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

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#141

Post by int_19h » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:32 AM UTC

bobjordan wrote: post #28

I'm an American, own and operate two Chinese companies (an operations/engineering consulting company and a factory). I was here when Google left. From the end user's viewpoint, internet censorship has only become more strict. While VPN access has never been totally unavailable, it can be painful to use. I've changed my browsing habits to settle for using Bing more than I otherwise would have. At the same time, I'm th…

At the end of the day, Google is still an American company. When Google engineers implement censorship on the behest of the Chinese government in their offices in California, they will be judged by the society here, and it will be done by the standards that are applicable here, not in China.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#142

Post by int_19h » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:34 AM UTC

nasoieu wrote: post #86

gonyea wrote: post #23

Why? It’s not like they’re using slave labor. Google will reveal their plans if and when it suits them.

Some people believe we have to apply the same Western, liberal standard to all nations of the Earth.

We have to apply the same Western liberal standard to companies that are registered and headquartered in a Western liberal country, and especially to the kind of stuff that they produce in such a country.

They're welcome to spin off a Chinese branch to implement all this - with the engineers doing censorship filters and executives signing off on them subject to that censorship themselves. As it is, they want to reject the "liberal standard" while earning that money, but not when they are spending it.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#143

Post by int_19h » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:38 AM UTC

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…

Or maybe we should just conclude that if a company is in such a position where its private rules have such a strong and broad effect, that is prima facie evidence of it being a monopoly that is distorting the market, and break it up.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#144

Post by int_19h » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:42 AM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #8

EFF complains about this ONLY because EFF partnered with Google https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/work-eff-summer-apply-... . You don't hear Mozilla or Apple complaining about Google returning to China though. I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone. You enter someone's country and you ought to obey the local laws there. Just as Chinese companies entering U.S. need to respe…

> I am not really sure why Google matters in China and how this matters to anyone.

It matters because Google is an American company. So not all laws - and not all social conventions - are created equal in this context; American ones get priority.

In a similar vein, if a Chinese company decided to operate in US, and the Chinese government took offense that they freely distribute information about e.g. Tibet there, they would be in their right to criticize such a company, or use legal measures to prevent them from doing it.

TL;DR: you can't argue for absolute cultural relativism when things flow across the border; at the very least, the countries on both side of that border have a say.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#145

Post by int_19h » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 1:43 AM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #124

_ptgt wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, there IS a huge conflict of interest on Google's part as far as its users' privacy goes. Suppose China becomes a significant part of Google's business in a number of years. Does anyone familiar with China doubt that its government would be willing to exercise that leverage over Google to extract private user information ... even about it's non-Chinese userbase? How would future Google respond? Would there n…

The Chinese government has hands in every bit in the Chinese internet. My point was to illustrate that no matter where you do business, you are subjected to local laws. Put the Chinese government aside and pretend it’s EU. Some would argue EU is doing too much, interferring with business competition - Yahoo, AOL and MSN were big back in 2000s but hey, Google took them down too. So why aren’t everyone crying about EU?…

Because we don't think that EU laws are too onerous, from our perspective. But it's still our perspective in both cases.

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#146

Post by tomc1985 » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 2:29 AM 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…

The past few hundred years are littered with the dead and dying of megacorps.... US Steel, IBM, Sears, Dutch East Indies Company... where are they all now? IBM is still relevant... sort of...

Re: Google Needs to Come Clean About Its Chinese Plans

#147

Post by SZJX » Fri, Aug 17, 2018, 12:15 PM UTC

Absolute BS. Don't Google censor tons of results already according to the US law? Dare they show any pro-ISIS website to the American audience? Dare they stop performing all those DMCA takedowns? What's the fundamental difference between these two? Each country has its own laws regulating the online space and neither China nor the US is an exception to this. I really don't think any of them can offer any sort of convincing response to such questions. Just another display of typical arrogance and double standards that they have long shown, nothing new at all.

It's exactly like how people would clamor to censor all sorts of alt-right websites with glee, but defend all Trump-bashing websites to death. It's not that I approve of any alt-right ideology at all, but if they are serious about real "free speech", they need to drop this sort of double standards asap. Otherwise it's just another laughable exercise in hypocrisy and only labeling what helps their own interests as "just", exactly what the US government has been doing overseas in all these decades. Nobody would buy into such nonsense.