-hummm. Our shit stinks almost as much.

[flagged]

"Whataboutism" has become a tedious buzzword and is now pretty much a signal of offtopicness here.

The word does have some curious properties. Since it's nearly always used reflexively, it reproduces the phenomenon it criticizes. That makes it a word with anti-persuasive power, i.e. it refutes itself.

(Not picking on you personally! It's just a bit of a pest: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=whataboutism&sort=byDate&dateR...)

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