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Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

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Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#231

Post by gdy »

__sy__ wrote: post #160
TearsInTheRain wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weak argument. The base response to a repressive totalitarian regime is non-cooperation, not support them and hope they will be marginally less oppressive. Any support legitimizes their actions and further entrenches their oppression

Yes and yes again. This is so key for people to understand. And this is why google should have never touched this fucking project in the first place. Many continue to push this logic that somehow we should continue to engage with the PRC. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in China, have relatives there...etc, and I’m convinced that this approach is 100% FLAWED. The CCP derives its authority from economic growth--nex…

"The CCP derives its authority from economic growth"

Why is it a bad thing?

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#232

Post by Faark »

patejam wrote: post #118
ezoe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both US and EU exercise censorship in the name of: + copyrights + trademarks + patents(really bogus patents) + religion(these days, US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game) + national security + ex-political party symbol(swastika, but they can't tell the difference between nazi symbol and Buddism symbol which is widely used in Japanese…

So a couple things (From the US perspective): 1. Copyright, trademarks, and patents are a pretty weak argument for "censorship" IMO. But I guess I see where you're coming from. There are also many "fair-use" exceptions for these that make it less "censorship" and more "preventing profit on other people's ideas". 2. "US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying s…

> 2. "US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game" -- Can you give an example? This seems to go directly against first amendment rights.

I also would love to see some example and an not aware of cases were stuff was changed due to laws. There is self-censorship, as e.g. the Spice and Wolf anime trying very hard not to use christian symbols for the religion obviously modeled after Christianity. This kinda makes the target audience kinda look bad, but that's their choice and totally fine.

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#233

Post by TelmoMenezes »

baby wrote: post #142
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored. So what? That does not make censorship morally acceptable. This would be the same as saying that using slave labor is ok, if you do it in a country that already accepts slavery anyway, and you are treating you slaves better. > And by surfacing better information for queries, it ca…

Your problem is that you're seeing this issue as black and white, which never does good.

I have no problem listening to the nuances. Please feel free to educate me, but give counter-arguments to what I wrote and spare me the clichés.

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#234

Post by bduerst »

ezoe wrote: post #98
peteretep wrote: post #41

To me, this feels like an area Uncle Sam and the EU need to get involved in. Declare all censorship or need to comply with the Great Firewall to be a trade barrier, freeze out all Chinese tech companies on that basis, and find a way to strongly discourage American and European companies from in any way enabling it.

Both US and EU exercise censorship in the name of: + copyrights + trademarks + patents(really bogus patents) + religion(these days, US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game) + national security + ex-political party symbol(swastika, but they can't tell the difference between nazi symbol and Buddism symbol which is widely used in Japanese…

The right to be forgotten is a bigger censorship blow against democracy than outright banning individual websites. Politicans can selectively remove results about themselves so that constituents can never find them in search, while giving the appearance that nothing is wrong because other articles show in results.

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#235

Post by bduerst »

themacguffinman wrote: post #179
ezoe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both US and EU exercise censorship in the name of: + copyrights + trademarks + patents(really bogus patents) + religion(these days, US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game) + national security + ex-political party symbol(swastika, but they can't tell the difference between nazi symbol and Buddism symbol which is widely used in Japanese…

A lot of this isn't even true, especially in the US where Google is based. Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are not censorship, they are actually designed to encourage the exposure of information (copyrighted/trademarked/patented information is free to view, that's the foundation of the concept) by promising restrictions on third party usage of the information, which is a concern for creators who avoid sharing the…

Normally I'd agree, but it's not quite whataboutism because someone else had brought up censorship in other developed nations. Their comment isn't a tu quoque deflection but instead elaborating on the topic.

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#236

Post by dbg31415 »

I'm happy Google is dropping this. I don't want them developing more censorship tech that they can then roll out to the US, or other markets. It should be hard to censor things on the internet, and the less effort that is put into censorship tech, the better off humanity is.

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#237

Post by dirtyid »

laughinghan wrote: post #225
dirtyid wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to the Emirates Taiwanese flag incident, and other cockpit paraphernalia drama from a couple years ago. Airlines already had existing protocol of scrubbing physical Taiwanese references when operating in China. I wasn't aware of the website change, but China compelling airline operators to adopt UN recognized countries... is somehow unreasonable or even bullying is more than a little stupid characteri…

> China started internet censorship apparatus in response to calls of ethnic violence after the XinJiang riots a decade ago Who fucking cares? The PATRIOT Act was in response to the worst terrorist attack on US soil in US history. Three thousand people. I have friends who were in New York then. The Japanese internment camps were in response to Pearl Harbor. If an action is wrong, the impetus doesn't fucking matter, t…

Where did I deny Chinese censorship was used to suppress discussion? I specifically said I don't endorse how far the Chinese system went. The point was censorship for prevent violence has it's place, and the west now recognizes that.

As far as information control in terms of individual freedom, folks in PRC can just grab and VPN and shitpost or find competing narratives abroad. Access is possible and not even inconvenient. People in the west believes the effects of censorship is so overwhelming that it cannot possibly be circumvented to reach the "truth" that only they can attain. But most PRC folks are complacent with being ignorant. Similar to the plurality of low information readers in the west, who has access to diverse sources but somehow converges to western propaganda talking points comparable to the effects of censorship. Someone posted a western brand awareness and usage article yesterday, where 17% of Chinese internet users regularly use facebook and are aware of western perspectives. Do you think 17% of the west would go out of their way to learn the Chinese perspectives? Potential to be informed =/= informed citizenry.

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#238

Post by bduerst »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #216
bduerst wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes down to the difference in underlying values of different cultures. Forcing what you think people should want onto others when it's not what they really want isn't effective, even despite your relative moral justifications. There are ways to accomplish notifying the user of censorship which isn't shoving it in their face. Users simply won't use Google if it's beating them with a stick to remind them that we…

This is one of a very few places where I don't mind projecting my cultural values, and in fact consider it morally unjust not to do so. Another would be equal rights for women and ethnic minorities. I don't care if someone else's culture dictates that men should have legal control over their wives, or what have you—that's abhorrent, and human rights should be universal.

That's precisely how, throughout the history of mankind, one tribe of people have forced their viewpoint onto others - because they thought it was right.

The false equivocation of protecting minority groups and human rights with "Should we notify of censorship in the results or the bottom of the screen?" is telling in this regard.

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#239

Post by bduerst »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #112
khc wrote: post #86

As an overseas Chinese (born and grew up in Hong Kong but have relatives in China) I am sadden by this and HN comments. Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored. Because laws in this area are often vague, I can see that dragonfly would apply varying levels of censorships and as a side effect, allow people to access some inf…

If Google had more business in China, the CCP could blackmail them into censoring their results in other countries as well. Just look at how the CCP bullied international airlines about Taiwan, the laws being awfully vague hasn't helped one bit. Letting the CCP export its censorship back into the West in the hopes that Google will improve life in China is a hell of a gamble.

Kind of like how they pushed Apple to move their iCloud data onto local Chinese datacenters:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...

Or how they then nationalized the company that has access to all the iCloud encryption keys for accessing Apple user messages, pictures, videos, files, etc. at rest:

https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-d...

Re: Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China

#240

Post by themacguffinman »

bduerst wrote: post #235
themacguffinman wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this isn't even true, especially in the US where Google is based. Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are not censorship, they are actually designed to encourage the exposure of information (copyrighted/trademarked/patented information is free to view, that's the foundation of the concept) by promising restrictions on third party usage of the information, which is a concern for creators who avoid sharing the…

Normally I'd agree, but it's not quite whataboutism because someone else had brought up censorship in other developed nations. Their comment isn't a tu quoque deflection but instead elaborating on the topic.

That's a fair point, I'll update my comment to reflect that.
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