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Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

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Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#91

Post by sheepmullet »

tomc1985 wrote: post #64
aviv wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He represents free speech. He is just one of several conservative leaning voices silenced by Big Tech in recent months. One of the most troubling aspects of the Alex Jones ban is the obvious coordination among Apple, Facebook, YouTube and others to completely take him off their platforms at the exact same time. How this doesn't bother HN is crazy. It's truly crazy how YouTube takes down Alex Jones easily but ElsaGate…

If FANG were government institutions then yes I think a lot of the people here would be alarmed. But they aren't -- they are private companies, who can suppress or promote whatever they want. It doesn't matter whether or not you or I or anyone else likes it, that's just how it is. The courts have affirmed corporate personhood, and their resulting freedom of speech, and in this case they are free to suppress things th…

> There is an interesting legal argument

Back when we had private company towns they tried to restrict speech claiming they owned the roads, sidewalks, parks, etc.

They were stopped by the Supreme Court who ruled it was a de-facto public space.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#92

Post by dijit »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #82
kodablah wrote: post #20

It is simply not possible to both cooperate with the Chinese (or, to a lesser extent, any other) government against its citizens and remain transparent. Part of this type of cooperation includes a requirement by the government for opacity. This is easier for less-principled and/or more closed companies. You can only not-cooperate transparently (and even then, only sometimes). The real problem is you can't have a we'l…

> Just stop requiring growth at all costs, chalk up the China (and military) market as a loss, and continue operating at your massively profitable status quo. This is what Google did initially; instead of censoring themselves like the Chinese government demanded, they opted to leave the Chinese market entirely. But that's almost ten years ago now; meanwhile, the Chinese economy / GDP has doubled, its connected popula…

> This is what Google did initially; instead of censoring themselves like the Chinese government demanded, they opted to leave the Chinese market entirely.

This is the narrative that Google is successfully pushing; the truth is that they pulled out due to repeated hacking attempts.

Google did have a censored china version of its search engine.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#93

Post by TangoTrotFox »

tomc1985 wrote: post #78
TangoTrotFox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you may genuinely believe what you're saying, I think many people saying as much are doing so out of cognitive dissonance. For instance, imagine if these tech companies decided to start removing all negative discussion of Trump. There would be quite the outrage, and very understandably so. I say understandably so not because of the topic in question, but because these companies have become monoliths of speech i…

But there is no framework in the law for addressing gargantuan companies directly. Sure the government can take potshots with antitrust suits or financial investigations or whatever, but short of a black swan-type event-slash-legal-scandal there really aren't a lot of legal tools at the US gov's disposal to crush outsized corporations. Saying "companies are too big, we have to do something about them" is making a poi…

Mostly agreed, but that's not the issue right? Whether people are "alarmed" or not (to use your phrasing) by something has little to do with whether it's legal or not. The reason some, and I think most, people of certain views are not alarmed is not because the behavior is acceptable, or legal, but because the "victims" are. Engage in the exact same behavior with different "victims" and they would swap their views 180 degrees.

However, this is a major problem because people of both 'sides' of the issue engage in the exact same behavior, ignoring bad behavior when the victims are people they dislike. In our little parallel world where the victims are swapped, suddenly those currently "alarmed" by the behavior would be appealing to "Well, it's not technically illegal - so whatever." This results in bad behavior never being constrained because, so long as society is sufficiently divided, somewhere around half of people will be okay with even quite awful actions.

On corporations, I do disagree with you however. I see no reason to think that the trend of megacorps will end. On the contrary, I see no reason to think that they will not continue to grow in power and influence until they are effectively more powerful than governments and eventually may even begin to supplant governments as the effective ruling forces of the world, even if governments remain as a proxy.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#94

Post by ryanlol »

dijit wrote: post #92
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just stop requiring growth at all costs, chalk up the China (and military) market as a loss, and continue operating at your massively profitable status quo. This is what Google did initially; instead of censoring themselves like the Chinese government demanded, they opted to leave the Chinese market entirely. But that's almost ten years ago now; meanwhile, the Chinese economy / GDP has doubled, its connected popula…

> This is what Google did initially; instead of censoring themselves like the Chinese government demanded, they opted to leave the Chinese market entirely. This is the narrative that Google is successfully pushing; the truth is that they pulled out due to repeated hacking attempts. Google did have a censored china version of its search engine.

Yeah, they pulled out just days after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora became public

Censorship story is obviously complete bs

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#95

Post by est »

helloindia wrote: post #90
est wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A search engine as an app? You type some phrases into an app, the app displays results in a webview, you click the SERP, then what? a browser opens? Why don't you use the browser on your phone directly for searching? That's why I think Google is working on some ROM feature, not an app. Or maybe there are some misudnerstanding from the "source" If it's an app it's doomed to fail.

Are you aware of the fact that Google has search apps on both iOS Appstore and Android Playstore? If you want to know who is using such apps, look up the reviews on them.

Did you mean com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox and id284815942 ?

These are not exactly web page search. It need deep integration with account(gmail), maps (with up-to-dateupdated POI), schedules, music, movie reviews, news.

It covered much more than just search. I am not sure google can pull that off the same app in China. It will be very unlikely.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#96

Post by dalbasal »

kodablah wrote: post #20

It is simply not possible to both cooperate with the Chinese (or, to a lesser extent, any other) government against its citizens and remain transparent. Part of this type of cooperation includes a requirement by the government for opacity. This is easier for less-principled and/or more closed companies. You can only not-cooperate transparently (and even then, only sometimes). The real problem is you can't have a we'l…

First, writing off China isn't that easy. It's a big market and a growth market. Soon it will be the clear number 1. Opting out of china is part way to opting out of being a global business.

2nd is the nature of the best online businesses. The big online cash cows operate on market/niche dominance. A search engine with 5% of Google's search volume does not generate 5% of Google's revenue. Far from it. A social network with 5% of the people you know is a totally different beast to Facebook. An operating system (eg Android) either has a large market share, or it does not have an ecosystem.

Size, market share and such are relevant to these businessess well beyond the simple "economies of scale" rationale. They are not going sacrifice this for "don't be evil."

3rd is that by denying governments, Google & FB would be saying "we're allowed but you aren't."

FB & Google track and use all sorts of customer data for their own commercial reasons. If it is a privacy violation for the Chinese/US government to see/use this data, why is it OK for Google & FB to use this data?

FB decides who should see which article. This is done algorithmically, optimizing for FBs goals. "Old media" had a code of journalistic ethical guidelines, justifying content decisions. FB does not. Why is it OK to widely circulate a (for example) totally false article in order to achieve FBs commercial goals, but not to achieve the Chinese governments "societal harmony" goals?

The NYT could answer that question. They'd have journalistic ethic reasons for not allowing governments to influence content. FB can't. It doesn't.

Btw, what is true for China is true for other countries too with variations and degrees.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#97

Post by icebraining »

dingo_bat wrote: post #81

Since Google has compiled with EU censorship why is this a big deal anymore? Or are we admitting to having double standards when it comes to China?

I don't remember Google's plans in the EU being shrouded in secrecy like these ones.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#98

Post by scarface74 »

Dagwoodie wrote: post #29
threatofrain wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly? Scarface is saying that the refusal to promote a message is also part of free speech, and an easier case than the refusal to serve gay customers. At best your response is to ask those who have sympathy towards gay people, "Why don't you get angry at laws which suggest that businesses have to serve gay people, even if their religious beliefs tell them that homosexuality is a sin?" I also wouldn't be surprised…

The baker comparison doesn't work. You don't see one guy or even three companies in Colorado controlling 99% of the messages going on cakes, globally, like you do with social media speech on Google/Facebook/Twitter platforms in California. Whether you like it or not, they are monopolies who are coordinating attacks on conservatives by stifling speech that is by and large perfectly legal in the US. Very concerning.

If you are completely dependent on exposure through Google, Facebook, and Twitter, you're doing it wrong. I read about plenty of bloggers who lost half thier traffic the day Google Reader shut down for instance. Wasn't their a clickbait company that went out of business due to an algorithm change on Google?

Even if you aren't controversial, you are just one of millions of people trying to get your ideas out. You're going to languish in obscurity unless you have an alternate means of promoting yourself.

No one "stifled" Alex Jones' speech. His podcast is still being published on his own site like it always was and you can still add it to your podcast app of choice.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#99

Post by scarface74 »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #67
threatofrain wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly? Scarface is saying that the refusal to promote a message is also part of free speech, and an easier case than the refusal to serve gay customers. At best your response is to ask those who have sympathy towards gay people, "Why don't you get angry at laws which suggest that businesses have to serve gay people, even if their religious beliefs tell them that homosexuality is a sin?" I also wouldn't be surprised…

That's a typical but significant misrepresentation of the bakery case. The baker was/is completely willing to serve gay individuals in any capacity aside from creating customized cakes for gay weddings. He would have been fine with the gay couple buying absolutely anything in the store, including pre-made cakes that could be used for a wedding, and he also offered to create customized goodies for any other service in…

And in the case of Apple - the first company that took action against Jones - they didn't block access to his website or podcast. They just decided not to index it.

Edit:

To clarify that Apple doesn’t host the RSS feed. It just indexes it like Google indexes web pages. The RSS feed is self hosted on another server.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#100

Post by darpa_escapee »

threatofrain wrote: post #38
darpa_escapee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let this be a lesson to us all. If you blatantly violate terms of service, there's no amount of harassing families of school shooting victims that will get your platform back.

Banning people like Alex Jones won't unharass those parents either. People around the country still think that those parents lied about the death of their children in order to score financial or political gain. And what exactly is Alex Jones' brand of conservatism? Does it involve a narrative of white extinction and false black victimhood? Climate change as a conspiracy? Obama is a Muslim who isn't even a US citizen?…

You should ask someone who bemoans his removal as censorship against conservatives.

> People around the country still think that those parents lied about the death of their children in order to score financial or political gain.

Who made money originally selling them this lie and then perpetuating it?

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