Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

theconversation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 184 posts

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#111

Post by buth_lika »

throwaway8879 wrote: post #46
Sangermaine wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. What a disgusting comment. What is legal and what is ethical are not the same thing at all. I have difficulty believing this was written in good faith.

And what is ethical exactly? Objectively? And this is something that you get to decide? Maximizing profits seems pretty ethical to me.

How come others have to have "objective" morals, but for you "seems to me" is perfectly fine? Of course it's subjective, that doesn't take away from it at all, since any opinion that it being subjective is a problem is subjective as well.

> Maximizing profits seems pretty ethical to me.

Up to extracting gold teeth from people murdered in concentration camps, or is there a limit for you?

> [Q: Isn't there a certain calculus that someone who is sitting in the shoes of a Condoleezza Rice can make, that they're responsible for the best outcome for American citizens, and there's an upside of going into Iraq which is we get one of the greatest material possessions in world's history, and there're downsides which are: we upset the international community, and maybe there's more terrorism. Couldn't you envision a calculus where they say, sure, that's the reason, and it's a good reason, let's do it. What's the flaw in the calculus?]

> Oh, I think that's exactly their calculus. But then we ought to just be honest and say, "Look, we're a bunch of Nazis." So fine, let's just drop all the discussion, we save a lot of trees, we can throw out the newspapers and most of the scholarly literature, and just come out, state it straight, and tell the truth: we'll do whatever we want because we think we're gonna gain by it. And incidently, it's not American citizens who'll gain. They don't gain by this. It's narrow sectors of domestic power that the administration is serving with quite unusual dedication...

-- Noam Chomsky, Talk titled "Why Iraq?" at Harvard University, November 4, 2002

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#112

Post by eapriv »

mstaoru wrote: post #98

For once, I am on Google's side with this one. Somewhat of a discourse. In the last years, "China and Russia" became a new racist norm against anything and everything there. My mom and dad are absolutely against totalitarianism, but their "cardinal sin" is that they were born in Russia and they lack the financial means to move to another country. For years, they can't even buy any good cheese because the cheese was "…

A reminder: import of cheese into Russia is prohibited by the Russian government, not by the Western countries.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#113

Post by dang »

Sangermaine wrote: post #9
c3534l wrote: post #2

It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. But even if we assume that there is no legal way for a company to operate ethically in China, is the world meant to close our borders to them entirely? 20% of the planet lives there and we do business with China every day when we buy something manufactured there, but do not feel morally required to boycott them on account of t…

>It's really unfortunate that abiding by local laws and regulations is considered unethical. What a disgusting comment. What is legal and what is ethical are not the same thing at all. I have difficulty believing this was written in good faith.

We've banned this account for violating the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#114

Post by dnomad »

cageface wrote: post #102
dnomad wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the risk of sounding nationalistic, I think companies in the United States and other democratic countries should reconsider any and all business relationships with authoritarian regimes like those in China and Russia. It just sounds stupid. Looking at the situation rationally it is the US that has in just the last 20 years (a) attacked several countries and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people and (…

You’re right that the USA has committed many sins of its own but freedom of expression in the USA is still protected to a degree unthinkable in places like China or Russia or Vietnam. I can go on Facebook right now and post any opinion I like of my government. See how long you have to wait for a knock on your door if you try this in one of those other countries. The censorship demands made by China, for example, abso…

> I can go on Facebook right now and post any opinion I like of my government.

No you can't. Facebook regularly censors content just like every other rational organization on the planet that hosts a forum. (Though it's a bit amusing to hear how free Americans think themselves to be when so many of them struggle to get basic healthcare.)

> The censorship demands made by China, for example, absolutely are of a different character and breadth than any made in the west.

You might consider that different cultures actually have different standards about what's acceptable speech. There are certainly other Asian countries which control speech much more rigorously than China ever could. Indeed, it seems China doesn't care so much about criticism until it becomes actionable (ie protests, terrorism). Anybody familiar with China would understand there's actually plenty of criticism of the government in a nation of a billion people. Compare this with regimes where insulting the royal family can land one in jail. Yet Google happily operates in these countries.

And of course, not ironic at all, here come the proud HN free-speech defenders eager to downvote the pesky facts they don't like.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#115

Post by buth_lika »

628C6l0 wrote: post #48

Honestly, the censored stuff is crap anyways. Reading the censored stuff is what leads people to devote their lives to "politics", "activism", and "social justice", and away from the really good stuff such as math, science, and philosophy, which the Chinese government never blocked. Any time spent on the activism stuff is time you are not spending on genuinely meaningful and personally fulfilling pursuits. In a sense…

Here's a book tip.

> The type of personal integration we attain – or the effective lack thereof – depends on what possibilities our life situation offers us for the development of autonomy. It is a distorted development that is the root cause of the pathological and, ultimately, evil element in human beings.

> The struggle for autonomy heightens our aliveness. Insofar as the socialization process blocks autonomy, however, this process engenders the evil it attempts to prevent. If parental love is so distorted that it demands submission and dependence for its self-confirmation, social adjustment turns into a test of obedience and the child’s efforts to comply bring with them the loss of genuine feelings. The human being then becomes the true source of evil.

-- Arno Gruen, "The Betrayal of the Self: The Fear of Autonomy in Men and Women"

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#116

Post by mstaoru »

eapriv wrote: post #112
mstaoru wrote: post #98

For once, I am on Google's side with this one. Somewhat of a discourse. In the last years, "China and Russia" became a new racist norm against anything and everything there. My mom and dad are absolutely against totalitarianism, but their "cardinal sin" is that they were born in Russia and they lack the financial means to move to another country. For years, they can't even buy any good cheese because the cheese was "…

A reminder: import of cheese into Russia is prohibited by the Russian government, not by the Western countries.

Yes, isn't it a weird thing. It was meant as "retaliation" for Western sanctions against Russia, but nothing became any better after it. Not that different from the "trade war" that's going on between China and the US these days.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#117

Post by seventhtiger »

buth_lika wrote: post #107
seventhtiger wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. Here's food for thought: have sanctions ever resolved authoritarianism or dictatorship? Economic war should only be used to disable aggressive enemies, because it has never actually helped anyone better their human rights or political rights. In fact, among "passive" abusers of human rights we see that more contact with the rest of the world improves conditions.

Not partaking in evil IS the result. Any further ulitarian calculations are just rationalizations. You cannot predict the ultimate outcome of any course of action fully, but you can treat others like you want to be treated. If you wouldn't others to look the other way if you got disappeared, don't look the other way when people get disappeared. Period. Not because of how it affects world history, but because of how i…

If we completely drop the utilitarian approach, then we must admit our goal is not to help or improve, but to act morally superior. Righteous grandstanding on the world stage has a track record of failure to inspire change, or even causing conflict. If our goal is simply to keep our hands clean then perhaps we shouldn't take an interest in human rights or business.

You cannot personify nations for many reasons, the foremost of which is their sovereignty. No country is beholden to another beyond war and economic sanctions. The amazing period of peace and prosperity the Earth is experiencing since WW2 can be directly attributed to the establishment of diplomatic channels and using them..

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#118

Post by mda »

nikofeyn wrote: post #81
carapace wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's nationalistic, I think it's a war of fundamental values. The Chinese Communists put control above truth. The Western World puts truth above control. The most powerful law of the most powerful Western nation enshrines as it's First Amendment the unlawfulness of force restraining speech. For the sake of further discussion, let me set aside the moral argument, and pretend that stable human civilizatio…

> The Western World puts truth above control. you can’t be serious about this. when has the truth mattered in the u.s. in recent times? in the u.s., companies control the government and people. in china, the government controls the companies and people. there really isn't much difference.

I agree about the western world and truth part. But saying there isn't much difference between them is quite a leap.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#119

Post by singularity2001 »

eigenvector wrote: post #86

A common refrain that you will likely soon hear from Google executives and board members is that it's better to have access to a censored Google than no Google at all. The problem is that when Google took a stance against censorship, users behind the Great Firewall or other censorship regimes knew that if they managed to reach www.google.com through VPN or other means they were getting uncensored results. Now, no one…

even at google.com you can't be sure whether to get the real google, or just your personalized bubble.

Re: Google's censored Chinese search engine: a catalogue of ethical violations?

#120

Post by sheepmullet »

dnomad wrote: post #90
ansy wrote: post #45

At the risk of sounding nationalistic, I think companies in the United States and other democratic countries should reconsider any and all business relationships with authoritarian regimes like those in China and Russia. And I say regimes because most "companies" in these countries are really just instruments of the state. There may be money to be made, but not only are companies like Google tightening these authorit…

> At the risk of sounding nationalistic, I think companies in the United States and other democratic countries should reconsider any and all business relationships with authoritarian regimes like those in China and Russia. It just sounds stupid. Looking at the situation rationally it is the US that has in just the last 20 years (a) attacked several countries and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people and (…

> the US that has in just the last 20 years (a) attacked several countries and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people

Where do you get your anti-US propaganda from?

I think the combined civilian death toll by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq is ~40,000.

That’s not a good number - but it’s a long way away from hundreds of thousands.

Post reply on HN