121–130 of 151 posts
> If Google were in China, perhaps the young man named Wei Zesi would not have died as a result of deadly fake medical advertisements searched through Baidu. As the wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi makes clear, those medical adverts were not fake. They were certainly deadly. They were also run by the Second Hospital of the Beijing Armed Police Corps. A state owned hospital. On what ba…
Some people would argue that Chinese peolple dying is not our problem, and we should stick to our “principles” to force Chinese government to change. Others think that something is better than nothing; even limited information can help people there.
Sadly, this disagreement leads to the worst outcome: Chinese people are deprived from even limited information while there is insufficient pressure to force the government to change course.
The objections to DragenFly are not about what is best for the Chinese citizen. This is not the concern in the signed letter. It is also not related to any of the core concerns from commenters here, as far as I can tell. Yet somehow, many people are feeding the idea that the primary question is a cost-benefit analysis from the perspective of a person living in China. Of course, access to a pseudo-Google in China woul…
This is probably the first time I see something from a concerned Chinese citizen. I applaud this truthfully, it also gave me an alternative view about ( why) entering the market and what some Chinese think.
How do you know he's not propaganda. I'm not claiming so, I'm in the middle but you seem confident otherwise.
The objections to DragenFly are not about what is best for the Chinese citizen. This is not the concern in the signed letter. It is also not related to any of the core concerns from commenters here, as far as I can tell. Yet somehow, many people are feeding the idea that the primary question is a cost-benefit analysis from the perspective of a person living in China. Of course, access to a pseudo-Google in China woul…
Nevertheless, as OP mentioned, the decision concerns Chinese citizens, and it is always useful to obtain input from stakeholders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why not let them decide what they want for their country, rather than shoving your ideals on them? This assumes most of their citizens have all the information about the implications, which is very unlikely, for the very reason everyone is wary of Google re-entering China.
Chinese citizens are well aware of the censorship practices of their government. They are aware of the bargain that Google must strike.
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Dragonfly catalogues and indexes searches for dissident topics, linking them to the searcher's phone number. Literally a search engine for dissidents.
And that's different from Baidu in what way? If it's not worse than the status quo, then it's not a negative impact of bringing Dragonfly to China.
Maybe people unaware of DragonFly will try riskier search phrases on Google than on Baidu.
And the problem gets especially bad if they find whatever they were looking for. As in this case the state has evidence on consuming "politically dangerous" material. (Not that they can't fake it otherwise.)
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> Baidu is likely not as good at it as Google, but Baidu is also much more likely to comply willingly. Google can drag their feet and build low quality censorship/anti-privacy tools for the Chinese government, and simply say "sorry it's the best we could do". This is an argument akin to "I'm joining the system so I can change it from the inside". This can work, but you need leverage. What leverage would Google have o…
Or just...i'm joining the system, and i'm going to do whatever I can to help it as little as possible, while providing a valuable service to its people.
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Ahhh yes, the 'we're in the dystopian dictatorship so deep that it's too big to fail' argument. There's always a human cost to revolutions. That doesn't justify supporting and perpetuating one of the biggest threats to freedom in the entire world.
We invaded Iraq under that logic..
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Is it though? I definitely disagree with the author, but I don't know if they're asking really to sear conscience as much as offer the perspective of their own conscience. They are not asking googlers to be ok with everything China does but are arguing that Google removing itself from China causes more harm than good. They're wrong (I think) but, its perfectly reasonable to make such an argument if one believes it.
These Googlers' conscience is telling them that collaborating with a repressive regime's repression is wrong. OP is asking them to collaborate anyway. QED, honestly. I know the intent is what you've outlined, but I'm saying that's not as important, here anyway, as the conscience angle.
However it's hard to assess the long term effect of this on Google and other Google users. That's the real question.
Okay Google builds DragonSpy. Okay, please make it work for Vietnam too says Vietnam, then me too says Putin, Venezuela, Iran, Turkey and so on.
As long as dictators are forced to block it wholesale, people have a signal. (Even if it is propagandized and spin as a good thing, let's say for economic protectionism.) When dictators can fish for their enemies, people have a problem.