Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#271

Post by ariwilson » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

o10449366 wrote: post #79

ariwilson wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they'll also have complete control over them" "But why should Googlers care?" This is a dumb take. Googlers are the one reporting/protesting all of these things. This is a very different situation than Facebook where most of the leaking has been external. It's also different than HN's reaction to Apple, which apparently can whatever it wants to its Chinese users. The world is not black and white, it is gray. And som…

Here are two realistic facts: 1. Google would be absolutely fine if they do not expand into China. They would not collapse or lose their competitive edge if they refrained from doing so. You've worked at Google for over a decade so you should know this is true. 2. Google's censored search engine would absolutely facilitate Xi Jinping ability to censor the Chinese people and would set a dangerous precedent for other g…

I don't really appreciate the diving into my background, so thanks for that.

1. Will Google really be fine? China is the up and coming superpower of the century. How many large corporations from Britain in the late 1800s / early 1900s are still large that didn't invest in the US?

2. Doesn't Xi Jinping already have this ability to an even greater degree with Baidu/other Chinese tech companies? I do worry about the precedent.

Who are we to ignore the will of the majority of Chinese folks I've seen that do want Google to come to their country, even in this censored form?

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#272

Post by Latteland » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 9:24 PM UTC

o10449366 wrote: post #21

Google execs know that as long as they have the best benefits in the industry and keep their workers cushy they'll also have complete control over them. This is because when you're at the top of the food chain, very few people are actually willing to put their money where their mouth is and take meaningful action. It's deliciously hypocritical to see Google workers here (and HN posters in general) lament Facebook wor…

Sounds like sour grapes from a Facebook worker. I used to work at google. I loved working there, but I wasn't a prisoner of luxury, and I left to go to a startup that didn't promise me the world. After I left I somehow resisted the urge to try to go back. It's a great company but there are lots of things that attract people to jobs.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#273

Post by cma » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 10:28 PM UTC

hahajk wrote: post #127

Nition wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're literally not allowed to make decisions on a moral basis, only a monetary one? That's pretty dystopian.

Probably not literally, evidenced by Tim Cook’s “I don’t consider the bloody ROI” comment.

He can only really say that knowing in court he can say that saying it was for PR to help the long term bottom line.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#274

Post by mirimir » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

radiator wrote: post #202

mirimir wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search engines are already censored.

Exactly. There are many websites which won't show up in a Google search in the West also, even if you search for their exact domain name. Some of them can be found on other search engines, some other maybe not. So it must be that the opponents of this project are not opposed to censorship in general, but to censorship as applied in the People's Republic of China.

Right. The West's censorship is somewhat about fighting crime, protecting at-risk people, protecting people from themselves, and so on. But it's also about protecting the status quo. And, as much as I wouldn't like living in China, their censorship is arguably not that different. At most, there's more emphasis on protecting the status quo.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#275

Post by lainga » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:26 PM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #238

marcus_holmes wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider India to be South Asia, not SE Asia ;) and I've never been there so my ignorance is profound. It is a strong statement. But as far as I can tell it's a true one. As far as I'm aware there's no SE Asian country that has a democratic government that we in the west would consider acceptable. I could be wrong - there are a lot of countries there and I'm not familiar with all of them. My apologies for the…

"I would consider India to be South Asia, not SE Asia" ok. that's fair. Do you consider Japan to be part of SE Asia? Taiwan? (Due disclosure, I've never lived either country - only transited through them - and don't follow their politics closely, but afaik they are both democracies with regular and fair elections). In your opinion are these countries 'true' democracies? (fwiw, not trying to pick a fight, just trying…

East Asia is China, the Koreas, Taiwan, and Japan. South Asia is the Indian subcontinent, and sometimes Afghanistan and Myanmar. SE Asia encompasses everything inbetween - so Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and maybe-Papua New Guinea.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#276

Post by trophycase » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 11:53 PM UTC

MRD85 wrote: post #217

PavlovsCat wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely starts with not being complicit though, and not diminishing a moral decision as being valuable in and of itself.

By leaving Google, one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, the engineers are lowering the mean moral compass of the engineering base. Additionally, leaving a secure, well-paid role in political protest takes a certain amount of privilege. My father left an amazing job in protest over immoral actions and I can assure you that it had huge financial impacts on my life growing up. I respect him for his deci…

It also means that, on average, the skill level of the engineers is decreasing. Which means quite a lot to how far reaching their products will be

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#277

Post by Wowfunhappy » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 12:48 AM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #265

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a fact that within the tech community Google has always been given more leniency than their competitors, even when they're all guilty of the same crimes. I would posit that Google is given slightly more leniency because their infractions always tend to be slightly less bad. • Google tracks everything, but is ever-so-slightly more transparent than Facebook or Amazon, and the opt out process is ever-so-slightly…

> the opt out process is ever-so-slightly easier. Oh? How do I opt out of Google's spying? I already don't have an account or use their services, but they still collect data on me from a wide variety of sources, both online and not. As far as I can tell, there is literally no way to get them to stop it. I don't think Google has much of a high road here.

> Oh? How do I opt out of Google's spying?

I was primarily thinking of google.com/dashboard.

It's far from perfect—for instance, it's only for people who have Google accounts—but when I go to Youtube, for instance, my video recommendation list is 100% generic, which is how I want it (no filter bubbles!).

I would really like to do the same on Amazon.com, but it's completely impossible. There's no dashboard equivalent.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#278

Post by MereInterest » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 1:47 AM UTC

appsonify wrote: post #257

MereInterest wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often have some amount of morals that go into which job they have. This typically plays into the choice of jobs. Taking a job that has military contracts is a moral stance, as is taking a job that does not. Taking a job that supports dictatorships is a moral stance, as is taking a job that does not. When a company changes their moral stances, this acts against the previous choices of the employees who work the…

Corporations are made up of people but the corporation itself is NOT the sum of its people, it is its own entity, hell US corporations have the same human rights and social number. The difference is a corporation is void of moral conscience, so you can't really expect to bring your own Judeo-Christian ethics here

I agree that corporations are not just the sum of its parts. It is entirely valid to model a corporation as an artificial intelligence that happens to use human brains as hardware. Taking a job at a corporation can then be seen either as joining it, or as interacting with it.

If one is joining a corporation, the individual's choices are part of the AI that drives the corporation. In this case, it is essential for individuals to act morally, in order to predispose the corporation to act morally.

If one is interacting with a corporation, there is no expectation that it will behave morally. Therefore, to increase the likelihood that it will perform moral actions, it should be painful for the corporation to perform immoral actions. That punishment can be inflicted by bringing negative PR, by negotiating contracts that avoid immoral actions, or by quitting and thereby forcing the company to pay higher wages to attract the same talent.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#279

Post by tylerl » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 5:50 AM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #265

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a fact that within the tech community Google has always been given more leniency than their competitors, even when they're all guilty of the same crimes. I would posit that Google is given slightly more leniency because their infractions always tend to be slightly less bad. • Google tracks everything, but is ever-so-slightly more transparent than Facebook or Amazon, and the opt out process is ever-so-slightly…

> the opt out process is ever-so-slightly easier. Oh? How do I opt out of Google's spying? I already don't have an account or use their services, but they still collect data on me from a wide variety of sources, both online and not. As far as I can tell, there is literally no way to get them to stop it. I don't think Google has much of a high road here.

While your opinion is popular, especially among privacy enthusiasts, it's also inconsistent with reality.

Google isn't spying on you. They don't give a damn who you are. This may come as a blow, but your browsing history is not valuable in and if itself.

Your identity and behavior is only valuable to Google for the purpose of making you happy with their services. It's only desirable to Google to the extent that it represents an ongoing voluntary relationship between you and them. Otherwise its value goes negative.

Your data, your history, your preferences, if you don't want to use that information to make their site and services more useful, then they have no reason to keep it. It's a liability instead of an asset. It gets purged pretty quickly. This is true all across the company. No information is retained without your ongoing consent. I am dead certain this happens.

This obviously doesn't apply to aggregate/anonymous data. They don't decrement their count of people living in San Francisco by 1 just because you don't want people to know you exist. That's not how opting out works. It's not how population statistics work.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#280

Post by kkarakk » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 6:51 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #197

kkarakk wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get sent to a gulag/executing for objecting i'd say you're incapable of objecting

Yes but a Westerner would hardly be the objective judger of such gulags/guantanamo bays of China. That being said if too many people were being sent to prison in China, unjustly, they'd have another revolution. The fact is that even if evidence was revealed they had absolutely 0 gulags, or whatever it is you're claiming, it would not do much to silence anti-China sentiment. The presence of the gulags are not falsifia…

is there a difference in human suffering based on color of skin/cultural background?