I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left • Hacker News Board

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#161

Post by frenchyatwork » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

billfruit wrote: post #114

ff317 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's obvious that some information is numerically greater than no information, it's not obvious that a censored flow of information makes anyone's life better than the alternatives. When the information flow is all-or-nothing (either you get the full uncensored fire-hose, or you get nothing and whole sites/services are blocked due to censorship), the citizen at least knows they're being censored, and then the b…

But such actions may end up punishing/restricting the individual citizens than the particular states. Also I don't think that posturing that may lead up to another Cold War is good for the world. Perhaps there can be greater understanding between peoples through a process of engagement, rather than standing-off. There is a famous commencement speech by Solzentzyn at Harvard, that laments why the West, esp Americans h…

States are generally set up in such a way that it's very difficult/impossible to harm the authorities without also also harming a lot of other people.

Personally, I think Google is in an awkward position here. The Wikipedia can take a solid and principled stance because it has clear and transparent policy on what it censors (basically anything original, not NPOV, and not of general interest). The Wikipedia can do this, because it's edited by humans, and while humans are pretty bad at agreeing at these things, they're way better at it than computers.

Basically, Google wants to filter its results, but if it doesn't let the Chinese government control the filter in China, it runs the risk of appearing to be western propaganda.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#162

Post by ehsankia » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

mpiedrav wrote: post #150

ehsankia wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But trust the person who's writing a medium post just as they're about to run for senate and need to boost their name id?

That post is just one of many anecdata (to some degree of truth) out there about Google and other FAANG companies being "ethically challenged". I remember having done a "computer and society" assignment about 14 years ago on Google and China. I also remember Microsoft's "Halloween Documents" (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish) from early 2000s. And many other scenarios of Big Tech ignoring ethics. In general, trust (like a…

I agree, but things also aren't as black and white as a lot of articles will try to make it. As pointed out in this very article, Google did leave China in 2010, leaving billions of dollar on the table. That is the exact opposite of "big money trumping ethics". Yes I realize they did explore returning to China last year, but it still isn't as cut and dry.

I'm not saying any of these FAANG companies are perfect, but I also don't like grand standing by people like this that really only case about advancing their own image for political reasons.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#163

Post by Aperocky » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

awb wrote: post #108

song wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I lived in China, I used to think that having Google in China even with censorship was better than not having Google at all. But, this was also because back then, they did have a notice saying that some of the results had been censored. Back then, it felt to me to be an interesting compromise. What does scare me though, is that by accepting censorship, it normalizes it and weakens the position of any compan…

Do the majority of people living in China know about / care about censorship? Curious if information was being censored how you'd even know.

Of course. It's condescending to think otherwise, you can't pretend youtube or twitter doesn't exist (especially with a substantial portion who use VPN to evade censorship anyways), it's just accepted as a fact of life.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#164

Post by cbhl » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

virtuous_signal wrote: post #10

I don't have firsthand knowledge, but my conjecture is that the old Google probably had a significant % of employees who held the belief "We shouldn't censor for China, even if that makes us lose money". But over a period of years, whatever they selected for in hiring led to enough people joining, who don't give a damn about human rights in China, so the censorship went ahead. The only thing that stopped it was bad p…

Google's annual diversity report shows that Asian+ representation in Tech has gone from 38.6% in 2014 to 51.8% in 2018. (Note: this includes both mainland Chinese and other Asians.)

https://diversity.google/annual-report/

In my personal opinion, it has become more common for me to see groups of software engineers informally discuss an issue (say, at someone's desk, or walking down the hallway) entirely in Mandarin instead of English.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#165

Post by mackrevinack » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

president wrote: post #141

suddenexample wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always a bit taken aback by the heat that Google gets for even thinking about breaking into the Chinese market. Microsoft is in China and has active US military contracts. Apple is in China. Yet it's Google that gets the bad rap for trying to get into China and then ultimately turning down billions of dollars in revenue and data.

Microsoft never had a good rep to begin with. They were always seen as an evil corp. I remember when most of the mentions of Microsoft on the forums used to be spelled as "Micro$hit", "Micro$haft", or something similar. Google didn't have this image problem until later in the game.

if Google or apple had an S in their name you would have seen more of it

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#166

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

elldoubleyew wrote: post #151

Seenso wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google hired a significant number of Chinese citizens and migrants who didn't leave China for political reasons. Not surprisingly, they tend not to see China's government policy as evil. It takes years in the right environment for someone like that to start to think differently. All kinds of important facts and ideas were kept from them, much of it random things that don't come up often that they may not even reali…

I don't understand this philosophy of "if only they could change their minds" The current regime has broken records year over year and almost the entire population is happy with them. Chinese people are better off every single day. Who are we as westerners to say that our system of governance is better than theirs? How can you be so sure that their system will inevitably be bad for the people? Just because an absolut…

> Who are we as westerners to say that our system of governance is better than theirs?

Nobody is advocating overthrowing Xi Jinping. But if you're in America, benefiting from the freedoms afforded to Americans (and their fruits), it's fair to ask you don't undermine those values at home or abroad.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#167

Post by jstrong » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

elldoubleyew wrote: post #151

Seenso wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google hired a significant number of Chinese citizens and migrants who didn't leave China for political reasons. Not surprisingly, they tend not to see China's government policy as evil. It takes years in the right environment for someone like that to start to think differently. All kinds of important facts and ideas were kept from them, much of it random things that don't come up often that they may not even reali…

I don't understand this philosophy of "if only they could change their minds" The current regime has broken records year over year and almost the entire population is happy with them. Chinese people are better off every single day. Who are we as westerners to say that our system of governance is better than theirs? How can you be so sure that their system will inevitably be bad for the people? Just because an absolut…

> I know you guys are going to want to crucify me for saying a lot of this

thankfully for you, you live in a place where you can't be put in prison for expressing an unpopular idea.

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#168

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

dx87 wrote: post #56

sriram_sun wrote: post #20

It was no different in the workplace culture. Senior colleagues bullied and screamed at young women, causing them to cry at their desks. At an all-hands meeting, my boss said, “Now you Asians come to the microphone too. I know you don’t like to ask questions.” At a different all-hands meeting, the entire policy team was separated into various rooms and told to participate in a “diversity exercise” that placed me in a…

The last time this was posted, someone found that it's an exercise based on a university study designed to address common stereotypes. The publishers of the study only tested it in an academic setting with students, though, and recommended that it not be done without a trained professional to guide the discussion. Google basically cargo-culted the experiment and assumed it would work in a corporate setting without th…

[deleted]

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#169

Post by shadowgovt » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #166

elldoubleyew wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this philosophy of "if only they could change their minds" The current regime has broken records year over year and almost the entire population is happy with them. Chinese people are better off every single day. Who are we as westerners to say that our system of governance is better than theirs? How can you be so sure that their system will inevitably be bad for the people? Just because an absolut…

> Who are we as westerners to say that our system of governance is better than theirs? Nobody is advocating overthrowing Xi Jinping. But if you're in America, benefiting from the freedoms afforded to Americans (and their fruits), it's fair to ask you don't undermine those values at home or abroad.

Is it also fair to ask a company that does business in a country to not undermine the values of that country?

Re: I Was Google’s Head of International Relations. Here’s Why I Left

#170

Post by Seenso » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 7:00 PM UTC

elldoubleyew wrote: post #151

Seenso wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google hired a significant number of Chinese citizens and migrants who didn't leave China for political reasons. Not surprisingly, they tend not to see China's government policy as evil. It takes years in the right environment for someone like that to start to think differently. All kinds of important facts and ideas were kept from them, much of it random things that don't come up often that they may not even reali…

I don't understand this philosophy of "if only they could change their minds" The current regime has broken records year over year and almost the entire population is happy with them. Chinese people are better off every single day. Who are we as westerners to say that our system of governance is better than theirs? How can you be so sure that their system will inevitably be bad for the people? Just because an absolut…

> ...I work with a lot of people in mainland China and no one has any problems with the government, they stick to their own business and are doing pretty damn well.

The topic of this subthread is not the attitudes of mainland Chinese, it's the attitudes of mainland Chinese who have immigrated to work at Google for economic reasons. I have friends who came from mainland China, and have talked to them about how their attitudes have changed over time. They don't all stay fixed in the officially-sanctioned mainland mindset.

> Obviously this could change one day but thats not our job as non-chinese citizens to decide.

So you're saying if someone is happy with something at least in part because they've been lied to, it's wrong for someone to interfere with their attitudes by trying to tell them the truth?