Back in 2010 there were many other opportunities to grow the company. The bigger you get the harder it is to grow.
Playing ball with China becomes one of the easier ways to keep growing once you reach a certain size. The NBA did the same thing after they saturated the US market.
I'm sure many execs have performance incentives / stock options that caused the shift in policy.
Define that. For regular people in China, does the addition of Google with some censorship make their life better? Does it improve information flow over existing domestic search engines? I think the answer is obvious.
People subscribe to overly simplistic thinking - if something is not perfect, it must be the worst. I see a lot of people promoting sanctions on a country because of government. Who gets hurt in this case? Ordinary people living their life.
When the information flow is all-or-nothing (either you get the full uncensored fire-hose, or you get nothing and whole sites/services are blocked due to censorship), the citizen at least knows they're being censored, and then the ball is in the citizens' court as to whether they want to advocate for a reform of that censorship.
When censorship is selective (e.g. "You can read all of Wikipedia, except for whichever articles the government doesn't currently like this week/year"), citizens are mostly going to be unaware of what they're missing and how selective their worldview might actually be. This is very insidious, stealthy, and difficult for a citizenry to be aware of and politically revolt against, especially given there will commonly be no transparency or oversight as to the banned-topic list at any given moment.
Personally, one of my stronger meta-values is that any state which stands on the side of forcibly hiding information from its citizens is on the wrong side of history and ethics. If you can only defend your government to its citizens by lying to them, there's clearly something wrong with what you're doing.
Also I don't think that posturing that may lead up to another Cold War is good for the world. Perhaps there can be greater understanding between peoples through a process of engagement, rather than standing-off.
There is a famous commencement speech by Solzentzyn at Harvard, that laments why the West, esp Americans haven't shown understanding of other cultures, and seem to think and act from a position of moral superiority, whose basis is not so sound as they think.
Personally, I think Google is in an awkward position here. The Wikipedia can take a solid and principled stance because it has clear and transparent policy on what it censors (basically anything original, not NPOV, and not of general interest). The Wikipedia can do this, because it's edited by humans, and while humans are pretty bad at agreeing at these things, they're way better at it than computers.
Basically, Google wants to filter its results, but if it doesn't let the Chinese government control the filter in China, it runs the risk of appearing to be western propaganda.
When a government is unelected, it needs to show its legitimacy through strength. This means censoring anything that would make it look weak. Censorship is simply a political tool by the CCP, not a cultural practice that deserves respect.
In fact, you could argue that political censorship is the actual enemy of Chinese culture. Historically, China has had a rich history of political theory and thought, but now any views that go against the party line are repressed.
Since your argument revolve around this, do you know if this is correct? As in, people in China does not know they're being censored?
What does scare me though, is that by accepting censorship, it normalizes it and weakens the position of any company protesting against it even in countries that traditionally are more pro-human rights like European countries and the US. So it is a complex question...
Really? China's a huge country with huge differences in income and education. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there are some people who aren't aware of the censorship or others even outside of the government that feel like it's a good policy. Mainly curious how small that population is.
What does that have to do with ethics, really? Your argument seems to be that utility should outweigh ethical concerns.
> I see a lot of people promoting sanctions on a country because of government. Who gets hurt in this case? Ordinary people living their life.
So do you think governments were wrong to sanction South Africa's apartheid regime? Do you not think that the ordinary people in South Africa have a better life today as a result of those sanctions and the collapse of the apartheid regime?
Not GP, but that seems a bit unfair. Utilitarianism in various flavours is a popular ethical framework; for those who subscribe to it, ethical concerns are properly calibrated and measured in utility.
I suspect your argument (especially the SA comparison) would be better expressed as a tension between long- and short-term utility, but don't want to put words into your mouth.
Some would argue that denying people the ability to access information easily is unethically harming them. It preserves your own privilege instead of extending it to the less well off.
There are real ethical questions here that can be weighed. It's perhaps not quite as simple for some people as money on one side and every single possible ethical factor on the other.
Yes their lives are much better, just like the Zimbabweans.
It's called utilitarianism and here it demonstrates nicely that ethics comes in various flavors
It's the Chinese firewall censoring the sites, so even if Google did link the site in the search results, users wouldn't be able to click and access it.
The bigger issue with project dragonfly was sharing user search queries with the government. This seems terrifying but pretty much every other tech company (Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) existing in China does this with their Chinese user data.
That's why this is a red herring. The problem you want to solve is Chinese citizen awareness when Google is just trying to provide the information that's available.
And before you ask, there were large technical and ethical differences in my opinion with the censorship of nazi results in germnny vs the censorship that China demands- for one thing, the Chinese government needed real-time control and could have been involved in the process of putting the results together. That kind of product compromise isn’t anything I want to work on personally. I’m not going to work on something that lies in real time to people about the quality of the air they are breathing, using the google brand, for example.
I don't think so. If Chinese people want to use Google, then they have to use a VPN. And if Chinese people use a VPN, their search results won't be censored.
If Google releases a censored search engine in China, then people will have less incentive to access an uncensored one.
For a cartoonish example let's say Adolf Hitler approaches you to buy large quantities of morphine as a substitute for Zyklon B. Surely this is an improvement for the victims of extermination over their current situation, but you're still participating in the Holocaust.
I think utilitarianism has a big problem with myopia. It's extremely hard to do a real global calculation for outcomes so faithful practitioners inevitably end up following local gradients. I think a solid ethical equilibrium requires a certain amount of deontology, a framework of things that We Do Not Do.
Sometimes I think this is a result of information explosion. People gets overwhelmed by the amount of available information, so as a self-protection mechanism, they subscribe to the simplest binary thought process.
And other people might think that since it adds a tiny positive in one area that it can't possible add a huge negative in another area--like normalizing censorship for profit (whoops, the horse already left that barn) and massively increasing the surveillance capabilities of a murderous oppressive regime. You're engaging in simplistic thinking too.
I think the answer is obvious, but in the opposite sense you imply. Google acts as a window into the universe. Not the only one, of course. But if you have a window into the universe that lies to you about the universe (and of course, assuring you that I will tell you everything that is important, and then omitting certain important things, is lying), it is best for you to be without it, and rely on whatever windows you have left.
ahem...
> People subscribe to overly simplistic thinking
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement
It takes years in the right environment for someone like that to start to think differently. All kinds of important facts and ideas were kept from them, much of it random things that don't come up often that they may not even realize.
For a less than unusual example: a lot of Chinese think the US never apologized for accidentally bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Balkans conflict, but it did so, publicly: https://www.c-span.org/video/?123188-1/youth-violence-embass.... The Chinese government portrayed the bombing as a deliberate act, and used it to create a sense of nationalist outrage in the population. The apology didn't fit the narrative so it wasn't reported. How long would it take for someone whose views were shaped by things like that outrage to get exposed to the truth randomly, given how infrequently this event comes up?
The current regime has broken records year over year and almost the entire population is happy with them. Chinese people are better off every single day. Who are we as westerners to say that our system of governance is better than theirs? How can you be so sure that their system will inevitably be bad for the people?
Just because an absolute right to say (almost) whatever you want is essential to the political philosophy of the west does not mean that it can/would mesh well in Chinese society.
I know you guys are going to want to crucify me for saying a lot of this but I work with a lot of people in mainland China and no one has any problems with the government, they stick to their own business and are doing pretty damn well. Obviously this could change one day but thats not our job as non-chinese citizens to decide.
Because i am a foreigner the worst that could happen from me voicing such an opinion is the government doesn't renew my work visa. For Han, it could affect their social credit rating. For ethnic minorities it could land them or their families in "reeducation camps".
That's the trick of authoritarian regimes. If you just shut up and do whatever the government says, they won't bother you (unless you are rich enough to bother extorting). But if you make a noise, you are screwed. That's the reason why everyone you talk to is allegedly happy with the regime. It's not in their interests to be anything else.
The people I talk generally genuinely are really happy with the regime though. People respect the hell out of Xi, and faith in the central government combined with the Maoist nationalism that still prevails as the dominant form of identity for most mainland Chinese you see the average citizen that really has no criticisms of the government.
I've had conversations with Chinese people before about the American bipartisan system and free speech vs the Chinese counterparts and usually they come to this conclusion: "Americas system works for America, Chinas system works for China. If people could say whatever they want here there would be much more trouble, if there were multiple competing political parties they would be at each others throats in a way that makes Americas current polarization look like a beautiful political climate".
Let what works for China continue to work for China, and what works for us continue to work for us. People, cultures, and ideas are different depending on where and how you were raised. The ideas that made the west great don't necessarily work for everyone.
While living here i have spoken to plenty of people who do not parrot the party line. Even in the middle class there are a lot who don't like it when the government censors their shows or deletes well-loved memes. In fact, that is one of the more common grievances i've heard from the middle class here. This is a group of people who can comfortably afford VPN, but they'd still prefer not to have to.
In the working class people seem less concerned about censorship as a moral issue, but it still negatively impacts their lives. There is a real resentment of the corruption that is rife in the party and amongst the elites. Censorship means the working class can't talk about it outside the dinner table and they can't mobilize. Rural people get a raw deal on education and they know it. The poor are upset about rising income inequality and gentrification.
Migrant workers in many larger cities still don't get hukou (residence), so they cannot get healthcare, their kids can't attend public schools, they do not qualify for public housing and so on. Their lives are precarious. Entire neighborhoods can be marked for demolition and there is no avenue for protest because the tenants don't count as residents anyway.
Meanwhile the government constantly crack down on the lower class - shutting down food stalls, kicking out street vendors, fining delivery drivers and so on. I can assure you that people on the receiving end of this aren't as thrilled with the regime as the ones who can afford an iPhone and an apartment in a gated community.
Still, let's address the "Chinese exceptionalism" argument. The idea that China needs socialism "with Chinese characteristics" is CPC propaganda, not some innate truth. It can be debunked simply by looking across the strait at Taiwan, where there is a majority (Han) Chinese country that operates perfectly fine with a democracy and no censorship. For sure, the whole island has less people in it than Shanghai, but the proof is there: Chinese people can thrive in a free state. Tens of millions of ethnic Chinese live in democratic countries all over the world and don't pine for the days of living under authoritarianism.
There is no doubt that East Asian culture is different to western culture, but it's not that much different. People still like to be able to talk about things they care about, read about what's actually happening in their neighborhood, and express grievances when they see injustice. Although most Chinese tolerate the current situation, i think it's misleading to imply that there is full-throated support of the status quo. My personal feeling is people would be very pleased if the government were to become more transparent and less authoritarian.
The government here also has significant problems with management of immigration and with ownership of neighborhoods; the words used are different, Americans call it "gentrification," but the effect is the same when an entire population in a city is displaced from the place they live because they cannot afford the housing. Cities also kick out street vendors, fine delivery drivers, and so on via the network of laws around zoning, habitation, and usage. And the poor in the US are also concerned about rising income inequality and gentrification.
I think I'm inclined to agree that the cultures are not that much different. And many Americans accept or advocate for this status quo also.
Nobody is advocating overthrowing Xi Jinping. But if you're in America, benefiting from the freedoms afforded to Americans (and their fruits), it's fair to ask you don't undermine those values at home or abroad.
The topic of this subthread is not the attitudes of mainland Chinese, it's the attitudes of mainland Chinese who have immigrated to work at Google for economic reasons. I have friends who came from mainland China, and have talked to them about how their attitudes have changed over time. They don't all stay fixed in the officially-sanctioned mainland mindset.
> Obviously this could change one day but thats not our job as non-chinese citizens to decide.
So you're saying if someone is happy with something at least in part because they've been lied to, it's wrong for someone to interfere with their attitudes by trying to tell them the truth?
Still the test for me is how a society treats its weakest members. And in China, one is severely restricted to even talk about its weakest members! That hampers everybody in knowing how they're doing. In light of the information we outsiders have, the censorship is hurting these people. I'm not willing to accept this oppression as a matter Chinese citizens are best equipped to decide when they are not allowed to learn the facts.
thankfully for you, you live in a place where you can't be put in prison for expressing an unpopular idea.
According to whom?
> Convoys of Chinese patriots in Ferraris and other high-end sports cars have been revving up pro-Beijing demonstrations in Canada, home to tens of thousands of Chinese millionaire migrants.
[0] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3023499/wors...
Status seeking. Google has become the safe, secure job for people with low risk tolerance. That personality has predictable effects in any bureaucracy.
This likely goes for any company that grows from small to giant: early on, you hire people you know and trust, or that your (trustworthy) employees know and trust. But when you're deluged with applicants, you hire people who can solve leetcode hards in 30 minutes.
I don't think this is limited to China. Google has no qualms surveilling on behalf of the US government either.
But it's not really a matter of ethical sense. Google is big enough that everyone has a bone to pick with something Google does. Conversely, people can find a way to justify anything. So when anything you do is ethically wrong (in 2020, as long as one person with a twitter following thinks so, it's Wrong), and anything you do is also ethically justifiable (in 2020, as long as one person with a twitter following thinks so, it's Right), ethics isn't really how you make decisions anymore. It's just a matter of how much money will we make, will we get sued, and who's gonna manage PR.
And now Google employees, with their all righteousness, are claiming that Chinese people don't deserve a much better product, because they need to suffer for these employees' political ideal? If this is not hypocrisy, I don't know what is.
https://diversity.google/annual-report/
In my personal opinion, it has become more common for me to see groups of software engineers informally discuss an issue (say, at someone's desk, or walking down the hallway) entirely in Mandarin instead of English.
It seems the Googlers of today are holding Google to a higher ethical standard than the Googlers of 2009, since Google offered a censored search engine in china at that time and this did not produce the sort of outrage we see today.
The UN lists privacy as a human right. The entire company is built on violating human rights at scale no matter where those people reside.
In a few years, the US understanding of morality might change to Christian fundamentalism, gun culture, anti-vaxxing, respect to the authority, anti-euro and so on and the US might differentiate even from the UK in many aspects and fall in odds even with Western Europe.
Would it be expected that the employee's rally for these causes too and try to overcome some German vaccination laws? If the new cool becomes Mormonism, should employees make sure that the message of the Mormons must be delivered in Turkey?
Sure, my examples are extremely exaggregated but winds are blowing in different directions in every part of the world and I would prefer if the companies don't pick sides here. Not censoring Google doesn't change a thing in China because the problem is not that the locals in China are looking into these things but couldn't find info due to the censorship.
For these tech giants, I think, is enough if they don't turn into a tool for control and surveillance. Serve the censored search results, show your ads and make your money, obey the local laws and Just don't be enablers for oppression. There's a difference between limiting your product to obey the law and gathering list of people for persecution.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars#American_fruit_com...
Google hires heavily from universities and the popularity of free speech amongst university students has been down over the last decade. The title 9 inquisitions and general climate has completely changed the tone to the point that many adults exiting college don’t really have any problem with suppression of “harmful speech”.
The same applies to their employees abroad, most of which also view “freedom of speech” as a strange American obsession rather than a right worth trying to impose on the Chinese.
People with ethical sense leaving Google makes the balance worse. So the dealings with China will probably resume, at an even greater pace, when the public forgets about the first controversy. (edit: I should say first two controversies, since they stopped censoring in 2010, then tried to resurrect it as Dragonfly in 2018, then stopped again)