Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Google's Project Dragonfly 'Terminated' in China
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49015516
270 comments
You're assuming that Google would act as a mole, implementing the censorship in bad faith. Why wouldn't they advance the state of the art for censorship, making it even more effective in an attempt to please the Chinese government? In fact, if China is allowing them in, the party must have some reason to believe the second one will come to pass instead of the first.
Or china quietly takes direct control over the machines biult and run by google. Google then, from the user's perspective, has become that problem governmemt.
They could. Do you know that's the case? China allows a lot of foreign investments and to think that the only reason is to further their censorship is silly.
They could. Do you know that's the case? China allows a lot of foreign investments and to think that the only reason is to further their censorship is silly.
And to think that Google would never submit to Chinese censorship in earnest is naive. Yahoo![1], Google, Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel all willingly partook in aiding the censorship apparatus. Yahoo! even went so far as to out journalists and political targets for the Chinese government. Why wouldn't Google do the same?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Work_in_th...
And to think that Google would never submit to Chinese censorship in earnest is naive. Yahoo![1], Google, Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel all willingly partook in aiding the censorship apparatus. Yahoo! even went so far as to out journalists and political targets for the Chinese government. Why wouldn't Google do the same?
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Yahoo!#Work_in_th...
The question is not whether they would do the same - but whether they would the practice to other regions. Did Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel?
The question is not whether they would do the same - but whether they would the practice to other regions. Did Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel?
Well AOL, Skype, and Nortel don't really exist as independent entities anymore. Microsoft already censors Skype globally (for profanity) the last I checked. Unfortunately censorship in other countries outside of China doesn't seem to get as much attention, but none of those tinpot dictatorship seem to have any trouble getting their hands on censorship technology from the west.
That Google already went down the road of developing a censorship platform with Dragonfly reveals their willingness to aid in government censorship.
Well AOL, Skype, and Nortel don't really exist as independent entities anymore. Microsoft already censors Skype globally (for profanity) the last I checked. Unfortunately censorship in other countries outside of China doesn't seem to get as much attention, but none of those tinpot dictatorship seem to have any trouble getting their hands on censorship technology from the west.
That Google already went down the road of developing a censorship platform with Dragonfly reveals their willingness to aid in government censorship.
Cisco's been accused of have assisted China in identifing members of Falun Gong.
The first news story I came a across searching (it seems fairly unbiased): https://m.sfgate.com/technology/dotcommentary/article/Cisco-...
The first news story I came a across searching (it seems fairly unbiased): https://m.sfgate.com/technology/dotcommentary/article/Cisco-...
In China.
Ah, it happened in China, so that makes it totally cool and justified.
I am not the kind of person to swing the morality flag pretty much ever, but if you don’t see what’s wrong with this, then I don’t know what else to say.
I am not the kind of person to swing the morality flag pretty much ever, but if you don’t see what’s wrong with this, then I don’t know what else to say.
It's an appraisal of the article in relation to the original comment. What western companies do in China so far seems to be siloed from what happens in other regions, just like what happens in EU, given sufficiently incompatible regulations. Especially ones that are costly to enforce. It doesn't make it cool or justified, it just makes these appealing slippery slopes arguments not grounded in evidence.
As for the moral flag, I think in context of Sino-US topics, that ship has sailed long ago. It's more useful to contextualize these decisions in a geopolitical / great powers competition lense. Having Google in China is good soft power opportunity for the US. Chinese people are eager for a baidu alternative. I'm not going to pretend that more engagement with China is going to lead to liberalization in the short-term, but I do think it goes a long way towards preventing future hostilities. And I think google being incentivized to operate in China and becoming proficient in bridging the Chinese-open web is a net good.
As for the moral flag, I think in context of Sino-US topics, that ship has sailed long ago. It's more useful to contextualize these decisions in a geopolitical / great powers competition lense. Having Google in China is good soft power opportunity for the US. Chinese people are eager for a baidu alternative. I'm not going to pretend that more engagement with China is going to lead to liberalization in the short-term, but I do think it goes a long way towards preventing future hostilities. And I think google being incentivized to operate in China and becoming proficient in bridging the Chinese-open web is a net good.
What exactly does "submit to chinese censorship" mean in this case? China is already blocking these censored websites- linking them in search results isn't going to magically allow the website to load in the browser.
Even in the example you linked, Yahoo! said "it must respect the laws of governments in jurisdictions where it is operating." How is complying with this different than complying with a U.S. Government subpoena?
Even in the example you linked, Yahoo! said "it must respect the laws of governments in jurisdictions where it is operating." How is complying with this different than complying with a U.S. Government subpoena?
> China is already blocking these censored websites- linking them in search results isn't going to magically allow the website to load in the browser.
Unless the user clicks the little down arrow next to the URL, which opens the popup menu with "Cached".
And even if that were also censored, the titles, URLs and the first couple of lines of text returned by Google would speak volumes about what's going on. Imagine googling Tiananmen and getting page after page of search results which all turn out to be inaccessible. What would that tell you?
Unless the user clicks the little down arrow next to the URL, which opens the popup menu with "Cached".
And even if that were also censored, the titles, URLs and the first couple of lines of text returned by Google would speak volumes about what's going on. Imagine googling Tiananmen and getting page after page of search results which all turn out to be inaccessible. What would that tell you?
How many users browse the internet through Google's cache? Splitting hairs over cache vs. linking the dead website is ignoring the point.
> How many users browse the internet through Google's cache?
A more pertinent question is how many Chinese users would gladly browse the internet through Google's cache, if it were available to them.
A fair guess is a number at least as large as the number of Chinese users who used to browse the internet through VPNs before the government cracked down on those (nearly 1 in 3 of all Chinese internet users, according to [1], i.e. hundreds of millions).
> Splitting hairs over cache vs. linking the dead website is ignoring the point.
The point, which you appear to have missed, is that you can't expect the censorship to work as implied by the statement I responded to. Google wouldn't be allowed to simply serve up the same search results as outside China. It would have to remove them entirely.
[1] https://www.goldenfrog.com/blog/china-cracks-down-on-vpn-use...
A more pertinent question is how many Chinese users would gladly browse the internet through Google's cache, if it were available to them.
A fair guess is a number at least as large as the number of Chinese users who used to browse the internet through VPNs before the government cracked down on those (nearly 1 in 3 of all Chinese internet users, according to [1], i.e. hundreds of millions).
> Splitting hairs over cache vs. linking the dead website is ignoring the point.
The point, which you appear to have missed, is that you can't expect the censorship to work as implied by the statement I responded to. Google wouldn't be allowed to simply serve up the same search results as outside China. It would have to remove them entirely.
[1] https://www.goldenfrog.com/blog/china-cracks-down-on-vpn-use...
How is complying with this different than complying with a U.S. Government subpoena?
Are you asking how censorship and subpoenas are different?
Are you asking how censorship and subpoenas are different?
Of course there are other reasons, such as co-opting foreign technology.
Foreign corporations have to give up a lot of control to do business in China.
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--next year will be better than this year, so don't challenge us. At this point in their development, for this growth to continue, it now requires science/tech innovation (see “middle income trap” theory / many of my acquaintances have moved factories elsewhere due to cost in PRC). Any work we do with them in those are areas only make the oppression problem worse, both for Chinese people and for us now/eventually (e.g. Hollywood will never criticize China; not the same with Russia).
EDITS: typo
EDITS: typo
"The CCP derives its authority from economic growth"
Why is it a bad thing?
Why is it a bad thing?
That's not a bad thing, but it means that you can't help the economy without helping the party. It's either both or neither.
But if a party policies help economy grow, why is it bad to help party?
I mean if you really dont know, China is an incredibly oppressive totalitarian regime that maintains their power through violence and censorship. Political opponents are routinely disappeared and murdered
Why do you call it "incredibly oppressive"? It's nothing like Mao's China or Stalin's USSR or Pol Pot's Cambodia or Hitler's Germany. Saudi Arabia comes to mind with their executions of political opponents and whatnot.
If you really don't know, CCP's regime through economic growth has lifted from extreme poverty over 700 million people [0]. It's the same economic growth HN's well-wishers are lamenting about. Extreme poverty is not inability to buy the latest iPhone, it's malnutrition, lack of medical care, hard work, illnesses and likely early death.
You care about people who, you say, disappeared because of CCP's regime and at the same time absolutely don't care about hundreds of millions, most of whom would've still been suffering from extreme poverty and accompanying excessive mortality. The statistics of democratic India are lagging behind by very big margin and give an estimation of what could've been China's alternative reality [1].
[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/peoples-daily-online/opinion/pov...
[1] https://qz.com/india/1385642/after-china-india-pulled-most-p...
If you really don't know, CCP's regime through economic growth has lifted from extreme poverty over 700 million people [0]. It's the same economic growth HN's well-wishers are lamenting about. Extreme poverty is not inability to buy the latest iPhone, it's malnutrition, lack of medical care, hard work, illnesses and likely early death.
You care about people who, you say, disappeared because of CCP's regime and at the same time absolutely don't care about hundreds of millions, most of whom would've still been suffering from extreme poverty and accompanying excessive mortality. The statistics of democratic India are lagging behind by very big margin and give an estimation of what could've been China's alternative reality [1].
[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/peoples-daily-online/opinion/pov...
[1] https://qz.com/india/1385642/after-china-india-pulled-most-p...
You need to prove that China's totalitarian policies are A) responsible for the growth and that B) all the deaths and lack of freedom attributable were somehow justifiable (they aren't). A big problem for your argument is that Hong Kong is a bigger, brighter, and longer burning success story than mainland China. Hong Kong avoided the totalitarian nastiness that the CCP's government currently employs (great firewall of china, no free press, no freedom of travel, etc.). In some ways China today is worse than in the days of Mao since the government has the technological means to monitor everyone's communications and travel at a very large scale.
Well, in the same vein you need to prove that democracy is responsible for Hong Kong's success.
I said that Hong Kong avoided totalitarianism and is an much larger success story than mainland China (both of which are objectively true). I never claimed that democracy is responsible for Hong Kong's success.
So why do you say "You need to prove that China's totalitarian policies are A) responsible for the growth"?
Isn't that the kind of policy that creates places like North Korea?
And we're already heavily tied to china's economy why would forcing just one company to not cooperate help deligitimize their government?
And we're already heavily tied to china's economy why would forcing just one company to not cooperate help deligitimize their government?
US government policy didn't create North Korea. In fact the Chinese government had a huge hand in that.
How has that worked out for Cuba, North Korea, and Iran? Or Afghanistan, Iraq until we invaded them?
I hear you since I have a similar background (born and grew up in HK). I really wish that the Chinese people can benefit from better services (search, social media) and also the people in the west can benefit from some the the innovation in China.
Though I find that as a company, this is a slippery slope that it's better not to get on in the first place.
Can Google enter China and slowly affect change? Possibly
But from the track record of China and especially what's happening in Hong Kong, cooperating seems to be just feeding the beast. There needs to be genuine interest in opening up and making a change. So far, I do not see that but perhaps one day we can get there.
Though I find that as a company, this is a slippery slope that it's better not to get on in the first place.
Can Google enter China and slowly affect change? Possibly
But from the track record of China and especially what's happening in Hong Kong, cooperating seems to be just feeding the beast. There needs to be genuine interest in opening up and making a change. So far, I do not see that but perhaps one day we can get there.
Enabling censorship and oppression should not be a race to the bottom - which is what you are advocating for.
I don't understand how any search engine approved in China could be "surfacing better information in queries" - they are all effectively under the same authoritative control. Are you placing your believe in hopes and prayers that real information will be "accidentally" leaked to the oppressed masses in China? How cute.
I don't understand how any search engine approved in China could be "surfacing better information in queries" - they are all effectively under the same authoritative control. Are you placing your believe in hopes and prayers that real information will be "accidentally" leaked to the oppressed masses in China? How cute.
You can make your same point without being dismissive.
How am I advocating for race to the bottom?
If a condition is already bad, why bother trying to make it better? ie:
> Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored
"...so it isn't helping, it's just business as usual."
The counterpoint is that having choice is helpful, especially when the choices include user segments, even if you don't experience it. Also, participating in oppressive behavior is immoral, regardless of the outcome.
> Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored
"...so it isn't helping, it's just business as usual."
The counterpoint is that having choice is helpful, especially when the choices include user segments, even if you don't experience it. Also, participating in oppressive behavior is immoral, regardless of the outcome.
My claim is that Google entering China is making a bad situation better
While I understand the instinct to collaborate, I don't see it. No one is better than Google at correlating and extrapolating data about people. Any relatively minor improvements that Google provides would seem to be overwhelmed by handing these new data gathering and correlation capabilities to the Chinese government.
I don't follow. If Google helps entities that censor, they censor, or at least are complicit in some way.
Further, there's the whole 'national security' angle. Whether real or imagined, some people don't like the idea of US entities helping foreign entities gain a competitive advantage.
Not sure how pointing to a feigned moral superiority of 'those who stick their noses up' helps your argument either.
Further, there's the whole 'national security' angle. Whether real or imagined, some people don't like the idea of US entities helping foreign entities gain a competitive advantage.
Not sure how pointing to a feigned moral superiority of 'those who stick their noses up' helps your argument either.
In this comment, you're expressing concern that Google would be implicated by participating in the censorship, but you're not expressing any concern for the welfare of the 1.6B Chinese who would gain access to Google.
I'm not OP but I'd consider that a very 'sticking your nose up' take on the situation. It seems to consider westerners' self-image as more important than Chinese access.
I'm not OP but I'd consider that a very 'sticking your nose up' take on the situation. It seems to consider westerners' self-image as more important than Chinese access.
Your argument assumes Chinese citizens using Google is somehow better for them than Baidu. I have no idea. But I will not make the claim to know what's best for 1.6B, as you do.
But to go down that road, I'd argue it's worse for the citizens. As others here have pointed out. Google's software enables advanced citizen tracking for the Communist Party of China.
Prove me wrong though. Show me how Google China is better for 1.6B Chinese.
But to go down that road, I'd argue it's worse for the citizens. As others here have pointed out. Google's software enables advanced citizen tracking for the Communist Party of China.
Prove me wrong though. Show me how Google China is better for 1.6B Chinese.
Yes as someone who has used Baidu, I am making the argument that using Google is better than using Baidu, at least Baidu as it exists today. It's possible that once Google enters China, Baidu would get better. But we won't find out now.
More options better than fewer options.
Especially for English language search.
Especially for English language search.
Much of Google’s revenue comes from the ability to track individual users. A Chinese Google Search would not be any more censored than Baidu, but it may be a much richer source of information for Chinese law enforcement agencies.
Well, it does help people reduce the chance of victimized by Baidu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi
Most of Google's revenue comes from search ads, which are intent-based on the individual query. The display/admob/etc. networks that use demographic targeting don't make up as much of the search take.
Agreed. Some of the criticism of the censorship also shows a underlying lack of understanding how search engines works. The Chinese firewall blocks the websites, not the search engines.
What was Google supposed to to? Show links to dead sites that don't load in the browser?
What was Google supposed to to? Show links to dead sites that don't load in the browser?
> What was Google supposed to to? Show links to dead sites that don't load in the browser?
All other operational problems aside: Yes, I think that would be great! Let users know what their government is censoring.
All other operational problems aside: Yes, I think that would be great! Let users know what their government is censoring.
The purpose of a search engine is to give results wanted for the user query - showing a dead website probably isn't want the user wants.
Google already handles this with DMCA takedowns in the US. If you search a website that has been removed by DMCA, Google will notify you at the bottom of the screen. Telling the user that N number results are hidden because of censorship is probably a better approach.
Google already handles this with DMCA takedowns in the US. If you search a website that has been removed by DMCA, Google will notify you at the bottom of the screen. Telling the user that N number results are hidden because of censorship is probably a better approach.
No, it's probably not what the user wants in that moment, but it's what they should see.
And under some circumstances, it may quite literally be the most helpful result. If someone searches for Tiananmen Square, what they really need is a hint that it's time to switch to a VPN.
And under some circumstances, it may quite literally be the most helpful result. If someone searches for Tiananmen Square, what they really need is a hint that it's time to switch to a VPN.
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 websites are censored and that users should use a VPN. Chinese citizens know about the censorship and most, outside of specific provinces, simply don't care. Those who do already use a VPN.
Users simply won't use Google if it's beating them with a stick to remind them that websites are censored and that users should use a VPN. Chinese citizens know about the censorship and most, outside of specific provinces, simply don't care. Those who do already use a VPN.
Showing search results that are based only on the websites themselves isn't "beating them with a stick to remind them that websites are censored".
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.
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.
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.
So you think all Google needs to do is just filtering out websites blocked by the Chinese government? Really?
You have a underlying lack of understanding how censorship works. They don't just block websites. The Chinese government wants to filtering out results they don't like on accessible websites.
You have a underlying lack of understanding how censorship works. They don't just block websites. The Chinese government wants to filtering out results they don't like on accessible websites.
> Because laws in this area are often vague, I can see that dragonfly would apply varying levels of censorships
"Vague" is a neutral way of putting it.
The laws are "whatever the party declares today. Also, whatever the party declares tomorrow."
The whole value proposition of doing business in China is a gamble that tomorrow's set of party strictures will be equal or better than today's.
(Spolier: they won't!)
And yes, "the party" isn't a single monolithic thing. It's shorthand for "whichever levels of authority have influence and interest in what you're doing."
And no, this isn't comparably similar how the US or any other democratic nation operates.
"Vague" is a neutral way of putting it.
The laws are "whatever the party declares today. Also, whatever the party declares tomorrow."
The whole value proposition of doing business in China is a gamble that tomorrow's set of party strictures will be equal or better than today's.
(Spolier: they won't!)
And yes, "the party" isn't a single monolithic thing. It's shorthand for "whichever levels of authority have influence and interest in what you're doing."
And no, this isn't comparably similar how the US or any other democratic nation operates.
I think this sort of attitude is how most of the evils in the world are justified by those perpetrating and excusing them.
Are we even helping them at that point? It's just another censored search engine. They already have that.
> Because laws in this area are often vague, I can see that dragonfly would apply varying levels of censorships
It doesn't follow to me. The reverse actually. 'laws in this area are often vague' for a reason - so that You Can't Do That becomes not a judicial matter with precise as possible definition, but a matter of personal feeling. Then the rulers can come down hard on whoever just because they didn't like something.
That's more likely to pressure companies into being on the conservative side of things; censoring a little more rather than a litte less. And google's in it for the money in a big, rich market.
It doesn't follow to me. The reverse actually. 'laws in this area are often vague' for a reason - so that You Can't Do That becomes not a judicial matter with precise as possible definition, but a matter of personal feeling. Then the rulers can come down hard on whoever just because they didn't like something.
That's more likely to pressure companies into being on the conservative side of things; censoring a little more rather than a litte less. And google's in it for the money in a big, rich market.
That's definitely the intend of having vague laws. But whether Google is in it or not doesn't change that
> ... doesn't change that
Doesn't change what? The vagueness of the laws? Whether google's in it or not? I'm sorry, I don't understand your point.
Doesn't change what? The vagueness of the laws? Whether google's in it or not? I'm sorry, I don't understand your point.
It is not, strictly speaking, about censorship. Google is the best in the world at gathering information about people. If they operate in China, they will have to give over all that information to the Chinese government, of course. They have already built the largest surveillance apparatus in the Western world that has ever existed - imagine what the CCP could do with that?
Yes, Baidu already does this. But no one can do it as well as Google.
Yes, Baidu already does this. But no one can do it as well as Google.
And the CCP could force to give up information about people who aren't in China and who have never been Baidu users. Or information about people who are in China now, but the information was collected while they were outside China.
For people who against this, please take a look at the Death of Zexi Wei[1].
And just for context, Baidu is, currently, the only big player, and in most of the time considered to be the only player in the search engine market of Mainland China.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi
And just for context, Baidu is, currently, the only big player, and in most of the time considered to be the only player in the search engine market of Mainland China.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi
Do you think Google would need to surrender some of my personal information to China, if they are pressured to do so by the Chinese authorities? I live in Hong Kong.
Not taking totalitarianism itself seriously, but talking about minor, gimmick pieces of information, is not seeing the woods for all the trees. The damage that does outside of China more than outweighs the ultimately meaningless benefits of appeasement that might result within China.
> Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored.
so, maintaining the status quo is not 'help'?
> 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.
so which is it if one says no? sticking ones nose up or considering how the lives of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions?
or is it only sticking ones nose up when you disagree with the decision?
so, maintaining the status quo is not 'help'?
> 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.
so which is it if one says no? sticking ones nose up or considering how the lives of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions?
or is it only sticking ones nose up when you disagree with the decision?
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
any article or press to support your claims?
The proposal for dragonfly had two conditions set by the Chinese government - the first was to provide censored search results in compliance with the firewall. The second was to link search queries to user phone numbers, which a director tried to hide and many employees revolted against: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/google-suppresses-memo-r...
Searches would be linked to identifiable information for logged in users: https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l...
The Chinese government would be able to access that data through Google's joint venture partner in China who actually controls the data.
The Chinese government would be able to access that data through Google's joint venture partner in China who actually controls the data.
> 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 can also help people finding what they want for things that are not censored.
Once the state is performing censorship there is no such thing as "better information". If all information is filtered by the government, then all information is suspicious.
> but do consider how lives of hundreds of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions.
I have profound sympathy for the victims of authoritarian regimes, and I absolutely do not believe that the way to help them is to collaborate with the very system that oppresses them. Pretending otherwise sounds like Newspeak to me.
> I know some people prefer to stick their noses up and hold what they perceive as the moral high ground
Maybe some people are like that, but this is unimportant. The important thing is this: you have to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. If we in the west allow our companies to collaborate with systems that hold values that are repugnant to our own, then we will become like those systems, not the other way around. There will be nowhere to hide. No thank you.
Let's not be naive: say what you want about the Chinese government, but they are not imbeciles. If they did not perceive Dragonfly as something that would help them maintain their repressive apparatus, they would not allow it.
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 can also help people finding what they want for things that are not censored.
Once the state is performing censorship there is no such thing as "better information". If all information is filtered by the government, then all information is suspicious.
> but do consider how lives of hundreds of millions of people will be affected by your actions/inactions.
I have profound sympathy for the victims of authoritarian regimes, and I absolutely do not believe that the way to help them is to collaborate with the very system that oppresses them. Pretending otherwise sounds like Newspeak to me.
> I know some people prefer to stick their noses up and hold what they perceive as the moral high ground
Maybe some people are like that, but this is unimportant. The important thing is this: you have to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. If we in the west allow our companies to collaborate with systems that hold values that are repugnant to our own, then we will become like those systems, not the other way around. There will be nowhere to hide. No thank you.
Let's not be naive: say what you want about the Chinese government, but they are not imbeciles. If they did not perceive Dragonfly as something that would help them maintain their repressive apparatus, they would not allow it.
> I have profound sympathy for the victims of authoritarian regimes, and I absolutely do not believe that the way to help them is to collaborate with the very system that oppresses them. Pretending otherwise sounds like Newspeak to me.
I have relatives in China. Censorship is the least of their worries when the current Baidu monopoly is allowing promoted results that are sometimes flat-out evil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi).
I have relatives in China. Censorship is the least of their worries when the current Baidu monopoly is allowing promoted results that are sometimes flat-out evil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wei_Zexi).
I'm heartened by the response, though. Shares fell 14%, the government announced an investigation, and Baidu set aside $150m USD equivalent for people harmed by promoted results. Especially considering that the ad buyer was a government military hospital, that seems.. more just than I'd expect.
I guess it could be all for show, but I've seen worse behavior from Facebook here
I guess it could be all for show, but I've seen worse behavior from Facebook here
Your problem is that you're seeing this issue as black and white, which never does good.
Hundreds of millions of people are "negatively affected" by their government and a concerned human being appealed to compassion. Realists can acknowledge that countries and companies will negotiate according to their own self-interest.
Google is right in sustaining that it's up to Chinese citizens to uphold said government to standards (whatever they will be): it's a technology company that wanted an access to the Chinese market, not a charity working for the good of foreign people. That's extremely practical, not something that's on a scale of black and white.
When employees define Dragonfly internals as disturbing I'm prone to honestly think that it wouldn't have helped in finding censored material. Smells like something management would say to justify a money-driven decision. Looking for a gray scale in choices like these is a distraction.
See no evil - Hear no evil - Speak no evil - Accept moral ambiguity
Google is right in sustaining that it's up to Chinese citizens to uphold said government to standards (whatever they will be): it's a technology company that wanted an access to the Chinese market, not a charity working for the good of foreign people. That's extremely practical, not something that's on a scale of black and white.
When employees define Dragonfly internals as disturbing I'm prone to honestly think that it wouldn't have helped in finding censored material. Smells like something management would say to justify a money-driven decision. Looking for a gray scale in choices like these is a distraction.
See no evil - Hear no evil - Speak no evil - Accept moral ambiguity
Let's respectfully disagree then. I firmly believe that this would have improved the status quo for everyone, and that a vocal minority who also firmly believe they are right prevented that.
They are kind of like Rorschach who refused to compromised in the last pages of Watchmen, even though it was the right thing to do (in my opinion).
They are kind of like Rorschach who refused to compromised in the last pages of Watchmen, even though it was the right thing to do (in my opinion).
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.
zhenjier(1)
khc(2)
Do you not realize that hundreds of millions of people deserve better than an authoritarian government? If you indeed want a better life for these people, censorship is something you must fight, not acquiesce to.
Agreed. And let’s not forgot that China used to have an open internet. It was not until the xinjiang riots around 2009 that google and others got blocked.
Not true, I was in China prior to 2009 and a VPN was required.
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 commercial products, especially manga/anime/game)
+ child porno(their definition includes some commercial Japanese manga/anime/game which we believe not possibly be a child porn since it's a pure fiction and no real-life human being harmed).
I believe these are also a trade barrier for Japan. But I bet you disagree some of the above points and justify the censorship because it's against your moral based on your culture.
+ 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 commercial products, especially manga/anime/game)
+ child porno(their definition includes some commercial Japanese manga/anime/game which we believe not possibly be a child porn since it's a pure fiction and no real-life human being harmed).
I believe these are also a trade barrier for Japan. But I bet you disagree some of the above points and justify the censorship because it's against your moral based on your culture.
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 some manga/anime/game" -- Can you give an example? This seems to go directly against first amendment rights.
3. "national security" -- There have been many cases where the government will work with press to attempt to stop them from releasing information that would damage national security. There have also been many cases where the press has not listened, and they're allowed to do that. What specifically are you talking about here? Direct theft of government property/information is illegal, but I would hardly call that censorship. NDAs I guess are censorship, but they are an agreement between two parties, not the government deciding arbitrarily what to censor.
4. "ex-political party symbol" -- absolutely not banned in the US.
5. Okay the last one is a fair example of censorship. I'm not familiar with the US laws on that one and frankly I don't want to find out...
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 some manga/anime/game" -- Can you give an example? This seems to go directly against first amendment rights.
3. "national security" -- There have been many cases where the government will work with press to attempt to stop them from releasing information that would damage national security. There have also been many cases where the press has not listened, and they're allowed to do that. What specifically are you talking about here? Direct theft of government property/information is illegal, but I would hardly call that censorship. NDAs I guess are censorship, but they are an agreement between two parties, not the government deciding arbitrarily what to censor.
4. "ex-political party symbol" -- absolutely not banned in the US.
5. Okay the last one is a fair example of censorship. I'm not familiar with the US laws on that one and frankly I don't want to find out...
Also, trademarks just had a supreme court decision that makes it so they can't deny "immoral"/"scandalous" trademarks since it was subjective and up to the trademark officer on whether or not something was immoral/scandalous.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court...
> 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.
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.
Its rare the US government order the censorship. The problem is publisher self-censorship it because it may disturb some religious people.
Well, that has nothing to do with US laws and censorship.
Also, it's not "rare" that the US censors mention of religion. It is completely unheard of in our modern history.
Also, it's not "rare" that the US censors mention of religion. It is completely unheard of in our modern history.
> Can you give an example? This seems to go directly against first amendment rights.
Like I said, many manga/anime/games were modified to remove any casual use of religious symbol when released in US. These days, major products don't contain these beforehand if it's famous enough to expect US release.
Like I said, many manga/anime/games were modified to remove any casual use of religious symbol when released in US. These days, major products don't contain these beforehand if it's famous enough to expect US release.
There is about zero chance that was done due to US laws or censorship.
Most likely, the publishers themselves removed it to avoid controversy and sell more anime.
Most likely, the publishers themselves removed it to avoid controversy and sell more anime.
You specifically said that the "US outright ban[s]" it, which is incorrect. Private companies can change whatever they want to sell more of their product. That's not censorship, that's just knowing your target audience.
I'd be happy to see any country challenge any other country's information restrictions in the international trade system, but I think your examples about the U.S. are partly mistaken.
> + religion(these days, US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game)
Religious sensitivities run high in the U.S., but criticizing or mocking (or advocating or practicing) a religion is a core territory of legally protected speech, and people very commonly criticize other people's religions and religious beliefs, including in mass media. There is no such ban.
> + national security
This is pretty complicated, but it appears that the courts will protect the publishers (not the leakers) of leaked classified information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...
> + ex-political party symbol(swastika, but they can't tell the difference between nazi symbol and Buddism symbol which is widely used in Japanese commercial products, especially manga/anime/game)
The U.S., differently from many European countries, does not prohibit the sale or display of swastikas, including when they are actually used to show sympathy for the Nazi Party.
> + child porno(their definition includes some commercial Japanese manga/anime/game which we believe not possibly be a child porn since it's a pure fiction and no real-life human being harmed).
There's still always a risk of obscenity prosecutions for comics in the U.S., and import restrictions on sexually explicit material are famously much more restrictive than domestic restrictions (which sounds like the very definition of a trade barrier). But there is a Supreme Court case specifically addressing attempts to ban sexual images that depict fictional children
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalit...
The Court did not accept categorically banning these images.
> + religion(these days, US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game)
Religious sensitivities run high in the U.S., but criticizing or mocking (or advocating or practicing) a religion is a core territory of legally protected speech, and people very commonly criticize other people's religions and religious beliefs, including in mass media. There is no such ban.
> + national security
This is pretty complicated, but it appears that the courts will protect the publishers (not the leakers) of leaked classified information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...
> + ex-political party symbol(swastika, but they can't tell the difference between nazi symbol and Buddism symbol which is widely used in Japanese commercial products, especially manga/anime/game)
The U.S., differently from many European countries, does not prohibit the sale or display of swastikas, including when they are actually used to show sympathy for the Nazi Party.
> + child porno(their definition includes some commercial Japanese manga/anime/game which we believe not possibly be a child porn since it's a pure fiction and no real-life human being harmed).
There's still always a risk of obscenity prosecutions for comics in the U.S., and import restrictions on sexually explicit material are famously much more restrictive than domestic restrictions (which sounds like the very definition of a trade barrier). But there is a Supreme Court case specifically addressing attempts to ban sexual images that depict fictional children
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalit...
The Court did not accept categorically banning these images.
Mocking the religion is not a problem, The problem is casual reference of religion with no political intention.
Like in fictional manga/anime/game where the character with supernatural power has attack power which when invoked, bright Christian cross or Buddism manzi appears or in-fiction religion(Totally not Christianity) use Christian cross as a symbol.
Like in fictional manga/anime/game where the character with supernatural power has attack power which when invoked, bright Christian cross or Buddism manzi appears or in-fiction religion(Totally not Christianity) use Christian cross as a symbol.
Oh yeah, I think many Americans would potentially find that quite offensive for some reason (you might say because they feel the religious symbol has a proper context or meaning and should only be used within that context or for that purpose).
But I can assure you it's not illegal and the government has no power to ban media for using religious symbols this way.
But I can assure you it's not illegal and the government has no power to ban media for using religious symbols this way.
Waiting for the case U.S. v One Copy of Crayon Shinchan
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.
Right to be forgotten does not apply to public figures.
https://www.alphr.com/computing/1000120/public-figures-cant-...
https://www.alphr.com/computing/1000120/public-figures-cant-...
Wasn't aware the loophole was closed. That's awesome.
Perhaps you can share the moral justification used by the Chinese government?
To maintain political and social stability.
Well, this is a justification, but not a moral one.
This one can be employed to justify any arbitrary measure applied by any arbitrary authority at any arbitrary point in time.
This one can be employed to justify any arbitrary measure applied by any arbitrary authority at any arbitrary point in time.
Morality is relative, to them it maybe very well be the moral thing to do.
>This one can be employed to justify any arbitrary measure applied by any arbitrary authority at any arbitrary point in time
Yes it can but you don't have to agree with it
>This one can be employed to justify any arbitrary measure applied by any arbitrary authority at any arbitrary point in time
Yes it can but you don't have to agree with it
> Morality is relative, to them it maybe very well be the moral thing to do.
It certainly is not how they would want to be treated, or this whole discussion could simply be settled by the holders of one opinion murdering everyone else. Nobody wants that applied to them, making everybody who rationalizes it being done to others a vulgar hypocrite.
It certainly is not how they would want to be treated, or this whole discussion could simply be settled by the holders of one opinion murdering everyone else. Nobody wants that applied to them, making everybody who rationalizes it being done to others a vulgar hypocrite.
[deleted]
I don't know since I'm not Chinese.
>+ religion(these days, US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game)
this isn't done
>+ child porno(their definition includes some commercial Japanese manga/anime/game which we believe not possibly be a child porn since it's a pure fiction and no real-life human being harmed).
are you actually arguing in favor of not censoring this?
this isn't done
>+ child porno(their definition includes some commercial Japanese manga/anime/game which we believe not possibly be a child porn since it's a pure fiction and no real-life human being harmed).
are you actually arguing in favor of not censoring this?
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 their knowledge for fear of theft.
The US doesn't actually have any religious censorship laws (if you know of any, please link them) that cares about offence taken by religious believers. If private creators are modifying their own creations to sell better to a US audience, that has nothing to do with US censorship.
The US grants irrevocable protections to the press in publishing even sensitive and national security critical information. The US press voluntarily consults the government on the national security impact of publishing sensitive material, but the government has no legal avenue to actually prevent the press from publishing it. Demonstrations of this are pretty famous, like the Pentagon Papers. There are also whistleblower protections.
The US has no censorship laws on political symbols like the swastika, IIRC that's specifically a German thing.
Fictional child pornography such as the commercial Japanese manga/anime/games you mentioned is explicitly allowed under US law; US law specifically carves out an exception for fictional works, and the US Supreme Court has cemented this with precedent. Note: these exceptions have definitely been weakened in recent decades by the "PROTECT Act of 2003".
Feel free to correct me on details, but a lot of censorship you list here just isn't happening in the West, and definitely isn't happening in the US where Google is physically and culturally based. The level and breadth of censorship simply isn't comparable to China's.
Furthermore, "moral based on your culture" absolutely matters. To portray censorship as okay because it's based on differing morals based on differing cultures is ridiculous. Would you approve of US-committed atrocities if it was based on US culture?
Edit: removed references to whataboutism because after reconsidering the context, I think the parent comment is less of a deflection that I initially perceived.
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 their knowledge for fear of theft.
The US doesn't actually have any religious censorship laws (if you know of any, please link them) that cares about offence taken by religious believers. If private creators are modifying their own creations to sell better to a US audience, that has nothing to do with US censorship.
The US grants irrevocable protections to the press in publishing even sensitive and national security critical information. The US press voluntarily consults the government on the national security impact of publishing sensitive material, but the government has no legal avenue to actually prevent the press from publishing it. Demonstrations of this are pretty famous, like the Pentagon Papers. There are also whistleblower protections.
The US has no censorship laws on political symbols like the swastika, IIRC that's specifically a German thing.
Fictional child pornography such as the commercial Japanese manga/anime/games you mentioned is explicitly allowed under US law; US law specifically carves out an exception for fictional works, and the US Supreme Court has cemented this with precedent. Note: these exceptions have definitely been weakened in recent decades by the "PROTECT Act of 2003".
Feel free to correct me on details, but a lot of censorship you list here just isn't happening in the West, and definitely isn't happening in the US where Google is physically and culturally based. The level and breadth of censorship simply isn't comparable to China's.
Furthermore, "moral based on your culture" absolutely matters. To portray censorship as okay because it's based on differing morals based on differing cultures is ridiculous. Would you approve of US-committed atrocities if it was based on US culture?
Edit: removed references to whataboutism because after reconsidering the context, I think the parent comment is less of a deflection that I initially perceived.
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.
Note I'm only familiar with the US
> + religion(these days, US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game)
Where has this happened? The censorship you're describing sounds like it violates the first amendment. I think people may decide to remove religious references because it offends people, but that's not the same as the government censoring it.
> + ex-political party symbol(swastika, but they can't tell the difference between nazi symbol and Buddism symbol which is widely used in Japanese commercial products, especially manga/anime/game)
Where has this happened? Again, considering we have straight up neo Nazis in the US who are allowed to display the actual swastika legally, I don't understand how this could happen.
> + religion(these days, US outright ban any casual religious reference because it offend some believers, resulting modifying some manga/anime/game)
Where has this happened? The censorship you're describing sounds like it violates the first amendment. I think people may decide to remove religious references because it offends people, but that's not the same as the government censoring it.
> + ex-political party symbol(swastika, but they can't tell the difference between nazi symbol and Buddism symbol which is widely used in Japanese commercial products, especially manga/anime/game)
Where has this happened? Again, considering we have straight up neo Nazis in the US who are allowed to display the actual swastika legally, I don't understand how this could happen.
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.
Companies foreign to China cooperate with the local government for another reason also: they want access to Chinese customers.
If Google were to refuse the Chinese terms of business, they would be barred from doing business with the largest population in the world. And the climate over there is that their government risks little political capital in banning non-compliant firms.
If Google were to refuse the Chinese terms of business, they would be barred from doing business with the largest population in the world. And the climate over there is that their government risks little political capital in banning non-compliant firms.
> 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.
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.
aka if you defect the big boss shoots you in the head.
Yes. Whether actual bullets are involved or means like imprisonment or fines, this literally is the solution to prisonner-dillemma's like problems, and in various forms exists everywhere and forms the underpinning of a civilized society.
Right. AFAIK, China is unlike Japan, UK, or USA. To operate with similar economic structure and policies will be suicide to a country as big as China where millions of people are still farmers and villagers and way under poverty level. We have to look at competition too. It seems China wants to develop a mature marketplace, so native companies have room to compete with the outside world. Else, there wouldn't be a Baidu, Youku, or JD.
> these multinational companies actively and willingly accept these terms (and more!) in order to exploit Chinese labor
... under current international agreements and rules.
The agreements and rules change, the calculus changes. Companies optimize continuously for the current environment they find themselves in.
... under current international agreements and rules.
The agreements and rules change, the calculus changes. Companies optimize continuously for the current environment they find themselves in.
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.
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.
It depends. There are plenty of people who willingly pay more for non-Chinese goods when they can. The problem is that they often have no choice in the matter because so much is made in China.
There are lots of small manufacturing businesses new and old all across the country that are thriving because of where their stuff is made. The problem is that they can't make goods in large enough quantities to be carried in the national chain stores, so it's mostly online and word-of-mouth.
It depends. There are plenty of people who willingly pay more for non-Chinese goods when they can. The problem is that they often have no choice in the matter because so much is made in China.
There are lots of small manufacturing businesses new and old all across the country that are thriving because of where their stuff is made. The problem is that they can't make goods in large enough quantities to be carried in the national chain stores, so it's mostly online and word-of-mouth.
> censorship that doesn't affect them
It’s easier to deploy something already built than to build a system from scratch. There is a clear civil rights argument against letting American tech companies build this technology for dictators.
It’s easier to deploy something already built than to build a system from scratch. There is a clear civil rights argument against letting American tech companies build this technology for dictators.
I feel like you could possibly get popular support for it here in the US, but almost certainly not from businesses and their lobbyists.
> 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.
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.
The EU doesn't even have free speech to begin with[] and it doesn't seem like it bothers many people.
[] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/its-not-fr...
[] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/its-not-fr...
American-style "Free speech" is incompatible with the right-to-be-forgotten, privacy[1] and other ideals that Europeans give primacy. Someone smarter than I am once summarized American freedoms as "Freedom to _", and European ones as "Freedom from _"
1. IIRC, it is illegal for newspapers publish arrestee's full names in Germany to protect their privacy - assumption of innocence and all that. This law wouldn't hold in the US as it infringes on publishers 1A rights
1. IIRC, it is illegal for newspapers publish arrestee's full names in Germany to protect their privacy - assumption of innocence and all that. This law wouldn't hold in the US as it infringes on publishers 1A rights
Don't understand what that has to do with what basically is a blasphemy law.
It is important to understand why the person was fined. The person held a seminar titled "Basic Information about Islam". It was advertised with an impression of "objective information on Islam". The person described themselves as an expert in Islam doctrine too. During the seminar, the person made a judgment position without facts. The courts felt it was an intentional move meant to rile up participants and disturb peace.
You could have the same position as the fined person and you wouldn't be fined in Austria. The fine was imposed due to the context of the fora/background and the intent of communication, not the position itself.
You could have the same position as the fined person and you wouldn't be fined in Austria. The fine was imposed due to the context of the fora/background and the intent of communication, not the position itself.
What was the judgment without facts? The seminars cited Muslim biographies, no? Surely telling people what's in the Quran can't be considered anti-Muslim incitement, or else every imam and mosque would be guilty.
> The courts felt it was an intentional move meant to rile up participants and disturb peace.
Are you saying that the seminars caused anti-Muslim violence? Were there incidents reported that made the connection?
> The courts felt it was an intentional move meant to rile up participants and disturb peace.
Are you saying that the seminars caused anti-Muslim violence? Were there incidents reported that made the connection?
All answers to your questions are in the EHCR judgment. The court makes a distinction between child marriage and paedophilia.
https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22002-121...
> Are you saying that the seminars caused anti-Muslim violence? Were there incidents reported that made the connection?
I was pretty clear on what I said. I repeat - The courts (not me) felt it was an intentional move meant to rile up participants and disturb peace.
https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22002-121...
> Are you saying that the seminars caused anti-Muslim violence? Were there incidents reported that made the connection?
I was pretty clear on what I said. I repeat - The courts (not me) felt it was an intentional move meant to rile up participants and disturb peace.
That link vindicates the news coverage, that the court found that repeating true facts about child rape is illegal defamation, because marrying her or also having sex with adults justifies the rape.
The case appears to turn on the claim that "having sexual interest in children" is not paedophilia as long as there is also sexual interest in non-children, or, in other words, that the actual defamation was an implied claim that Muhammad did not have a sexual interest in adults.
> In their opinion, by accusing Muhammad of paedophilia, the applicant had merely sought to defame him, without providing evidence that his primary sexual interest in Aisha had been her not yet having reached puberty or that his other wives or concubines had been similarly young. In particular, the applicant had disregarded the fact that the marriage with Aisha had continued until the Prophet’s death, when she had already turned eighteen and had therefore passed the age of puberty.
This is the same anti-girl (and I emphasize "girl", not "woman") logic that refuses to punish rapists like the drivers' ed teacher in italy who raped a girl student who was wearing jeans without underwear, on the basis of her clothing.
The case appears to turn on the claim that "having sexual interest in children" is not paedophilia as long as there is also sexual interest in non-children, or, in other words, that the actual defamation was an implied claim that Muhammad did not have a sexual interest in adults.
> In their opinion, by accusing Muhammad of paedophilia, the applicant had merely sought to defame him, without providing evidence that his primary sexual interest in Aisha had been her not yet having reached puberty or that his other wives or concubines had been similarly young. In particular, the applicant had disregarded the fact that the marriage with Aisha had continued until the Prophet’s death, when she had already turned eighteen and had therefore passed the age of puberty.
This is the same anti-girl (and I emphasize "girl", not "woman") logic that refuses to punish rapists like the drivers' ed teacher in italy who raped a girl student who was wearing jeans without underwear, on the basis of her clothing.
Is that ruling sensible to you? I read it and it seems to be saying that rape of a 6 year old it’s fine as long as the guy keeps her around til after she’s 18? Also the fact that he had other girlfriends that are past puberty was listed as if it were exonerating evidence. That was the reasoning given in the link you provided. Can you help me figure out how I’m misinterpreting the ruling? On it’s face it seems nonsensical.
That article is about a case of Austrian law that EU allows. EU allows countries to make their own determination. Not all countries ban anti-religious facts.
And it does bother many people. But it's not a very big deal because even in the worst case reported in the article, it was a very small penalty for a very large amount of speech. The scale matters.
I'd personally support the US pressuring the EU on its lack of free speech, but it still isn't comparable to the need for pressure on China as EU laws still allow for much freer speech in practice.
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 that violates copyrights or trademarks.
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 that violates copyrights or trademarks.
You're getting a lot of flack for this comment, but I think it's a reasonable way of looking at the problem. In the United States, we have strong cultural conceptions about what are acceptable reasons for the government and companies to forcably suppress information (copyright violations, "terrorist" content, white supremacy, child pornography) and what aren't (political dissidence, social stability, insults, most other porn). Culturally, the Chinese have about the same attitude towards political dissidence that we have towards terrorist recruiting content, and for many of the same reasons. Historically, they have seen how political turmoil, if allowed to recruit, can hurt and kill people just how we have seen that terrorism can do the same.
Similarly, the American attitude towards copyright, trademark, and patent laws probably seems ridiculous and borderline unethical to Chinese companies looking to do business here. They seem (from the outside) to have no problem with a phone manufacturer calling itself "Applle" to piggyback on Apple's brand, but that is very illegal under American laws. Similarly, the amount of automatic filtering YouTube and other video hosts have to do under DMCA might block as much content as Chinese political auto-filtering does, although I would love to see more analysis of that.
Being from an American cultural background myself, I have an obvious set of intuitions about which of these are reasonable and which are ridiculous, but I find it hard to make a clear argument about why.
Similarly, the American attitude towards copyright, trademark, and patent laws probably seems ridiculous and borderline unethical to Chinese companies looking to do business here. They seem (from the outside) to have no problem with a phone manufacturer calling itself "Applle" to piggyback on Apple's brand, but that is very illegal under American laws. Similarly, the amount of automatic filtering YouTube and other video hosts have to do under DMCA might block as much content as Chinese political auto-filtering does, although I would love to see more analysis of that.
Being from an American cultural background myself, I have an obvious set of intuitions about which of these are reasonable and which are ridiculous, but I find it hard to make a clear argument about why.
> Being from an American cultural background myself, I have an obvious set of intuitions about which of these are reasonable and which are ridiculous, but I find it hard to make a clear argument about why.
And being technically from European cultural background but having ingested plenty of American-made utopian visions of the world in my formative years, I find myself to have yet different obvious set of intuitions about this. Like e.g. I think copyright-related censorship is overused and borderline unethical, while speech threatening social stability might be a problem.
I say that only to reinforce your point that there's not one and not two, but many differing cultural conceptions about these things.
And being technically from European cultural background but having ingested plenty of American-made utopian visions of the world in my formative years, I find myself to have yet different obvious set of intuitions about this. Like e.g. I think copyright-related censorship is overused and borderline unethical, while speech threatening social stability might be a problem.
I say that only to reinforce your point that there's not one and not two, but many differing cultural conceptions about these things.
Copyright and patent enforcement does not suppress information, they suppress specific actions on information. You are required to publish information before it can be patented or copyrighted, the information must be available for the public to view. You cannot compare copyright to censorship, it is practically the opposite of censorship as it's designed to encourage creators to publish information.
Even when copyrights are abused to attempt censorship, US copyright law specifically defines Fair Use as an exemption to protect valuable speech.
Even when copyrights are abused to attempt censorship, US copyright law specifically defines Fair Use as an exemption to protect valuable speech.
Self-governed sovereignty. You and the American entities mentioned believe this. And seek to protect it. Including trademark violators, for example (who threaten Apple's 'kingdom' so to speak).
> Be it right to be forgotten
Works for me, and seems to empower the people, rather than the state...
> filtering of information related to things unsavory to the past of any given country in the EU
Could you link me to some credible sources for this?
Works for me, and seems to empower the people, rather than the state...
> filtering of information related to things unsavory to the past of any given country in the EU
Could you link me to some credible sources for this?
https://newrepublic.com/article/147364/verboten-germany-law-...
Not filtering, but censorship.
Not filtering, but censorship.
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 would help making your point (not saying it doesn't happen).
" 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 would help making your point (not saying it doesn't happen).
> 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.
Books are also permanent storage, often stored centrally in public libraries. Does an individual have the right to have information about him removed from books in libraries? Wouldn't that be a kind of censorship? The only difference is that so called "right to be forgotten" applies to Google's electronic storage rather than your local library's books. Just like you don't have a right to remove pages about you from your local public library's copy of your high school yearbook, so you shouldn't have the right to remove information about yourself from Google's indexes. Both are censorship.
Books are also permanent storage, often stored centrally in public libraries. Does an individual have the right to have information about him removed from books in libraries? Wouldn't that be a kind of censorship? The only difference is that so called "right to be forgotten" applies to Google's electronic storage rather than your local library's books. Just like you don't have a right to remove pages about you from your local public library's copy of your high school yearbook, so you shouldn't have the right to remove information about yourself from Google's indexes. Both are censorship.
No, right to be forgotten is not excercised via criminal courts. You have to reach the author of the book and make it collect all the copies.
It's my understanding that Nazi stuff is prohibited in various ways in Germany and France.
I watched a movie recently (though not a recent movie) that had a scene with some Nazi stuff in the background of one scene. The IMDB trivia notes for the film stated that the scene was removed when it was released in Germany.
(If I can remember the film, I'll edit this comment.)
I watched a movie recently (though not a recent movie) that had a scene with some Nazi stuff in the background of one scene. The IMDB trivia notes for the film stated that the scene was removed when it was released in Germany.
(If I can remember the film, I'll edit this comment.)
This argument feels like the classic “is killing in wartime murder”. It’s semantic at heart.
Oh yes, this. The Great Firewall is absolutely a trade barrier and I've long suspect that this rather than censorship is its main purpose. It's a way of implementing extremely strong trade barriers (protectionism) while still claiming to be in compliance with the letter of our trade agreements.
I agree that there should be action taken to push things like this in a better direction but I think the obvious things to do can easily back fire and just make the situation worse. AFAIK in china there is a lot (not necessarily universal) of support for the government so it would be easy to cast something like this in a way that just bolsters that support (foreign countries trying to hurt china for their own gain) and makes things like this worse.
Foreign policy is hard and I don't pretend to know the best way to do it but I think given recent history we have to be more careful about how we try to influence developing nations so that we actually have the effect we want. This might include doing things that could seem unpalatable in the short term.
Foreign policy is hard and I don't pretend to know the best way to do it but I think given recent history we have to be more careful about how we try to influence developing nations so that we actually have the effect we want. This might include doing things that could seem unpalatable in the short term.
[deleted]
Trade barrier? Since when services offered through the web are paying taxes in the places where they are rendering their services. If anything, expect a lot more governments to wisen up, like the US did with Amazon and taxes, and create these barriers to have people actually play by local rules. That I don't agree with Chinese rules is one thing but it is their country.
But let's be perfectly clear that the Chinese did this out of censorship and the trade part happened to be a side-effect.
But let's be perfectly clear that the Chinese did this out of censorship and the trade part happened to be a side-effect.
Unfortunately it seems both countries (or large entities therein: US Politicians, Google, US Media, etc.) are in fact, allied, whether aware or not, with the Communist Party of China.
Seems we'd best be served to first collectively realize this. Then do as you suggest.
Seems we'd best be served to first collectively realize this. Then do as you suggest.
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 have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Forcing it through just shows that you are motivated by self interest, and not a core belief in the superiority of your own values. Such a strategy will lose the hearts and minds of the people of China as well, and at which point who are you protecting the rights and interests of anymore if those who you seek to “help” aren’t even on your side?
If you believe your system is better, then you really should not have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Forcing it through just shows that you are motivated by self interest, and not a core belief in the superiority of your own values. Such a strategy will lose the hearts and minds of the people of China as well, and at which point who are you protecting the rights and interests of anymore if those who you seek to “help” aren’t even on your side?
> 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.
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.
> 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.
This is the main issue here. First and foremost morality is relative and our morals are not necessarily the right morals. Believing your way is the only right way and forcing others to conform is how dictatorships spread and start wars.
Second, imposing one’s own morals on others is immoral, and is what started the crusades, proselytizing, Christian missions, imperialism, and slavery.
Third, you may believe they have a brutalizing dictator, and this may be true or a simple misguided opinion based on ignorance at a distance, but if the population you are trying to help doesn’t agree with you then who’s interests are you really serving?
The reality is that regardless of whether China’s ways are in absolute terms (there are no absolute terms) wrong or not, American foreign policy towards China, or even other countries, has always been self-serving, and less about promoting “morals”. Much of the Cold War and anti-communism campaigns on the US were extremely immoral, and only in hindsight do we see that they were carried out of ignorance, prejudice, and a desire mostly to secure more Western allies.
And if you really believe whatever it is they are doing in China won’t work, it will collapse on its own like the Soviet Union. If you are a true free market democratic capitalist, then you should have no problem letting their system survive on its own merits. Anything else is just self-serving ulterior motive propoganda.
This is the main issue here. First and foremost morality is relative and our morals are not necessarily the right morals. Believing your way is the only right way and forcing others to conform is how dictatorships spread and start wars.
Second, imposing one’s own morals on others is immoral, and is what started the crusades, proselytizing, Christian missions, imperialism, and slavery.
Third, you may believe they have a brutalizing dictator, and this may be true or a simple misguided opinion based on ignorance at a distance, but if the population you are trying to help doesn’t agree with you then who’s interests are you really serving?
The reality is that regardless of whether China’s ways are in absolute terms (there are no absolute terms) wrong or not, American foreign policy towards China, or even other countries, has always been self-serving, and less about promoting “morals”. Much of the Cold War and anti-communism campaigns on the US were extremely immoral, and only in hindsight do we see that they were carried out of ignorance, prejudice, and a desire mostly to secure more Western allies.
And if you really believe whatever it is they are doing in China won’t work, it will collapse on its own like the Soviet Union. If you are a true free market democratic capitalist, then you should have no problem letting their system survive on its own merits. Anything else is just self-serving ulterior motive propoganda.
I don't know which country are you from, but I think the world has far bigger problems than to "liberate" China. Especially when the US turns a blind eye to a journalist murder because it was done by an ally.
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.
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.
You don’t win thought reconditioning with thought reconditioning.
Also if you ask regular Chinese people if they want a censored version of google, most of them would probably say hell yea, when does it launch?
What’s the alternative? Only other censored search engines. And Chinese people know baidu search results suck ass compared to google’s.
So basically the western commentariat killing off dragonfly has a demonstrably negative impact on Chinese quality of life.
But we’re only trying to protect the freedoms of oppressed Chinese people, right?
What’s the alternative? Only other censored search engines. And Chinese people know baidu search results suck ass compared to google’s.
So basically the western commentariat killing off dragonfly has a demonstrably negative impact on Chinese quality of life.
But we’re only trying to protect the freedoms of oppressed Chinese people, right?
That's not the only reason. You're trying to conform your neighboring country to an acceptable global standard. It's not just the feel good immediateness of "I'll take a censored Google because fighting for open access Internet is too hard" It's about that influence that will begin to dictate googles policy as more of their revenue comes from China. It's about changing the way China acts towards its citizens and adjacent neighbors. They are a power that can not be ignored. Their influence and policy progrogates through all companies navigating international business. That in turn effects societies they come from. Additionally they represent a HUGE chunk of the Internet and its hardware and on the topic of information security China definitely plays an important part on the way the global community thinks about policy going forward.
I don't think you know a lot of Chinese people. They use Baidu when they are outside continental China. It is mostly because the search results are finely tuned to local stuff and it has the big plus of not giving you links that are censored if you are in China so you don't waste your time. I ended up using it myself a couple of times for that reason.
If Google proceeded per the government's wishes for these reasons, that sets an interesting precedent.
Companies would be able to implement features they deem to be ethically questionable, so long as they or the public determined that "it's what the customer wanted, anyway".
Companies would be able to implement features they deem to be ethically questionable, so long as they or the public determined that "it's what the customer wanted, anyway".
If those companies operate within our country we have an obligation to ensure they are following ethical standards everywhere. If you don't you directly fund any unethical standards being enforced elsewhere.
It doesn't matter who it is, whether it's NSA or Russia or Sweden if Google is cooperating with them in unethical ways you should do something about it. Apathy and a blind eye is why corporations can get away with working people to death so we can live in comfort. People may have excuses for that but there is no excuse for allowing them to go so far as what has been written in dystopia literature.
Also just step back for a moment and try to think of scenarios in which people would have to apply your "don't fight opposing systems". I feel you will find it does not apply to a great many things.
It doesn't matter who it is, whether it's NSA or Russia or Sweden if Google is cooperating with them in unethical ways you should do something about it. Apathy and a blind eye is why corporations can get away with working people to death so we can live in comfort. People may have excuses for that but there is no excuse for allowing them to go so far as what has been written in dystopia literature.
Also just step back for a moment and try to think of scenarios in which people would have to apply your "don't fight opposing systems". I feel you will find it does not apply to a great many things.
> If you believe your system is better, then you really should not have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Forcing it through just shows that you are motivated by self interest, and not a core belief in the superiority of your own values.
Uh why ? I think it's exactly the opposite
Uh why ? I think it's exactly the opposite
I don't claim to be an authority on this by any means and it's a very complex space but...
the approach of "forcing" a foreign country to take on social/political beliefs seems like a very difficult task when the local culture doesn't already support them implicitly. The worst example of this in recent history is probably our(US) interactions in the middle east that in many ways have backfired and made the situation worse by creating economic uncertainty and power vacuums.
I think generally more liberal values become more attractive as economic prosperity. if this is true it seems like a simpler/more effective foreign policy strategy to create economic opportunity for citizens of the foreign country and simply tie an example of the liberal values we want to spread to those opportunities. Then pushes for these sorts of changes would have a much stronger local, and thus more aware of the local situation, base of support.
If the views really are superior it should be easy to derive them independently given examples as your lower level concerns become less of a problem. And if they come to those positions in a more independent way the likelihood that they'll last is much higher.
the approach of "forcing" a foreign country to take on social/political beliefs seems like a very difficult task when the local culture doesn't already support them implicitly. The worst example of this in recent history is probably our(US) interactions in the middle east that in many ways have backfired and made the situation worse by creating economic uncertainty and power vacuums.
I think generally more liberal values become more attractive as economic prosperity. if this is true it seems like a simpler/more effective foreign policy strategy to create economic opportunity for citizens of the foreign country and simply tie an example of the liberal values we want to spread to those opportunities. Then pushes for these sorts of changes would have a much stronger local, and thus more aware of the local situation, base of support.
If the views really are superior it should be easy to derive them independently given examples as your lower level concerns become less of a problem. And if they come to those positions in a more independent way the likelihood that they'll last is much higher.
Depends on "better". For any definition where better includes economic superiority, the easiest way to show that is to let time sort things out.
I guess, but the temptation to do "something, anything" is too great. In the 1980's there were all sorts of efforts to economically freeze out South Africa. Other than making Marc Rich a very wealthy man, I cannot definitively say it sped up or slowed down the unwinding of apartheid, but it was the morally correct thing to do.
Action must be taken.
Action must be taken.
What "forcing"? This is the international equivalent of, "Hey, Bob, you're kind of an ass---- and we don't want you coming to the softball league anymore".
The US censors content like child pornography, some bomb making manuals, etc.
Does anyone know the technical details of what Google would have needed to comply with in China? From my understanding, a lot of western companies do business in China via (51% local controlled) "Partners" that ostensibly run their infrastructure for them, and obviously have to abide by local regulation. This includes operating an "Information Security Management System" (a euphemism of a sort) that interfaces with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for auditable end-user access logs and content blocking.
It seems this is governed by these standards, but I failed to dig up a copy of them. Is it true that any western company offering a mainland Chinese version of their product exposes these interfaces?
YD/T 2248-2015 - 互联网数据中心和互联网接入服务信息安全管理系统技术要求 - Interface requirements of information security management system for Internet data center/Internet service provider
YD/T 2406-2017 - 互联网数据中心和互联网接入服务信息安全管理系统及接口测试方法 - Test specifications of information security management system & interface for Internet data center/Internet service provider
YD/T 3212-2017 - 内容分发网络服务信息安全管理系统接口规范 - Interface standard of information security management system for content delivery network service
YD/T 3213-2017 - 内容分发网络服务信息安全管理系统及接口测试方法 - Test specifications of information security management system for content delivery network service
YD/T 3214-2017 - 互联网资源协作服务信息安全管理系统接口规范 - Interface specification for information security management of Internet resource collaboration service
YD/T 3215-2017 - 互联网资源协作服务信息安全管理系统及接口测试方法 - Test methods of information security management system for Internet resource collaboration service
It seems this is governed by these standards, but I failed to dig up a copy of them. Is it true that any western company offering a mainland Chinese version of their product exposes these interfaces?
YD/T 2248-2015 - 互联网数据中心和互联网接入服务信息安全管理系统技术要求 - Interface requirements of information security management system for Internet data center/Internet service provider
YD/T 2406-2017 - 互联网数据中心和互联网接入服务信息安全管理系统及接口测试方法 - Test specifications of information security management system & interface for Internet data center/Internet service provider
YD/T 3212-2017 - 内容分发网络服务信息安全管理系统接口规范 - Interface standard of information security management system for content delivery network service
YD/T 3213-2017 - 内容分发网络服务信息安全管理系统及接口测试方法 - Test specifications of information security management system for content delivery network service
YD/T 3214-2017 - 互联网资源协作服务信息安全管理系统接口规范 - Interface specification for information security management of Internet resource collaboration service
YD/T 3215-2017 - 互联网资源协作服务信息安全管理系统及接口测试方法 - Test methods of information security management system for Internet resource collaboration service
I don't know exactly, but to buy a domain and operate a website in China you need to get an Internet Content Provider license, and a foreign company cannot acquire it.
I don't know the nuances of the new ownership laws but the 51% rule no longer applies. The Tesla gigafactory in China is wholly owned by Tesla. These protective measure is unnecessary now that China has grown so much economically.
The 51% rule does apply for certain industries (here is the PDF: https://www.set-up-company.com/uploads/file/negative-list-fo... an informative guide is here: https://www.set-up-company.com/the-ultimate-guide-for-china-... and I would start there.
A WFOE = Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise is allowed for manufacturing (which I assume Tesla regulates under), but not for Telecom companies where 51% still applies. Internet services seem even worse based on a cursory reading:
A WFOE = Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise is allowed for manufacturing (which I assume Tesla regulates under), but not for Telecom companies where 51% still applies. Internet services seem even worse based on a cursory reading:
(42) No foreign investor is allowed to invest in Internet news services, Internet publishing services, Internet audio-visual program services, Internet culture operation (except music), Internet access service establishments, and services of information release to the public through Internet (except those under China's commitment to opening up to the outside world in its entry into the WTO).... for now. What would be far more reassuring would be a statement from Google that Project Dragonfly does not meet their ethical standards as a company.
Yeah. This seems rather like carriers selling location data, or the NSA and domestic surveillance.
Both have stopped happening so many times that the only thing I'm sure about is that they will stop again sometime soon.
Both have stopped happening so many times that the only thing I'm sure about is that they will stop again sometime soon.
The fact that they even started the project speaks for itself.
Companies don't have ethical standards, only slick PR departments.
Companies don't have ethical standards, only slick PR departments.
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.
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 situation as Apple, where nobody (or magnitudes less, if you want to get pedantic) cares.
I at least hope governments will ban Baidu from ever competing outside of China. I would hate to see Google suffer because they weren't ever allowed to compete with Baidu on their home turf.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/google-pulls-out-of-china-20...
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 situation as Apple, where nobody (or magnitudes less, if you want to get pedantic) cares.
I at least hope governments will ban Baidu from ever competing outside of China. I would hate to see Google suffer because they weren't ever allowed to compete with Baidu on their home turf.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/google-pulls-out-of-china-20...
> I at least hope governments will ban Baidu from ever competing outside of China.
"If you open the window, both fresh air and flies will be blown in." 邓小平
That ideology works and benefits China only if there is a disparity between what China is allowed to do in the rest of the world and what China allows the world to do. I am also convinced that restoring an equal relationship is a great way to make the Chinese problem settle on its own.
"If you open the window, both fresh air and flies will be blown in." 邓小平
That ideology works and benefits China only if there is a disparity between what China is allowed to do in the rest of the world and what China allows the world to do. I am also convinced that restoring an equal relationship is a great way to make the Chinese problem settle on its own.
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.
I wouldn't say people don't. I would definitely say HN seems not to care.
I think what is more the issue is there are a lot of people on HN who see any criticism of China as nationalistic behavior from Americans at least considering the language our president has chosen to use. Which I would say that is a bad stance to take just because someone else's language is nationalistic on an issue doesn't mean my criticism is. But that seems to be the main issue. Not any particular company just talk around China.
But I agree many of these tech companies are constantly stepping over the line because they have no real competition. Which is why I say break them up.
I think what is more the issue is there are a lot of people on HN who see any criticism of China as nationalistic behavior from Americans at least considering the language our president has chosen to use. Which I would say that is a bad stance to take just because someone else's language is nationalistic on an issue doesn't mean my criticism is. But that seems to be the main issue. Not any particular company just talk around China.
But I agree many of these tech companies are constantly stepping over the line because they have no real competition. Which is why I say break them up.
As I understand it, Apple allows iOS users to use an end to end encrypted product with an option to back up to Chinese Communist Party silo of iCloud.
Apple does not offer a product that spies on user usage all the time monitoring for thought crime, as Web Search just under Chinese law.
Apple does not offer a product that spies on user usage all the time monitoring for thought crime, as Web Search just under Chinese law.
Some companies do have ethical standards, but the question is where those standards live with respect to decision-making. If projects can get started before they get any attention from the standards, their momentum can keep them alive (particularly in public companies where shareholders pressure you not to leave money on the table).
This is a very good point, I'm glad someone said this, since it adds some much-needed nuance to my original comment. The corollary is that ethical standards are irrelevant if they're not applied, and to your specific point, if there's no structure or workflow that allows them to be applied early and often.
Everyone, including companies do have ethical standard, its just they might not be aligned with your ethics.
Sony apparently has an ethics department whose job it is to censor games before they are allowed on the PS4.
Don't be evil being spread throughout their work of conduct documents used to be pretty good for that, which is why you have so many people push back against management on this and Project Maven now.
But when Google all but removed the don't be evil thing from the work of conduct guidelines, that should have been a huge red flag that the company is no longer interested in "educating" its employees on this kind of ethics, and would prefer that its new employees treat the one and only leftover mention of Don't be evil in the work of conduct as what it really is now - a way for Google to say that it's still in there somewhere, and nothing more. The Don't be evil spirit within work of conduct guidelines is gone.
But when Google all but removed the don't be evil thing from the work of conduct guidelines, that should have been a huge red flag that the company is no longer interested in "educating" its employees on this kind of ethics, and would prefer that its new employees treat the one and only leftover mention of Don't be evil in the work of conduct as what it really is now - a way for Google to say that it's still in there somewhere, and nothing more. The Don't be evil spirit within work of conduct guidelines is gone.
There was such a statement in 2010. Times, situations, decision makers can change, so how would such a statement help?
[deleted]
"The project was reported to have ceased late last year but rumors that it remained active persisted."
so that's probably never going to be 'terminated'
so that's probably never going to be 'terminated'
rumors != fact
I attended a talk by Jack Poulson (quit Google over Dragonfly and how it was handled) over the last weekend and he suggested that based on Google's reaction, it has definitely been simply shelved until the resistance and media attention dies down.
The whole thing was carried out in secret to begin with and Sundar Pichai has been completely silent on how it jives with it's own ethical standards.
The whole thing was carried out in secret to begin with and Sundar Pichai has been completely silent on how it jives with it's own ethical standards.
While a certain amount of cynicism is healthy and it should be acknowledged that Google can always back track, I'm still happy that for now they've decided not to assist and facilitate one of the most Orwellian nation's to ever exist.
They are just waiting for the right moment to try again.
> I'm still happy that for now they've decided not to assist and facilitate one of the most Orwellian nation's to ever exist.
Don’t get too excited; they haven’t announced a lack of participation in PRISM yet.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
Don’t get too excited; they haven’t announced a lack of participation in PRISM yet.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
What would you want Google to say?
"I’m not sure I can say this more clearly: we’re not in cahoots with the NSA and there’s is no government program that Google participates in that allows the kind of access that the media originally reported. Note that I say “originally” because you’ll see that many of those original sources corrected their articles after it became clear that the PRISM slides were not accurate. Now, what does happen is that we get specific requests from the government for user data. We review each of those requests and push back when the request is overly broad or doesn’t follow the correct process. There is no free-for-all, no direct access, no indirect access, no back door, no drop box."
https://venturebeat.com/2013/06/19/google-issues-clearest-st...
(I work at Google, not in a relevant role.)
"I’m not sure I can say this more clearly: we’re not in cahoots with the NSA and there’s is no government program that Google participates in that allows the kind of access that the media originally reported. Note that I say “originally” because you’ll see that many of those original sources corrected their articles after it became clear that the PRISM slides were not accurate. Now, what does happen is that we get specific requests from the government for user data. We review each of those requests and push back when the request is overly broad or doesn’t follow the correct process. There is no free-for-all, no direct access, no indirect access, no back door, no drop box."
https://venturebeat.com/2013/06/19/google-issues-clearest-st...
(I work at Google, not in a relevant role.)
"We are moving our entire business to Europe, because we legally cannot keep the NSA out of your data otherwise." would be a start.
Good.
Some argue this is just Google following local laws. I say that being legal != being moral and helping the government of China censor and track citizens is not a moral position, law be damned. The amount of internal resistance this got is good evidence of this project not being consistent with the values of most of the people who work there.
The fact that leadership tried to hide this project, keep it secret and deny its existence is... disappointing.
Then again, I already had the opinion that Sundar is the most overpaid CEO in the world.
Some argue this is just Google following local laws. I say that being legal != being moral and helping the government of China censor and track citizens is not a moral position, law be damned. The amount of internal resistance this got is good evidence of this project not being consistent with the values of most of the people who work there.
The fact that leadership tried to hide this project, keep it secret and deny its existence is... disappointing.
Then again, I already had the opinion that Sundar is the most overpaid CEO in the world.
It's amazing the outrage a project investigating how to comply has generated while Bing is quietly working just fine in China.
Why was it terminated? In theory a search engine that merely adheres to Chinese law sounds fine. Give a better product than they already have with the same restrictions they already have. I wonder if there ended up being far more control and restrictions than they bargained for and with the increased risk of tech theft the project just wasn't worth it.
So corporate censorship (Google search outside of China) is fine but government censorship (Google search inside China) isn't. Also, government censorship by Western governments (UK, etc.) is fine but government censorship by non western governments (China) is not. I don't see much difference myself but it seems others do.
There is a clash of fundamental values, it's deeper than politics.
Technology is driving confrontations with our values, our ideas of what it means to be human.
Organlegging was science fiction, now it's happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organlegging
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_theft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China
"What kind of future do we want?", is no longer the question, because it's here, now.
Technology is driving confrontations with our values, our ideas of what it means to be human.
Organlegging was science fiction, now it's happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organlegging
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_theft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation_in_China
"What kind of future do we want?", is no longer the question, because it's here, now.
This is definitely not enough. There still need to be an thorough investigation into the history of the project, at least include but not limited to:
1) the internal decision making process involving this project
2) personnel who are responsible for initiating / approving the project
3) how many resources have been put into this project
4) the exact content (data sources, roadmap, goals, etc.) of this project
5) how far this project went
6) where the product / data is stored, how will they be handled when the project is terminated
7) how many of the project outputs have being provided to the Chinese government
8) the details of Chinese government involvement into this project
Also, not limited to Google, any U.S. company helps any authoritarian government doing censorship needs to be investigated.
BTW, I got lots of downvotes from comments criticizing China.
1) the internal decision making process involving this project
2) personnel who are responsible for initiating / approving the project
3) how many resources have been put into this project
4) the exact content (data sources, roadmap, goals, etc.) of this project
5) how far this project went
6) where the product / data is stored, how will they be handled when the project is terminated
7) how many of the project outputs have being provided to the Chinese government
8) the details of Chinese government involvement into this project
Also, not limited to Google, any U.S. company helps any authoritarian government doing censorship needs to be investigated.
BTW, I got lots of downvotes from comments criticizing China.
what about microsoft / bing? they are available in China and no one seems to give them shit compared to google
Google employees are very vocal, and will internally protest anything they don't agree with. That protest often gets leaked to the media.
Microsoft is run like a regular company where employees just do what they're told.
Microsoft is run like a regular company where employees just do what they're told.
I have friends at google still working on this.
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.
Does anyone know the exact requirements set by China on google for them to enter the Chinese market? I suppose adherence to Chinese law but what exactly? Support of law enforcement, censorship of specific sites, personal data stored in China etc...
Does anyone know whether there are in fact "exact requirements" at all, or whether you just have informal off the record chats with officials where you're given to understand that it would be "looked upon favourably" if this or happens or does not happen. From everything I've read about how China operates it's sort of the exact opposite in one sense from the west. In the west there are rules and there are loopholes around the rules. In China they are sort of more pragmatic - they want to protect growth & security and resist foreign interference whether cultural or religious; what's written as a rule or law or whatever isn't such a big deal; there's an understanding that you just do what you're told in that context. So they don't mind Google operating there but if Google run operations which "threaten orderliness" then it's going to have a hard time.
>From everything I've read about how China operates it's sort of the exact opposite in one sense from the west.
The main differences can be summarized as "rule of law" versus "rule of people". Also connections with someone in the upper levels of gov't are paramount for any company looking to make it big.
Source: Chinese family members.
The main differences can be summarized as "rule of law" versus "rule of people". Also connections with someone in the upper levels of gov't are paramount for any company looking to make it big.
Source: Chinese family members.
Ok.
But a big project like this has to gather its requirements somehow. Do google then have dialogue with a representative of the government?
Bing and outlook is (or was at least around 2015) accessible and localized in mainland China.
I wonder how they did it?
But a big project like this has to gather its requirements somehow. Do google then have dialogue with a representative of the government?
Bing and outlook is (or was at least around 2015) accessible and localized in mainland China.
I wonder how they did it?
Only thing I know was Google tried to bring Play Store to Chinese market, sometimes last year, but for some reason that doesn't come to fruit.
Under Xi, there is zero chance Google can have a public service offering in any way, considering its history.
Under Xi, there is zero chance Google can have a public service offering in any way, considering its history.
Clear unambiguous rule of law? Dream on, this is China we're talking about!
Handing over whatever special sauce Google uses for Dragon Fly to a Chinese owned company or “joint” venture.
Not buying this. It was previously told that the project was suspended while in reality it wa still worked on in secret. Chances are they will terminate Dragonfly, but start working on it under a different banner.
I'm happy that Dragonfly is being terminated and I'm sure this is also the direct result of all Google employees who objected to it.
To the Chinese people here on HN try to understand that this is larger than the welfare of the Chinese.
China is now in a position to export its culture to the rest of the world due to its economic strength.
It can, for example, force companies like Google to censor information to the rest of the world and this is a fact.
How do I know this? Because us EU citizens already have to suffer the US views on sex and nudity, among others and the US has the strongest free speech protections of all countries.
The whataboutism on this discussion btw is interesting since this forum would be censored in China and this conversation wouldn't be possible. There's no comparison to be made in terms of free speech. In China you have none.
So I regret the situation, but many of us value our liberal freedoms and we don't want China to export its flavor of communism to us.
Yes I was born and raised in an ex-communist country, I know communism when I see it, I don't want any and I'm prepared to fight for my freedoms.
I do hope to see China become a liberal democracy. But I'm not holding my breath, because I also know what it takes for a revolution to happen and China won't be there for the foreseeable future.
To the Chinese people here on HN try to understand that this is larger than the welfare of the Chinese.
China is now in a position to export its culture to the rest of the world due to its economic strength.
It can, for example, force companies like Google to censor information to the rest of the world and this is a fact.
How do I know this? Because us EU citizens already have to suffer the US views on sex and nudity, among others and the US has the strongest free speech protections of all countries.
The whataboutism on this discussion btw is interesting since this forum would be censored in China and this conversation wouldn't be possible. There's no comparison to be made in terms of free speech. In China you have none.
So I regret the situation, but many of us value our liberal freedoms and we don't want China to export its flavor of communism to us.
Yes I was born and raised in an ex-communist country, I know communism when I see it, I don't want any and I'm prepared to fight for my freedoms.
I do hope to see China become a liberal democracy. But I'm not holding my breath, because I also know what it takes for a revolution to happen and China won't be there for the foreseeable future.
Agreed... have had several friends and coworkers over the years who are expat Russian and HK, and have no love for communism. Being born in the 70's and coming up in the 80's probably means some bias on my own part. I just don't want anything resembling that level of restriction from any government. I have enough problems with my own (US) govt, let alone adding a more repressive stream.
They said they have terminated the project Dragonfly. But did they actually stop working on the censored search for China? And why was the statement made by a PR dude Karan Bhatia instead of Ceasar Sengupta who was supposedly in charge of the project?
I wonder if they will they put this on killedbygoogle.com?
While I guess you could say it was a project killed by google (supposedly - we'll see how long that lasts), killedbygoogle.com is mostly meant to shame google, and I don't really want to shame them for cancelling this project.
Lord help us if we allow nuance.
At the same time it acknowledges that the product existed in the first place shaming them for that as well.
Doesn't that site only list products that launched in some form?
Is Hollywood on that list? Google, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix are getting blamed for it, but that was more of a YC initiative [0,1] powered by inevitable Internet economics.
[0] RFS 9: Kill Hollywood https://twitter.com/paulg/status/160491053080776706
[1] 2012 Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3491542
https://web.archive.org/web/20120127114157/http://ycombinato...
[0] RFS 9: Kill Hollywood https://twitter.com/paulg/status/160491053080776706
[1] 2012 Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3491542
https://web.archive.org/web/20120127114157/http://ycombinato...
The news here is just that Google told the Senate hearing confirmation of the same thing people were saying informally before.
I am accepting bets on when the project will be terminated again in the future.
Bitcoin only. Tether only in high amounts.
Bitcoin only. Tether only in high amounts.
How could someone collect? Your window seems open-ended.
There is a service called "OneHash" I think... where impartial 3rd Parties can be the judge of bets like these for a small fee on the transaction.
I might be confused on the name, and can't look up Crypto stuff at work. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I might be confused on the name, and can't look up Crypto stuff at work. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
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That was fast. Good job Peter.
Who said China would allow Google to go back in the first place?
Meh...they'll rename it "Happy Pancakes", do it again until they get caught and then fire some hapless nitwit middle manager that they wanted to get rid of anyway.
Yay, capitalism. Where no one's to blame and everything's always on fire.
Yay, capitalism. Where no one's to blame and everything's always on fire.
How different is project dragonfly from what is already being proposed by some political folks in the USA?
YouTube has arbitrary content policies which seem to mirror whatever the Democratic party wants. From China's POV they want the same thing except they call their party the Communist party.
Guys like Dennis Prager are trying to run a YouTube channel with conservative viewpoints and are finding it impossible to do so without obstacles. I don't think there is a single channel that is right of center which is not mistreated by YouTube.
Politics aside, let's look at political correctness. On YouTube you cannot be critical about a class of people because of their immigration status. I watched a documentary about of smuggling of illegal immigrants from North Africa into Europe. They showed footage of a guy who couldn't go out into his own farm at night because smugglers would trespass on his property en route to the shore where the boats were. The documentary was one of those "live" launches on YouTube. Conveniently the live launch was bugged out. I had to refresh the page an hour after I realized it didn't release.
24 hours later it was banned by YouTube.
So I ask again, is it only Chinese censorship that western society has a problem with?
YouTube has arbitrary content policies which seem to mirror whatever the Democratic party wants. From China's POV they want the same thing except they call their party the Communist party.
Guys like Dennis Prager are trying to run a YouTube channel with conservative viewpoints and are finding it impossible to do so without obstacles. I don't think there is a single channel that is right of center which is not mistreated by YouTube.
Politics aside, let's look at political correctness. On YouTube you cannot be critical about a class of people because of their immigration status. I watched a documentary about of smuggling of illegal immigrants from North Africa into Europe. They showed footage of a guy who couldn't go out into his own farm at night because smugglers would trespass on his property en route to the shore where the boats were. The documentary was one of those "live" launches on YouTube. Conveniently the live launch was bugged out. I had to refresh the page an hour after I realized it didn't release.
24 hours later it was banned by YouTube.
So I ask again, is it only Chinese censorship that western society has a problem with?
It would not surprise anyone if Project Dragonfly's termination occurred as a consequence of current trade spats between the two nations which could lead/has led to some animosity towards each other's products/services.
Probably because China has sufficiently copied/stolen it to not need Google any longer. It would be trivial to put government agents inside the local team and copy whatever they wanted, or coerce the local team to contribute everything they learned to the government.
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.