Google Admits China Censorship Was Damaging 205
pilsner.urquell writes to let us know about a wide-ranging interview with Google's founders from Davos, Switzerland. Larry Page and Sergey Brin admitted that allowing China to censor its search engine did harm to the company in its Western markets. Quoting the Guardian article: "Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr. Brin admitted yesterday: 'On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative.'" The reporter concludes that Google is unlikely to revise its Chinese censorship policy any time soon.
Agreed.. but why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Smells like... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Smells like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Say you pick between two lines at the grocery store. By the time you're two-thirds of the way through the line, you realize it's moving more slowly than the other. Your decision was a net negative, but that doesn't mean you leave your line and join the other. Sometimes we make mistakes but have to stick with them.
Damn! (Score:5, Insightful)
They have nothing to admit or apologize for (Score:5, Insightful)
Millions of Chinese Internet users have better access to information now than they would have if Google had decided to take "the principled position" and refuse to play ball. What seems to fly over the heads of people who advocate that position is that the result would not have been the Chinese government caving in and saying, "Okay, you're right, we shouldn't force you to censor." The result would have been "Okay, then you don't get to do business in our country," and, as much as that might make Westerners feel all warm and fuzzy inside (Hooray! We have held fast in the face of evil!) it would not be a good thing for the millions of people in China who are now able to use Google every day.
Further, not only would Google have been shut out of China, but a homegrown alternative would undoubtedly have taken its place -- and you can bet that the alternative would not have taken the pains Google has to point out to its Chinese users that their search results are in fact censored. That fact is spelled out in no uncertain terms on google.cn's search results pages: they say "" which means more or less "In order to comply with local regulations, some search results have been removed."
Google is helping millions of people more efficiently access information, and it is pointing out the existence of government interference with said information to people who might otherwise be unaware of it.
Taking their ball and going home would improve on that situation how, exactly?
It's not Googles fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Smells like... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, like segregation.
Re:Damn! (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Smells like... (Score:5, Insightful)
They can stop censoring at any time. They can refuse to do it. They can't undo the damage that has been done, but they can stop doing more.
The amount of credibility that they have lost so far is a sunk cost, but by continuing to do it, they are loosing more. Their argument is "we did something wrong, and we are still doing it because the amount of credit we will get for stopping isn't enough." That isn't an argument from principle. It's saying that they won't do the right thing because it doesn't gain them enough. They will gain more by staying evil than by being good, so that's what they choose to do.
Re:Agreed.. but why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Worst case scenario if Google censors their index so the Chinese public have access to it: Information (that an arbitrary entity deems acceptable) is more accesible
Worst case scenario if Iran has nuclear arms: millions of people die
Of course you're only making a point, but the first situation is arguably the right thing to do; they are in no way making things worse. Your example can have devastation consequences and so can be considered Bad Thing(TM).
Re:Smells like... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now as far as making money, a company that is perceived as being "good" "noble" and "not evil" will make more money. Microsoft probably didn't worry about that because they figured they could make a lot of money anyway...and they did. But now Google comes along and they figure that making themselves into a "good" company will greatly benefit them and will result in even greater profits than otherwise being a just an average IT company.
Google has gone to great lengths to build that image of itself. But that is what that it is, it is a marketing front! It is no more "good" than Microsoft. Or rather it is only as "good" as that perception keeps making them money.
So what Brin was saying in so many words is that "I would still like to keep the image of Google as being good by seemingly recanting the decision to censor in China but we will _not_ break that deal because it makes us money". It is indeed the best he could have said, because we can look at Google and say, "well at least they've sort of apologized for it, so they are still noble", and not too many of us will have the time or the resources to check and see if the actual deal was broken.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you said it yourself:
The result would have been "Okay, then you don't get to do business in our country,"
Google does not want to "help", google wants to do business. I wonder where you get the notion that the Chinese people "might (otherwise) be unaware of" government censorship and repression - they live there, every day. Helping someone or some country to suppress and censor information is just what it is, no matter what you may call it: censorship. Do you even realize how cynical your post is? You sound as though you knew for sure what is "a good thing for the millions of people in China".
Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for (Score:3, Insightful)
As for other companies, Google getting kicked out of China would more likely have exactly the opposite effect from the one you're hoping for: they wouldn't be shamed into doing the same, they'd breathe a sigh of relief and congratulate themselves for not being so foolish, and possibly redouble their censorship efforts to be sure they were steering clear of similar trouble. The only way other companies would move in the same direction would be if Google refused to censor and got away with it for an extended period of time. And China's recent history has very few examples (none that I know of, in fact) of that being a good bet to make.
I think it's an excellent moral justification, unless one's concept of morality is that it should exist in a vacuum! Considering the likely eventual effects of one's possible courses of action and choosing the one that produces the most generally beneficial outcome is, to me, the very essence of moral reasoning.That Google's choice is also the profitable one is good too -- but it's pretty easy to see that Google is not simply choosing maximal profit and justifying it after the fact. If they were, they would have Gmail servers in China rather than forcing Chinese users to use the ones in the US. They are voluntarily giving up webmail market share (hitting Gmail's servers from China is slow) in order to avoid having to turn over information about their users.
Re:Smells like... (Score:1, Insightful)
China is censored. They have no choice if they want to service people in China. If they refuse to be censored, China does not get any Google at all. In fact, I'd consider they did more good by having a "this page has been censored by your fine government" notice at the bottom of the page than by simply not being there.
But oh no, it's Google! They're POPULAR! They can do no right!
It's never too late to do the right thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." --Orlando A. Battista
Re:Smells like... (Score:3, Insightful)
Serveert makes a good point (Score:3, Insightful)
But it's only covered up when everyone that controls the flow of information agrees to silence discussion.
I wonder if any 'Stealth Marketers' are present here?
Typo (Score:3, Insightful)
Google Admits China Censorship Publicity Was Damaging
All fixed.
The censorshop is working! (Score:5, Insightful)
Paragraph 1. It's not just Tiananmen, but every other dirty thing the Chinese Government is doing they've helped suppress. Who are they holding this information from? Not you or I, but from the Chinese Public. They're helping the Chinese Government spread lies.
Paragraph 2. It's worked! Today Young Chinese don't believe Tiananmen ever happened. Mission Accomplished, Google! They are having a related problem in Cambodia where young people don't believe the Killings Fields ever happened.
"In January 2006, Google agreed to censor their mainland China site, Google.cn, to remove information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre [3], as well as other topics such as Tibetan independence, the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong and the political status of Taiwan. When people search for those censored topics, it will list the following at the bottom of the page in Chinese, "According to the local laws, regulations and policies, part of the searching result is not shown." The uncensored Wikipedia articles on the 1989 protests, both in English and Chinese Wikipedia, have been attributed as a cause of the blocking of Wikipedia by the government in mainland China.
In 2006, the American PBS program "Frontline" broadcast a segment filmed at Peking University, many of whose students participated in the 1989 protests. Four students were shown a picture of the Tank man, but none of them correctly identified the person or the event depicted. Some responded that it was a military parade, or an artwork. This is reflective of either strong censorship of the event in mainland China, or the effectiveness of political indoctrination such that students feigned ignorance to an American journalist."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_pro
I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
That aside, I think their decision to go into China was definitely good for society/the world as a whole. Besides the obvious benefits of Chinese people having more information (albeit biased) available, I think it was good to draw more attention to (a) their censorship program, (b) the censored material, and (c) the evilness of the Chinese government.
(a) The rest of the world can see that it exists, and to what extent. It's easier to find out what material is being censored.
(b) There are obviously loopholes. I don't know of any in particular, but I'm sure a large amount of information slips through. There's no way you can get a bullet-proof censor of the whole internet. Also, the rest of the world can see actual content that was censored (what really happened/why was it censored anyway?)
(c) This should be self-explanatory. At least it increases awareness of what they're doing. I had a friend that did a semester abroad in China (Univ of Beijing). He said it was bad there. Really bad. Apparently "George Washington" is an unacceptable name there. The problem was, he wanted to go to (God forbid) George Washington University for grad school. The problem was, he couldn't access anything from there online, he said his mail was checked. It was such a pain that he ended up giving up applying there because the name of the university was so hard to get through their shit political system. I think the censorship program just makes situations like this come under more fire. And rightfully so. Go Google!
[1] Maybe that's the problem. People will believe any mumbo jumbo [youtube.com] you throw at them. My parents are no exception. "Oh Google is censoring/ They shouldn't do that". That's not even half of the story. People are idiots. If this actually did/will hurt Google, that will be the only reason.
Re:Agreed.. but why? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry and I'll probably be modded flamebait for this, but I find your post extremely ignorant and I find it scary that it's supposed to be FP material.
Re:Agreed.. but why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Smells like... (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally feel any company assisting in keeping the oppressed from disseminating their beliefs is not one I choose to do business with.
You might not be American, but if you feel that way, then what are you doing to stop our government's censorship of information [slashdot.org]? Even worse than Google, the information we are being provided with is not just censored but doctored. Compare a US high school history book to one in another country, and you'll find a lot of differences. How about the teacher who was suspended for comparing Bush to Hitler [slashdot.org]? What about all the denied applications for information under the FOIA? If you want to say that these are all different situations with different considerations, you're absolutely right because censorship isn't black and white. Claiming that since Google censored some information in China means that they did something evil and horrible is a naive approach (and usually a hypocrytical one as well) to a complicated problem.
Re:Agreed.. but why? (Score:3, Insightful)
The "Do no evil" policy doesn't just mean to do no evil when no profits are at stake (like randomly killing puppies). It means to do no evil even if profits are at stake.
Censoring people is morally wrong. When we start playing the game of "the ends justify the means" we start getting into flawed logic like that which started our recent Iraq War (i.e. it is OK to kill hundreds of thousands of people as long as you free their country--the ends justify the means).
Logically you are going to ask what would have happened if Google refused to do business in China. Another American company like Microsoft or even some other foreign company would have undoubtedly taken the place of Google. Their censorship may have been more or less strict. And from this you might think that Google is doing good because other companies could have been more evil. But then tell me why so many people think Haliburton is an evil company. They bring required services to Iraq and would certainly outperform many other companies. You might object and say that war profiteering is not the same as profiting from censorship, but I would disagree. Fundamentally, both companies are profiting from morally wrong actions.
Whether Google is doing less evil than other companies is unknown. But Google is undoubtedly doing evil. And this is not something I think people should start admiring. While the phrase "the ends justify the means" certainly sounds reasonable at first, it has a hidden assumption that has bitten most people who have used that phrase to justify their actions. That assumption is that you can predict the future. Saddam Hussein might have continued a brutal reign and continued policies of genocide and aggravating neighbors for another 30 years in which the international community could do nothing to stop. But then again he might not have. This is why so many people consider the Iraq War unjust. And this is why I consider Google's actions evil.
Re:It's not Googles fault (Score:2, Insightful)
You could even argue that they would have a responsibility to shareholders to be doing business there, sacrifices or not, but society would probably step in and say 'Nope, you don't get to do that'. Figuring out exactly where is step in is, of course, the issue at hand.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Agreed.. but why? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but Google clearly broke their vow of "Do No Evil." It was nothing but a marketing slogan.
-matthew
Re:I disagree (Score:2, Insightful)