Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

for instance, there is likely a law on the books in the USA which prohibits you from having your cattle graze on various lands. you would be incrementally more free if there was not that law, but do you care? no, the issue is not relevant to your life, nor is it relevant to any life you could imagine yourself realistically having from the starting point of the present moment. if you were a cattle farmer the issue would be more salient -- but there's still no guarantee that you would be railing against the law.

now, imagine that the prospect of democracy was what was forbidden, as it is in china. it's abstract, and the benefits are purely hypothetical for the chinese -- but there are hypothetical liabilities that come with democracy too, which might seem just as salient if you don't start from a position of being in favor of democracy.

So let me tell you what I think as an EU citizen that's actively concerned about both freedom of speech and privacy ...

I couldn't give a crap about what companies are active in China and complying with their local regulations. That Google took a stand showed they valued freedom of speech above their bottom line, but now if they are going back in, we can talk about the primary concern with Google ...

Google is the destroyer of privacy. Google tracks their users at an unprecedented level in the whole history of humanity and if they do this, we now have concrete proof that they don't have values that are above their bottom line.

Therefore we have a problem and the next time the EU slaps them with another multi-billion fine for violating EU's anti-trust or privacy laws, I'll cheer them for it, because it's all about the dough.

there is no different standard. it is unethical to aid totalitarian states in their oppression of their people.

that standard is crystal clear, and google is on the wrong side of it.

waffling regarding corporate responsibility is irrelevant because the question of whether the actor is a corporation or not has nothing to do with the standard itself. once again: the moral issue is very clear on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.

selling widgets to the chinese is not in violation of that standard. offering a product that is neutered so as to be a tool of oppression is in clear violation of the standard.

the question of china using these tools to oppress their population is not up for debate. china is a police state. for ethnic minorities like the uighurs, the falun gong, the chinese muslims, etc, that police state is operationalized to eradicate and prevent any presence in society.

this is not right. it is not right to help the chinese state keep groups of people subjugated and starving.

the apologists should be ashamed. google should be ashamed. google employees should be ashamed, and outraged.