Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by chillacy » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #64

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nice and all, but the reality is that these multinational companies actively and willingly accept these terms (and more!) in order to exploit Chinese labor. The rhetoric about IP and censorship is all bark, no bite because the people at the top knew exactly what they signed up for.

> these multinational companies actively and willingly accept these terms That's why it needs to be worked on a political level, like the post you replied to stated.

It’s game theory, each company needs to stay ahead of the others and end up in a globally suboptimal state. One solution to the prisoners dilemma is “the don” who ensures nobody defects, aka the government.

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

#82

Post by hakka-nyu-su » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55

chrischen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any sort of heavy hand the West takes to “prove” that whatever it is that China is doing (censorship, communism, etc) is wrong/doesn’t work is going to backfire to the highest degree. It will entrench them in their already strong beliefs that the West is only interested in holding progress back from China (out of jealousy at their high economic growth). If you believe your system is better, then you really should not…

> It will entrench them in their already strong beliefs We tried the hug approach when China was prematurely let into the WTO. That backfired. Our concern should be, first and foremost, with our own morality. Helping a dictator repress billions of people is wrong, against our values, and should not tolerated by people in our society.

You say China joined the WTO "prematurely" which implies that certain economic conditions were not met, but the real hold-up was political: questions of liberalism vs Leninism, etc.

The Chinese people have gained enormously in terms of their standard of living since 2001, and while political repression has not gotten better, it also has not gotten worse.

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

#83

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

skj wrote: post #35

phoe-krk wrote: post #6

I am accepting bets on when the project will be terminated again in the future. Bitcoin only. Tether only in high amounts.

How could someone collect? Your window seems open-ended.

[deleted]

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

#84

Post by CodiePetersen » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #62

geophertz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely people do not care about Apple doing the same thing. Even on HN posts talking about how Apple sells privacy as a product are upvoted and reach > 1000 upvotes.

You know what company was once in China and pulled out on moral grounds? Google. [1] Yet nobody cares, as evidenced by the number of companies who do plenty of business in China without backlash. So Google tries to go back to China, and everyone loses their minds. It's frustrating to be honest, it's as if they're be punished for a good deed they did 10 years ago. If they had just never left, they'd be in the same sit…

Actually that is a very good point. It is a bit unfair to allow Baidu to operate free outside but hold Google to a certain ethical standard. I had never considered that.

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

#85

Post by chillacy » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #54

kyrra wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the arguments at the time when dragonfly was leaked, it was brought up that there is censorship, though in a different form, already in the EU. Be it right to be forgotten, or filtering of information related to things unsavory to the past of any given country in the EU. Then the US and EU both have censorship around things protected by law. So you can sue people to take down slanderous material, or material tha…

Right to be forgotten gives the individual the right to have his data removed from permanent storage by companies, for whatever purpose: not sure how it relates even remotely with censorship. " filtering of information related to things unsavory to the past of any given country in the EU." Some specific reference to some EU government forcing companies to remove controversial information about their countries' past w…

This argument feels like the classic “is killing in wartime murder”. It’s semantic at heart.

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

#86

Post by khc » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

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 information that they otherwise wouldn't be able to. And by surfacing better information for queries, it can also help people finding what they want for things that are not censored.

I know some people prefer to stick their noses up and hold what they perceive as the moral high ground, but do consider how lives of hundreds of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions.

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

#87

Post by gowld » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

The news here is just that Google told the Senate hearing confirmation of the same thing people were saying informally before.

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

#88

Post by peteretep » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

noelsusman wrote: post #52

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.

Good luck convincing US and EU residents to take a significant economic hit in the name of standing on principle against censorship that doesn't affect them.

> convincing US and EU residents to take a significant economic hit in the name of

If the last few years have shown anything, it's that you can get EU and US citizens to vote against their best interests using a convenient scapegoat or outgroup.

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

#89

Post by gowld » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

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…

It's not just censorship. It never was. Dragonfly also includes actively assisting the Chinese Communist Party in identifying and persecuting people who look for information about freedom or for information about crimes committed by the Party/government

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

#90

Post by CodiePetersen » Wed, Jul 17, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

hakka-nyu-su wrote: post #82

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will entrench them in their already strong beliefs We tried the hug approach when China was prematurely let into the WTO. That backfired. Our concern should be, first and foremost, with our own morality. Helping a dictator repress billions of people is wrong, against our values, and should not tolerated by people in our society.

You say China joined the WTO "prematurely" which implies that certain economic conditions were not met, but the real hold-up was political: questions of liberalism vs Leninism, etc. The Chinese people have gained enormously in terms of their standard of living since 2001, and while political repression has not gotten better, it also has not gotten worse.

I think better and worse are subjective. But the thought reconditioning camps, the concentration camps for the Muslims, and the forced propaganda app are in my opinion pretty bad.