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We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

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Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#51

Post by sulam »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #41

I respect the motivation of the people behind this but I disagree with the logic here. It seems to be a zero or none type of logic. Are Chinese better off with not having google search engine as a choice, even if censored and having only local options, or are they better off having at least some choice, even if that choice is censored? I think it's the second, not the first.

(Spoken as if to a Google employee) — Someone will build them a search engine. In fact several someones have already. Your company doesn’t have to do it, and you don’t have to work for them if they do.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#52

Post by orblivion »

hnphillipj wrote: post #47

Given how trash of a search engine Baidu is, Google would likely achieve market share dominance in China within a couple years - should they move forward with Dragonfly. Complying with demands of the Chinese gov't is the only way they can penetrate the Chinese market. Search engine advertising constitutes close to 85% of Google's revenue. And unlike Project Maven, which was ended due to internal resistance from emplo…

It also sounds like a strong negotiating position, should they want to change terms.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#53

Post by criddell »

thrower123 wrote: post #17

So, 36 people (at present, anyway) sign a letter. What in the flying frig is that actually supposed to accomplish? There's nothing really actionable here; you've got the nothingness of "that leadership commit to transparency, clear communication, and real accountability." Are these people going to actually do anything - quit in protest, sabotage, what? No, they are going to whine, and keep drawing their very lucrativ…

Why would you start with ultimatums and demands? I think it's better to start soft and get a discussion going. Maybe these people are smart enough to realize that they don't know everything.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#54

Post by vasilipupkin »

sulam wrote: post #51
vasilipupkin wrote: post #41

I respect the motivation of the people behind this but I disagree with the logic here. It seems to be a zero or none type of logic. Are Chinese better off with not having google search engine as a choice, even if censored and having only local options, or are they better off having at least some choice, even if that choice is censored? I think it's the second, not the first.

(Spoken as if to a Google employee) — Someone will build them a search engine. In fact several someones have already. Your company doesn’t have to do it, and you don’t have to work for them if they do.

well, the company doesn't have to do it, I agree. the discussion is, if the company were to do it, would it be a bad thing for the company to do, conditional on professed company values? I don't think so.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#55

Post by francisofascii »

yalogin wrote: post #14

Without stating an opinion on the topic itself, what does the community think about employees agitating against a company practice like this rather than just leaving and doing something else. Obviously they feel strongly about it and want to make sure it doesn’t happen at all, while the company feels they have a huge untapped revenue source.

I think it is generally better to state your complaints to management first rather than leaving quietly. Give management a chance to fix whatever issue you have or to come up with an alternative. You can always leave as a last resort.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#57

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

ramphastidae wrote: post #31
bluejekyll wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google can kick them out and replace within a month. Ah. A believer that software engineers are cogs and can just be “replaced” without training and learning of code bases. Hiring software engineers, bringing them up to speed, and having them contribute to production features, is expensive. Also, you’ll never truly recoup the lost knowledge that goes.

All of that is true, but it doesn't change the reality of how software engineers are perceived and treated in the vast majority of technology companies.

Prior to becoming a software engineer, I worked in various industries, including restaurants (server), hospitals (data entry), and landscaping.

It may be true that in some companies, engineers are treated as cogs, but this line of work is _heaven_ compared to those other industries.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#58

Post by altmind »

EZ-E wrote: post #28

At this point I don't believe this project could be successful. Even if it's not canceled the Chinese government is never gonna let a foreign company get the market share against the local champions : even more as this company has internal disent about the project. Also the links with the US government won't help.

Maybe google is fine not dominating search and ads market. Maybe having a foothold is enough for them?

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#59

Post by rashkov »

patrickaljord wrote: post #9

If I was in China and had to choose between having a choice between censored baidu and censored google vs just censored baidu, I'd rather have both baidu and google. It's easy for us here in the western world as we have access to both and more uncensored sources to take the moral high ground and subject the Chinese to a "let them eat cake" attitude. Not sure if this will benefit people over there though to ban google…

I wonder if these things go in both directions though. Google becomes beholden to the Chinese government on threat of being kicked out of the country. Maybe in a few years Google is making a bunch of money in China, and then the govt asks them to censor search results in the western world too.

Also, as China requires more surveillance infrastructure to be built for Chinese google, that can bleed over to western google. Let's say Google starts to enhance China's social credit score system with users search behavior. It's easier for western governments to point to these capabilities on China's Google and request for them to be instantiated in their own countries.

Re: We are Google employees – Google must drop Dragonfly

#60

Post by alexandercrohde »

patrickaljord wrote: post #49
alexandercrohde wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the situation should be looked at more holistically. Here are some other factors to consider: - Does it soil our hands to build the "Mental handcuffs" of China, even if Baidu started it? - Does it stop at China? Or what about Turkey? Iran? Would we build a search in Saudi Arabia that didn't let women look up divorce if the government wanted it? - Does it come to America? What about searches that seem criminal…

Google is already censoring specific searches all over the world, in the EU for example, the right to be forgotten and many "hate speech" laws already force google to censor many sites that are filtered out.

All the more reason to take a stand right now.
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