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Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

theintercept.com

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Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#231

Post by elchupanebre »

throwaway6834 wrote: post #143
geuszb wrote: post #128

> [Sundar Pichai views] the censorship as a worthwhile trade-off to gain access to the country’s more than 800 million internet users Citation needed. Alternatively, Google's mission of "organizing the world's information" isn't quite complete if it continues not serving China. Alternatively still, the real danger is not lost opportunity, but the emergence of a strong Chinese ecosystem (from network equipment all the…

Sundar has as much vision as a blindfolded mole. He is after the money, plain and simple. Source: work at google, for ~8 years

Second that. I worked for 5 years there including directly with Sengupta (in charge of Dragonfly) and in passing with Pichai. Pichai was a politician who saw his mission in finding a balance between power groups, nothing more.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#232

Post by Wowfunhappy »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #145
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…

> Google had their own version of the Facebook's opt-in but highly-invasive research app, but only for people who were over 18 (at least as of the past couple years). This equivocation is a little ridiculous imho. Google's app was literally a tracking app by its very claim, there was no sense of deception or bait-and-switch.

Same with Facebook's app. I legitimately think the outrage over this was overblown (and I said as much at the time [1]), but I can see the other side of it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19031055

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#233

Post by plinkplonk »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #196
math_and_stuff wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many different fronts to wage this fight on; changing consumer behavior is only one of them. Getting the project halted is important in its own right for the reason that it helps prevent the normalization of American tech companies actively aiding political oppression under the guise of abiding by 'local laws and regulations'. As I stated in a few comments down below: if we let American tech companies build…

I totally understand and support your stance. Total respect for resigning for idealistic reasons. But I have another point of view on the subject after having worked in SE Asia. I'm not trying to contradict anyone here, just give my (hopefully informed) opinion. There are no democracies in SE Asia. There are a couple of countries that pretend to democracy (Cambodia and the Philippines spring to mind), but even these…

> There are no democracies in SE Asia.

I wonder if you consider India to be in SE Asia. If not, please ignore the following.

Last I looked there were regular elections happening there, with "strong leaders" being voted out of power with some regularity. They have problems (same as everywhere including the USA), but democracy / free elections aren't a problem (yet).

"Democracy has never worked in SE Asia" is an extremely strong statement, and in your comment, I find too many stereotypes about the region, and a shallow understanding. (paraphrasing -'some of them believe in karma and so democracy can't work there' is so ridiculous an argument that I wonder if you are doing it deliberately to provoke discussion. Makes about as much sense as saying that some catholics believe that a monarchy is the best form of government so elections won't work in Ireland)

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#234

Post by marcus_holmes »

BlackFly wrote: post #210
marcus_holmes wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand and support your stance. Total respect for resigning for idealistic reasons. But I have another point of view on the subject after having worked in SE Asia. I'm not trying to contradict anyone here, just give my (hopefully informed) opinion. There are no democracies in SE Asia. There are a couple of countries that pretend to democracy (Cambodia and the Philippines spring to mind), but even these…

It is not that westerners come from a different set of base assumptions, it is that western society has moved past those base assumptions. Western monarchies were divine rights, people died fighting against those viewpoints. It is not an assumed superiority. We learn the lesson through our history, whether this lesson is right or wrong. We too had traditions of divine right, holistic medicine, censorship and similar,…

Good point. We changed as a society, and what we have now would not have suited us a few hundred years ago, and what we had then would not suit us now. If we had tried to introduce democracy into medieval Europe, it would have failed just as badly.

But by forcing our values onto SE Asian cultures, we are assuming that they cannot come up with "better" answers, and assuming that our way is the only way. Maybe there's an alternative to western society that they'll discover and share with us if we just let them do it their way? Maybe our western society is just not a good fit for their culture?

Of course, this would mean turning a blind eye to a lot of inequality and suffering, something that contradicts our values. We're seeing this play out in Australia with the indigenous culture being destroyed by western culture, (i part) because we cannot turn a blind eye to the poverty that appears to be a consequence of living in that culture. There is no obvious answer to this.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#235

Post by marcus_holmes »

plinkplonk wrote: post #233
marcus_holmes wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand and support your stance. Total respect for resigning for idealistic reasons. But I have another point of view on the subject after having worked in SE Asia. I'm not trying to contradict anyone here, just give my (hopefully informed) opinion. There are no democracies in SE Asia. There are a couple of countries that pretend to democracy (Cambodia and the Philippines spring to mind), but even these…

> There are no democracies in SE Asia. I wonder if you consider India to be in SE Asia. If not, please ignore the following. Last I looked there were regular elections happening there, with "strong leaders" being voted out of power with some regularity. They have problems (same as everywhere including the USA), but democracy / free elections aren't a problem (yet). "Democracy has never worked in SE Asia" is an extrem…

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 sweeping statements. It's a complex subject and a HN post doesn't give room to explore the topic fully. I totally agree that this is a bit stereotypical. But it is based on my actual experiences in the region over the past few years. I have no idea whether more time there would change my opinion or reinforce it.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#236

Post by chopin »

hrdwdmrbl wrote: post #215
hrdwdmrbl wrote: post #193

Love it when Americans make decisions for Chinese people and presume to know what they'd want. Maybe try asking them what they want. Or even just think about what you'd want if you lived in China. Living in China, you know your search engine will be censored. But still, wouldn't you want the best censored search engine that you can get?

I should note that I myself am not Chinese either, but I do live there and its not pleasant having to use Bing, etc.

Out of curiosity: Does Startpage work there?

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#237

Post by j16sdiz »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #232
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google had their own version of the Facebook's opt-in but highly-invasive research app, but only for people who were over 18 (at least as of the past couple years). This equivocation is a little ridiculous imho. Google's app was literally a tracking app by its very claim, there was no sense of deception or bait-and-switch.

Same with Facebook's app. I legitimately think the outrage over this was overblown (and I said as much at the time [1]), but I can see the other side of it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19031055

Not at their first try with onavo.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#238

Post by plinkplonk »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #235
plinkplonk wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no democracies in SE Asia. I wonder if you consider India to be in SE Asia. If not, please ignore the following. Last I looked there were regular elections happening there, with "strong leaders" being voted out of power with some regularity. They have problems (same as everywhere including the USA), but democracy / free elections aren't a problem (yet). "Democracy has never worked in SE Asia" is an extrem…

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 to wrap my head around what you are really saying)

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#239

Post by 0xfffafaCrash »

ehsankia wrote: post #83
CKN23-ARIN wrote: post #32

If Google didn't use a monorepo, it would have been much harder for these employees to keep tabs on Dragonfly-related code.

I personally find it a bit suspicious that every single piece of information we have on Dragonfly has come from The Intercept, which probably got it all from a single source. And yet everyone in these threads take all this info as fact. Clearly if it was so open, we'd have a lot more sources here. I also don't feel right making judgement on a project when I've only heard one side of the story, from a source which is…

The Intercept is an obvious choice to leak this sort of information, especially given their reputation for having the backs of their sources (with one notable failure -- the NSA leak where they published raw documents leading inadvertently to an identification of the source due to printer stenography) and focus on tech/surveillance issues. The previous stories re: Dragonfly were widely corroborated by many involved at Google since the story broke and reputable sources like the NYT had significant corroborating coverage. I don't see why it's suspicious or indicative that it's coming from a single source just because the Intercept is breaking more of these stories. Anyone familiar with what's been leaked and any interest in publishing an update on this story would have little reason to send it elsewhere instead.

Re: Google Employees Uncover Ongoing Work on Censored China Search

#240

Post by omouse »

robbrit wrote: post #4

I think what will end up happening is Google employees will just self-sort until there aren't enough people left in the company to oppose projects like this. People who are strongly opposed on moral grounds will leave, further strengthening management's choices. While Google is probably sad to see them go, it would be even sadder to continue missing out on the world's largest market. I doubt the employee protests wil…

> further strengthening management's choices

I think people are forgetting that each of those Google (former) employees have shares and are also shareholders and shareholders will start to get pissed when management is screwing up and will call for a new CEO or new execs or a new board to be put into place that will get Google back on track: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/technology/tech-workers-c...

> I doubt the employee protests will win out here in the long run.

If they lose more employees it can be argued that they're ignoring their fiduciary duty to the shareholders by tarnishing the brand of Google which makes hiring more difficult which leads to less profits.

There's already activist shareholders asking for more gender diversity data for example: https://www.fastcompany.com/40474369/activist-investor-deman...

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