Rights Groups Are Demanding That Google Doesn't Release A Censored Search Engine In China (buzzfeednews.com) 105
More than a dozen tech NGOs and human rights groups have issued an open letter calling on Google to stop work on a censored search engine project in China. From a report: Organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now and others released the letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday, saying the tech giant's plans to release a censored version of its search engine app to users in China represent an "alarming capitulation by Google on human rights." The project, dubbed Dragonfly, was first reported by The Intercept earlier this month. According to audio of a staff meeting, obtained by the New York Times, Pichai said that "if we were to do our mission well, we are to think seriously about how to do more in China. However, he went on to say that Google was "not close to launching a search product in China."
Re: Hmmm. (Score:2)
No, but still. We don't like it when companies set or influence social policy in the US, why would we expect the Chinese be any different? If Google operated search in China, they should absolutely conform to the laws the Chinese legislative body implemented, whatever they may be, however they were implemented.
Companies are not vectors for social change, populations are. If the Chinese take issue with their internal laws, they would change them either through revolt, political expression, or whatever means
Some is greater then Zero. (Score:2)
While I agree that Google shouldn't censor search engines results. However the reality of the situation is, if Google doesn't it just will not be available in China at all.
So the population will not have it at all.
They will be better with some of the information vs none. Especially, as some information can populate and get into peoples thoughts and minds faster then a government can deem it censored.
Also China equivalent is a white listed search engine vs a black listed engine, so information will populat
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Why exactly will they be better? Sometimes only knowing half of a truth is worse than knowing nothing. When the govt can decide which bits of truth are available they have an extremely powerful tool for manipulating the population. This is why your average young Chinese person is patriotic and trusts the state - the truths of Tiananmen square available to them are not complete.
Google doesn't give a fuck if Chinese people will be 'better' or not for having a censored google. All they want are eyeballs to
Flood China with information (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if Google does release a censored search engine in China, the chances are very good that the Chinese Government censors, who presumably tell Google what to censor, won't be able to keep up with the flood of information, phrased this way or that way, that is directly or indirectly about all kinds of uncomfortable issues and topics for the Chinese government.
A long time ago, Freeman Dyson said the way to defeat the Soviet Union was to give them PCs (I think he actually said Macs).
So that people would be able to gather and pass information easily, without the government in the loop.
Eventually, more knowledge in the hands of more of the population will presumeably reduce totalitarian government power, as independent ideas flourish like weeds.
Re: (Score:3)
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." Having the search engine available allows for steganography of sorts, where otherwise you'd have nothing.
Nonsense --- Chinese are expert censors (Score:3)
Chinese government and companies employ many thousands of people to censor.
And no, the Chinese do not tell Google or others what to censor, at least not very often. Google and others decide what to censor, and if the Chinese do not like it then they threaten to shut Google down. If Google does an excellent job then they might be granted a few favors.
Companies like WeChat employ most of the censors. They use a combination of patterns and terms. The spend their lives monitoring the internet, and become qu
Re: (Score:1)
Clash of the SJW titans!
In my experience, SJWs generally kind of _like_ censorship. As long as it's censoring the kind of thing they don't like of course. Also SJWs don't give two shits about anything going on in the rest of the world. They want to focus their hate on everyone in their own country.
Re: (Score:3)
The worst atrocities in the world were carried out by people who thought they were doing it for the best of reasons.
Re:should be fun (Score:5, Insightful)
American corporations are not going to "fix" China. That is up to the Chinese people, and at least for now they consider their rapidly rising standard of living to be a reasonable tradeoff for the CCP's censorship.
Google can play a positive role in China, and it is better for them to engage than to leave the market to companies like Baidu that will be even more compliant censors.
The petitioners are insisting on a worse outcome because it is more ideologically pure.
Re: (Score:3)
American corporations are not going to "fix" China. That is up to the Chinese people,
No, it will be up to the Chinese government. The people don't have a say in this.
and at least for now they consider their rapidly rising standard of living to be a reasonable tradeoff for the CCP's censorship.
No, they acknowledge their inability to protest the censorship and surveillance and instead attempt low-keyed mitigation (e.g., VPNs) or are simply resigned to their situation. There is no tradeoff because there is no decision to be made.
Google can play a positive role in China, and it is better for them to engage than to leave the market to companies like Baidu that will be even more compliant censors.
I'm not sure why Baidu would be a more strict censor. Is this a suggestion that the Chinese government is willing to allow Google some leeway or breaks in their implementation of the firewal
Re: (Score:2)
Is this a suggestion that the Chinese government is willing to allow Google some leeway or breaks in their implementation of the firewall?
Yes. The GFWOC is much less monolithic than you seem to believe.
Have you ever been to China? You seem to have some naive ideas about how things work there.
Disclaimer: I have an ulterior motive for wanting Google back in China: Baidu's English language search engine sucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Is this a suggestion that the Chinese government is willing to allow Google some leeway or breaks in their implementation of the firewall?
Yes. The GFWOC is much less monolithic than you seem to believe.
Have you ever been to China? You seem to have some naive ideas about how things work there.
Disclaimer: I have an ulterior motive for wanting Google back in China: Baidu's English language search engine sucks.
Yes, I have been to China. But I have to admit to not being courageous enough try searching for any forbidden words, so I don't know from experience if the alleged forbidden words are myth or reality. Have you ever tried searching for any forbidden words?
I admit to not being privy to the rules of the firewall. I also don't know what monolithic means with regards to a firewall. Are you suggesting there isn't a set of rules regarding what is allowed? (Not said sarcastically ...) It would be useful if you
Re: (Score:2)
Are you suggesting there isn't a set of rules regarding what is allowed?
Yes. There is no fixed set of rules, nor any published set of rules.
The censoring is very different depending on location, time, and forum. Filtering is most strict in Beijing because it is the political center of China, but also in Xinjiang and Tibet. In a 2nd tier city like, say, Wuhan, there is much less monitoring. Censorship is stricter around sensitive dates, especially June 4th, but also May 4th (On May 4th, 1919 there was rioting in China [wikipedia.org] after the publication of the Versailles Treaty). So even
Re: (Score:2)
So you suggest seeking a better outcome through more reprehensible means? While I see your point, that doesn't excuse evil.
An imperfect improvement is better than none.
If Google search goes back to China, a billion people will have another choice, and no one will be worse off. How is that "evil"?
Re: (Score:2)
PJ Media are actually quite anti-Trump, but that's irrelevant. What's relevant is that the author described his method in the article, allowing you — or anyone else — to replicate his results...
Meanwhile (Score:2, Insightful)
Trump is looking into censoring searches at google right here. Maybe he can tie our search results to our credit scores, for that personal touch?
Re: (Score:1)
Time to feed the trolls...
Google filters out conservative news, trump complains, gets blamed for censorship.
Bullshit. Google is not filtering out conservative news. Google is showing the most relative results based on their ranking algorithms. There's a lot more awful things coming out of the trump administration than good things, so having results reflect reality shouldn't be unexpected.
The tweet trump made provides zero details to confirm or deny his claims, just inflammatory statements:
Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of....
....results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!
* 'Google search results for “Trump News”'. So, we're not talking about liberal/conserva
Re: (Score:2)
Simply stop using Google and you wont give a fuck what it does, so https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duck... [duckduckgo.com], for a start and there is https://d.tube/ [d.tube] and look Apple and pals are looking to create better maps. As for email, really honestly, we are way, way behind on that, and tiny personal email servers as part of your router modem bit of kit should be the go. Gmail no better or worse that AOL or hotmail or yahoomail, who cares.
The bulk of Google's apparent market dominance is a pure exercise in marketing, it's pa
Re: (Score:3)
Well, he has been warning us about China [cheezburger.com] for the longest time. They're so sneaky, they've even gotten him to start using their tactics!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Trump is looking into censoring searches at google right here. Maybe he can tie our search results to our credit scores, for that personal touch?
The irony is strong with this one ..
You do realize you have it exactly backwards, right? Trump doesn't censor searches; Google does.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump is looking into censoring searches at google right here. Maybe he can tie our search results to our credit scores, for that personal touch?
The irony is strong with this one ..
You do realize you have it exactly backwards, right? Trump doesn't censor searches; Google does.
Modded down for simple, literal facts, lol
The danger of China (Score:1)
One of the reasons someone like Donald Trump resonates with America, is that the globalist mindset of embracing china and changing from the inside usually backfires when it encounters corporate America. The market is large and the money spigot can be effectively turned on or off by any capricious act of their government. As a result, corporations will adopt the lowest common denominator approach: do nothing that may possibly offend, and bend over to the whim of anyone in power over there. This includes of c
IBM helped the Nazis deal with the jews! (Score:2)
IBM helped the Nazis deal with the jews!
Re: (Score:2)
What about Microsoft? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What about Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
For the exact same reason that Apple is always pointed at when something negative happens. (eg: child labor in china, etc)
They're the perceived leader of the given industry, and that makes them the obvious target for finger pointing.
Re: (Score:1)
Because nobody uses Bing anyway.
I understand they're the #1 porn search engine. Try it sometime at work.
Where are the Google engineers on this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny when Google was helping develop better guided missile programs for the US government that would actually save lives they all had a collective hissy fit. But helping the Chinese government oppress its people is A-Ok with them.
Re: (Score:2)
Cause that is what we need as a country. A more efficient war machine.
Re:Where are the Google engineers on this? (Score:4, Informative)
Funny when Google was helping develop better guided missile programs for the US government that would actually save lives they all had a collective hissy fit. But helping the Chinese government oppress its people is A-Ok with them.
You don't pay attention to the news. Google engineers are complaining about the proposed censored Chinese search engine: https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/16/google-employees-protest-censored-china-search-engine/
https://www.dw.com/en/google-employees-protest-plans-for-chinese-censored-search-engine/a-45113112
Re: (Score:1)
Better yet (Score:2)
I have a better idea, how about google fix the censorship issues with the versions of google outside of China first? You know, something about not being a hypocrite and all?
Wrong recipient (Score:2)
Re: Wrong recipient (Score:1)
But their arguments would need to be financial instead of ethical. If Google grows in China, shareholders are happy.
This reminds me of sport ... (Score:3)
many years ago South Africa was boycotted by many sports teams due to apartheid [wikipedia.org]. There was a huge row: some said that this would punish South Africa; others said that sending Sports people would make more people aware of the issues and so help bring about change. Similar things have happened with other countries.
So the debate here is: should we punish China by keeping Google out or does Google being there help the Chinese people's political awareness/... by letting them see more from the outside world (even if it is filtered) ? I am not qualified to answer that question.
Re: (Score:3)
Google being there helps the Chinese people's non-political awareness, at least -- STEM, etc. I figure the more you read, the more expansion of thought you experience and the more freedom of thought you want. A better-informed populace in general couldn't hurt.
which? (Score:2)
I don't really get it to be fair (Score:2)
Hmm. Money or Ethics (Score:2, Insightful)
Censored Search Engine in America? (Score:3)
Have they also asked for a non-censored search engine in the United States?
It seems to me that Google's activity in China is simply an expansion of their current US censorship, rather than anything new. Sure, the keywords might be "falun gong" instead of "conservative news", but it's silly to protest their activity in China without acknowledging their activity in the States.
Google already self-censor (Score:3)
why not china too? (Score:2)
Quite right too (Score:1)
I wonder if we could have the censorship lifted in our 'progressive western democracies?'
If it were Russia, the screams would be unbearable (Score:2)
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
The fact is that most of K Street and Congress are bought and paid for by China, and the more people see Putin hiding in their closet, the more China will be able to strengthen its economic, military and social engineering hegemony.
Too late, already Censoring our results (Score:1)
After watching a youtube "laRouche" video about the city of London England is not a city in the normal sense but owned by banking groups, I wondered if there was any cross reference with the "Illuminati"
https://twitter.com/StevWork/s... [twitter.com]
(see the attached picture of Google search result.)
Please note that the top returns from a google search of laRouche with Illuminati had nothing to do with either.
Almost the entire first page results replaced with what seems completely random results.
SOooooo, if they are 'pro
What the heck (Score:2)
Human rights are things like food, water, air... claiming otherwise just waters down the value of your opinion later.
Re: (Score:1)
Human rights are things like food, water, air... claiming otherwise just waters down the value of your opinion later.
You mean we don't have a right to internet, an i-phone, basic income and a $15 minimum wage?
Shocked, shocked that you'd think that.
They opinions are not watered down later either. The memory of these things is about 5 seconds. Maybe less. There is one guy I ran across that wasn't like that. Man, he was there for like a year. I guess he had no life.
Demand? (Score:2)
Rights groups demand it? Good luck with that.
"We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
He was a British inventor.
Re: (Score:3)
Anything missing there?
Top hit seems to be to American Scientist magazine, which is reasonable (since Google ignores plurals in the search algorithm: "American Scientists" search is identical to "American Scientist"). Other than that, it's mostly whoever has been in the news recently or for some other reason has some web pages.
Why, what do you think is missing?
Re: But they already have a censored search engine (Score:2)
When Google censors American search results, IT'S FOR OUR OWN GOOD. Because Big Brother Google loves us all.