Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#131

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 3:29 PM UTC

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…

With the changing demographics in America, I doubt we will ever go back to the Trump style populism where if you’re not a White Evangelical straight Christian you aren’t a “true American”.

I’m Black, live in a town that was famously a “sundown town” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town) up until the mid 80s and even here the demographics and mindsets are changing. We are still very much the minority but my son’s classmates and thier parents welcome him with open arms into thier homes.

True the county is overwhelmingly Republican but they are more Romney/Bush style Republicans thsn Trump populists.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#132

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #93

tomc1985 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 18…

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.

20 years ago, Yahoo was king, Amazon was a minor bookseller, Microsoft was thought to be unstoppable, Apple was nearly bankrupt and BlockBuster was king of video rentals.

15 years ago MySpace was king.

The old guard especially in technology can get “disrupted” quickly.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#133

Post by AndrewKemendo » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

I said this on another thread, but it bears repeating:

If you do interesting or novel technical work with a Chinese company, especially on things like AI, it will be used by the People's Liberation Army and the Ministry for State Security. You can almost guarantee it.

So if you don't want to work on technology used by a military, then don't work on technology with any Chinese based company.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#134

Post by throw2016 » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

394549 wrote: post #130

throw2016 wrote: post #51

This disproportionate focus on China is being used as a distraction from the all encompassing surveillance currently run by the NSA, GCHQ and Google, Facebook and others which is a far bigger and ongoing threat to democracy and citizens here. China's actions are limited to China. There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies or protests against the NSA. This forum itself has its fair…

> There is hardly any activism against the invasive surveillance of SV companies Wut? It's obvious that's not true at all , and really easy to prove. Just read this NY Times article from yesterday, about how privacy activists got a law passed in California to reign in those same SV companies: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/magazine/facebook-google-... .

This only proves the point, the whole perspective of the nytimes piece is a lone 'accidental' activist fighting against the system facing pushback at every stage.

Where are the software engineers of SV who work for these companies and implement these programs in the activism, where are the dissenters, where are all the folks who are outraged about China on every article?

Without mainstream activism against surveillance capitalism, NSA surveillance, secret courts, secret processes and secret orders surveillance will become a dragnet few will be able to escape from.

How can we hold China accountable for the same things we are doing? The least that can be done by the tech community is try to get Snowden back with full honors, but like Assange he lies discarded with zero activism, and even demonized in some sections of the press as a 'traitor' and here we pretend to care about these things.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#135

Post by icebraining » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #125

icebraining wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh, can you point me to a list of all the links google has censored in the EU?

No, because those aren't plans.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#136

Post by client4 » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

paradite wrote: post #83

client4 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice reference of CNN populist talking points. Anyone with a laptop, agenda, and free time can work to sway public opinion. For instance, your account is 28 days old. Not to exclude you from the conversation, but poor comments from new accounts does look dubious. Ardy42 is new as of 47 days

Not to exclude you from the conversation, but your account is newer than mine and your recent comments look dubious.

3 years is a far cry from 30 days.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#137

Post by client4 » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 7:22 PM UTC

chosenbreed wrote: post #84

vmlinuz wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably this is Project Fi (fi.google.com) rather than Google Fiber...

> Presumably this is Project Fi (fi.google.com) rather than Google Fiber... Interesting. Hadn't come across it before.

Yes, phone autocorrected Fi fiber...edited it but soon enough it seems. Google Fi is available in the US with certain phones. I got the Pixel 2 specifically for it... otherwise I'd probably have the Huawei P20

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#138

Post by darpa_escapee » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #128

scarface74 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally, Masterpiece was about being compelled to make specific cakes. Customers weren't banned from all cakes or anything. In that way it resembles demonetizing specific YoyTube videos more than banning entire channels. YouTube hosts videos. Apple doesn’t host podcast. Apple didn’t feel “compelled” to scrape Alex Jones podcast.

Well, the analogy to Masterpiece is that Apple is not compelled to list any given podcast. And, applying the Masterpiece ruling narrowly, Apple just needs to be careful that a pattern of discrimination against a protected group isn't established in its decisions. But that's all legal reasoning. The original point is that people should be allowed to speak and the best response is better speech, not censorship, even if…

You're aware of how Masterpiece was ruled, correct? It seems that you're implying that Masterpiece was found to be acting in accordance to the law, but that's not what the ruling was based on or addressed at all.

The Supreme Court found that Colorado didn't give enough respect or credence to the owner's religious beliefs. The owner's religious beliefs being openly mocked by a Colorado Civil Rights Board member was used as an example. The board was found to not have worked under the assumption of religious neutrality.

For those reasons, the case was found in his favor.

The Supreme Court did not at all rule on whether or not it was legal for Masterpiece Cakeshop to deny his gay patrons the cake they wanted.

They made no decision on whether it was within the owner's first amendment rights to deny service, or if what happened was denial of service.

Hope this helps.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#139

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Aug 16, 2018, 11:24 PM UTC

darpa_escapee wrote: post #138

humanrebar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the analogy to Masterpiece is that Apple is not compelled to list any given podcast. And, applying the Masterpiece ruling narrowly, Apple just needs to be careful that a pattern of discrimination against a protected group isn't established in its decisions. But that's all legal reasoning. The original point is that people should be allowed to speak and the best response is better speech, not censorship, even if…

You're aware of how Masterpiece was ruled, correct? It seems that you're implying that Masterpiece was found to be acting in accordance to the law, but that's not what the ruling was based on or addressed at all. The Supreme Court found that Colorado didn't give enough respect or credence to the owner's religious beliefs. The owner's religious beliefs being openly mocked by a Colorado Civil Rights Board member was us…

I said as much:

> ...Apple just needs to be careful that a pattern of discrimination against a protected group isn't established in its decisions.

I was just pointing out that the facts of the case didn't involve a persona non grata. It was about compelling someone to create something (speech?), not about businesses' right to choose their clientele.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#140

Post by int_19h » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:25 AM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #96

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 networ…

> 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?

Because Google & FB can't lock you up for saying something about Tibet, for example?