Posted on 02/02/2006 5:41:26 PM PST by WaterDragon
ast week America's second largest technology company, Google, announced a program that would assist communist China’s ongoing attempt to control the minds of its over 1.3 billion people. Simply put, Google will help make sure that when anyone in China looks up Tiananmen Square on the Chinese version Google is creating of its top rated search engine, that person will never see the famous picture of a student facing a Chinese Army tank.
Google is perverting its own wonderful market leading search technology, that opens up the resources of the entire internet to everyone, into becoming the world’s most efficient censorship machine. And it is doing this so it can get even richer by gaining access to the fastest growing internet marketplace in the world. China is now second with over 100 million users and will soon to surpass the United States and become the largest internet market in the world.
In spite of Google's aging hippie rhetoric on its website about "Do No Evil," there can’t be anything much more evil than helping a totalitarian regime, that once brainwashed captured United States POW’s during the Korean War, brainwash its own citizens more efficiently.....[more]
You want that same think thing, I'll be happy to buy you a one-way ticket to Beijing where you can do your "same think" all day. Raise a banner for five seconds and you will no longer be thinking the same as everyone else and be subject to immediate arrest and long period of same-thinking "re-education". I just don't see why you're here.
Let me try to explain it to you in plain English. In order to help persuade the cowardly execs at Google to stop kowtowing to Red Communist criminals, they should be made to feel economic pain by being forced to embargo the Red Communist PRC "market." The ability or non ability of people in China to Google (even using the lame google.cn) does not factor in any way into the calculus.
That's the problem.
You're all or nothing is an ideal, but not realistic.
The Chinese governemnt is filtering the information to which their people have access. Our own government does the same thing to a much lesser extent. You can't publish plans for making nuclear weapons in the US.
You'll also find that a lot of copyright holders aren't very happy with Google linking to content deep within their websites and have sued Google to keep them from linking directly to that content.
Even here in the US you aren't getting completely unobstructed access to information.
However, the Chinese have a lot broader array of information that they filter, and in many cases they finlter out everything but the government propoganda on some topics.
I agree that this is wrong for them to do. I do not support their actions. However, Google cannot change this. They can either provide services there which are limited by the content allowed by the Chinese government or they can not operate in that market.
The amount of information the government forces Google to filter is tiny compared to the vast amount of information Google helps people access. It is important information. The Chinese government is wrong to restrict access to it. However, Google doesn't have the power to force the Chinese government to change their policies.
The Chinese people do benefit overall from the information that the government does not filter. I also doubt that the fact that the only side of the story available is the government's side is lost on the Chinese people either. It's hard to know that information is missing when your sources are very limited. However, when you have the broad capability to learn things that the internet presents, it becomse more obvious that content is being filtered on some subjects.
The Chinese people also don't live in complete isolation from the rest to the world with only Google as their source of information.
Try playing an online computer game and not running into a considerable number of Chinese people living in China.
I ask you to answer how it would be better for the Chinese people if Google chose not to do business there which is their only other realistic option.
You give me examples of the evils of the Chinese government's attacks on free speech and freedom of the press.
Good thing you weren't making the decision to broadcast the radio free network, 'cause I can just hear you saying "Why broadcast when there are laws against the people listening?"
So because I don't jump on your bandwagon of blaming Google for the actions of the Chinese government I'm now an enemy of free speech? I guess if you can't argue your point, make slanderous vague assotiations and attack those who disagree with you.
Most of us here at freerepub believe people everywhere have certain inailenable rights like free speech. We support our country's effort to export freedom, as our brave soldiers are doing in Iraq as we speak.
As do I. However, I fail to see how going after Google does anything to further that goal. Even with the filters the Chinese government demands be put in place their people are getting more information. The more information people have available to them, the more obvious censorship becomes.
Google could band together with other internet providers so as not to lose a competitive edge, (or perhaps we will have to demand it be done) and stand on principal which will serve them better in the long run.
How would this help the Chinese people?
They could setup wireless Broadband like the Verizon system near the borders of China, maybe even from the Hong Kong region, and pump their product into China and to hell with the thought police and their apologists like you.
There are people broadcasting information into China. So what you're saying is that no only does Google have to provide a benefit to the Chinese people. They must fight the oppressive Chinese government in a way that you approve of.
Let's dump the rhetoric. This really isn't that complicated.
Does Google have the power to force the Chinese government to change their policies?
Does Google leaving the market provide a benefit to the Chinese people over them staying and operating under Chinese laws?
As for calling me the though police, I suggest you take a closer look at what your doing on this thread. You're the one ataacking and insulting me rather than refuting my arguments. The though police in this case would be you.
I've helped support a Christian missionary that went to China and witnessed there at considerable risk to themselves.
My brother's inlaws have gone to China to witness there while overtly vacationing there.
I have no delusions about the oppressiveness of the Chinese government, especially in regards to religion.
However, I guess that since the missionary I helped support spent much of that money in China, I was really helping the Chinese government and I should be ashamed of my actions.
I first thought to adress your points one by one, but as a whole, your counter-rebuttal is not worth a counter-counter rebuttal, sorry. I don't know why you would feel ashamed about going to China if your purpose was the furtherance of your religion and you were allowed to do that. I personally would never consider going as I would not want to subject myself to whimsical arrest.
I've told you what Google can do and I've adressed your flawed analogy not once but twice. Terms like "filtering sensitive information" that Google uses and the very similar term you use for the widespread act of censorship and distortion of facts are repugnant to me and hopefully most of the posters on this website. Embracing those terms is why I categoriaze you as an apologist. If you like it better, I'd be willing, perhaps, to upgrade you to the deluxe category, defeatist first class.
You justify Google's actions by saying "But what can they do?" I've told you what they can do.
The same attitude would prevent me from believing there is nothing I can legally do to stop Google from continuing this hideous business practice.
I enjoy the freedom in this country to do domething about this evil.
Watch me work.
BTW, hpefully it is self-evident that a person who can compare being able to have access to nuclear secrets to being able to read about the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in Tianamen square does not have enough of a concept of proportionality to warrant further debate.
Google has been beaming into China from offshore for some time, and owns a piece of China's largest server, Baidu. So it isn't as though China hasn't had access to Google, the so-we're-been-told-uncensored American Google.
I am sure to prevent future jamming, google was told by gov to have access to market you must have servers here and here is how you must control them.
Um. No, you switched to the things the Chinese government does and attacked those rather than attacking what Google is doing.
I asked two simple questions.
1) How can Google realisticlly change the policy of the Chinese Government?
2) If Google can't change the policy, how does leaving the Chinese market help the Chinese people?
You made a very poor attempt to say that Google could band together with other companies against the government. There's little question as to what the Chinese government would do. They'd confiscate any equipment Google and their associates had in the country and develop their own search engine.
Your other idea of Google helping create a wireless network to provide services is also kind of pointless. There are people who do broadcast information into China. However, that's kind of outside Google's area. The deal with interactive services. Networks like Verizons have very limited range. They also require two way communication. Tracking down who is using such a service would be trivial for the Chinese government. If they build a regular wireless lan based on 802.11x it would be trivial for someone who has a laptop and spends a couple hundred dollars in Best Buy.
In any case it will only work near the border, which makes it even easier to locate the people using it.
Broadcasting information still works. However, you're still trying to demand that Google get involved in a completely different way, rather than showing that what they are doing is harming the Chinese people.
That's the issue you keep ignoring.
Are the Chinese people better off if Google leave the market or if they stay?
Terms like "filtering sensitive information" that Google uses and the very similar term you use for the widespread act of censorship and distortion of facts are repugnant to me and hopefully most of the posters on this website.
Yes those words incite anger. They make for good terms in inciteful rhetoric.
Are the people of China better off with the services Google can provide or are the better off with Google not being there at all?
Embracing those terms is why I categoriaze you as an apologist.
I haven't embraced those terms. I've clearly said it's wrong for China to have those policies. However, instead of countering my arguments, you misrepresent what I've said and attack a position I don't hold. Therefore I'll just keep reiterating the same question.
Are the people of China better off with Google providing the services they can legally provide in China or are the better of if Google leaves the market?
If you like it better, I'd be willing, perhaps, to upgrade you to the deluxe category, defeatist first class.
Defeatist? Because I think your attack on Google is pointless? You really are narrow minded. I'm not saying it's pointless to try and make China change. I've spent my own money helping people go there to help instigate change. It's not that I don't think that China needs to change or that change can happen. I just don't see how your idea has even the slightest hope of helping that change come about. I think it could actually hurt.
The Chinese are comming in contact with western culture more and more. They are stuck with censored search engines, but at least a great deal of them have internet access. Many sites may be blocked, but the number of Chinese people I meet just playing online games tells me they aren't that restricted.
Even with the Chinese government filtering what their people can search for in search engines, they have access to vast amounts of information to expand their knowledge, and those who want to learn will find a way.
You justify Google's actions by saying "But what can they do?" I've told you what they can do.
It was a two part question. 1) What can Google do that has a practical chance of changing China's policy?
2) Are the Chinese people better off if Google leaves that market?
You made a poor attempt at answering the first, and didn't answer the second.
Unlike your gun manufacturer that has several models, Google's product is accepting keywords and returning the results of information available on the internet. There was no "less deluxe model", nor can there be.
A tiny portion of my respons you quote: You can't publish plans for making nuclear weapons in the US.
I was making the point that your illusion that there can be no "less delux model" that the whole set of available information in the world was unrealistic. However your response was:
BTW, hpefully it is self-evident that a person who can compare being able to have access to nuclear secrets to being able to read about the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in Tianamen square does not have enough of a concept of proportionality to warrant further debate.
I agree that what China is doing is wrong. I disagree that what Google is doing is wrong. They have very limited choices, and what they are doing is better for the Chinese people than simple stayng out of that market and doing nothing.
However, you keep mischaracterizing my responses and attacking views that are not mine, rather than disputing my assertions with facts and answering my questions.
You seem to be lost, that's what I would expect at DU not FR.
Nobody's forcing Google to censor or misdirect anyone, they have chosen to operate thusly (your euphemism "filter" I have not mischaracterized in the least).
Why do you feel the need to use euphemisms for this thought control? Are you one of the Google collaborators so that you can state with authority the extent of the censorship and misdirection and Google-generated gov't propoganda? (I cannot hide you! If the Nazis find out they may take me away too! I can do nothing except what the gov't allows!)
I've got the company line, I don't need you to repeat it. It is hogwash.
So your saying that Google can operate their search engine in China any way they like? You're suggesting that China won't shut them down if they don't filter censor out content the Chinese government doesn't like?
Or are you saying that Google can chose not to do business there?
That of course just brings us back to the same question you won't answer? Does Google not doing business in China benefit the Chinese people more than them providing them with the services they can provide under Chinese law?
Why do you feel the need to use euphemisms for this thought control?
I don't feel the need to use euphemisms. I'm a software engineer. Filter just happens to be the normally used term for removing a subset of data.
I have no problem with calling it censorship, or saying that everything is being removed on some subjects other than the government propaganda.
Thought control infers actual control. It's definitely an attempt at thought control.
However, what were talking about with all that are the laws of the Chinese government. Google can either follow those bad laws or they can not provide services in China.
If they choose not to provide services, the Chinese people get a poorer search engine with less access to information. If google provides the service, the people get access to what is out there minus what the Chinese government actively prohibits. If the Chinese government provides the service, content will lean much more towards what the government provides.
Are you one of the Google collaborators so that you can state with authority the extent of the censorship and misdirection and Google-generated gov't propoganda? (I cannot hide you! If the Nazis find out they may take me away too! I can do nothing except what the gov't allows!)
Well you've called me many names in this thread. I ask simple questions, you resort to hate filled rhetoric.
You called me a spineless moron, an idiot, an apologist many times, but now we've reached the last resort of the thought police. Infer that those who disagree with you would sympathize with the Nazis.
How about you drop the bull crap and answer the question.
How is Google not providing services in China better for the Chinese people than them providing the limited services they can provide under law.
It's not like the Chinese people don't know that their Internet search results are being censored. It's not like they don't know that it's their government that is censoring them.
I have this really simple way of looking at policies and laws and deciding if I should support them. I ask myself who the law or policy is supposed to benefit. I then ask if the law or policy actually has the ability to provide that benefit.
I cam up with this arguing gun control laws with people who honestly believe that they are doing the right thing by supporting laws restricting guns.
However criminals don't obey laws. Gun control laws restrain honest citizens, not criminals in any real way.
Opposing Google isn't the same as supporting gun control. Opposing Google is unlikely to leave someone defenseless while facing an armed criminal.
However, Google pulling out of China isn't going to help the Chinese people. It can quite possibly leave the Chinese people with less information available to them.
I agree with you that what the Chinese government is doing is wrong.
You're stuck with the idea that Google is helping that government censor information. You're ignoring the possibility that Google is actually helping the Chinese people as much as they can.
Change in China is going to happen due to internal pressures. It may change as the result of a violent revolution, or it may be the result of the people demanding reforms. The Chinese government is trying to build itself up economically, but to do so they need a well educated workforce that is capable of thinking on their own.
They are strengthening themselves economically, but are having to loosen their control politically to do it. As the Chinese people learn more about the world their desire for more freedom will naturally increase.
We need to keep working to help the Chinese people attain greater freedom, because it's the right thing to do. We need to help protect the free people of Taiwan from having their freedom crushed and being absorbed by China.
But we need to not get caught up in a bunch of rhetoric. We need to ask the simple questions. Who are we trying to help? Does the thing we propose really help those people?
I believe that we're trying to help the Chinese people here.
Does Google not providing any services in China benefit those people more than Google providing the services they can legally provide, even if those services are censored. Is there even a long term benefit that can be reasonably argued. I'm not saying there has to be an immediate benefit, just that the benefit to the Chinese people from Google not being there is greater than the benefit of Google being there.
So quit sidestepping the issue and answer the question.
No they are not loosening the thought control one iota. This is either a bold lie or absolute falsehood on your part. Please answer the question: absolute lie or bold falsehood. Don't sidestep this question.
That is the myth you and most liberals wish to perpetuate, that more trade has and will help China "soften" and "loosen" and not be the human rights thugocracy they "were".
It hasn't worked that way and the only thing strengthened by our enormous trade deficit with Red China is their military budget. China clamors for the genuine Google because it's value lies in it's honesty. The issue doesn't boil down to your choices no matter how many times you limit the possibilities and demand an answer to the choices you have determined exist.
The US government kowtows to China all the time, why not Google? Google is a business making a business decision. Shoot, no one in the US government dares recognizes Taiwan as an independant country, eventhough that is an obvious fact. Why punish Google?
Still a lot of angry rhetoric, and mischaracterizations. Your question isn't a question. It's an assertion. Calling it an question is a lie. I however am not lieing, I'm drawing conclusions from what I know, and what I've learned. I'm more than happy to explain my reasoning.
The Chinese government does not seemed to have loosened their restrictions controlling the media.
The Chinese government is trying to extent that control into new areas that are replacing the old media.
However, at the same time they are making an incredible effort to drag their economy into the 21st century.
In order to do that China has had to loosen the control on people and allow them to be trained and educated. I taught engineering labs while I was in grad school. We had a lot of Chinese students. Most stuck together because their english wasn't very good, but they we still exposed to other cultures. The learned that the way their government silences dissent doesn't happen everywhere. They are getting exposed to more information so they can make informed decisions for themselves.
My brother in law works for a company that has fallen into the trap of manufacturing products in China. The built a manufacturing facility there and took advantage of relatively inexpensive labor, and very good tax incentives offered by the Chinese government.
Part of the agreement they made was with the Chinese government is to not only manufacture products there, but that a significant portion of the design must be done in China as well. Now that company is having to train Chinese people to learn how to design those products. This is VERY bad news for us. However, it does expose the Chinese people to other people who haven't grown up in a land of thought control, or at least not as rigid of one de pending on your view on though control in the US.
A hobby of mine is Caving. I know a group of people who recently organized an expedition to China to explore caves there. They didn't spend a lot of time going around and seeing what the government want foreign tourist to see. They went to remote areas end explored caves and interacted with people.
They weren't going there to try and make any kind of political message, but by going there an interacting with the people there the do so to some extent anyway.
I play on-line games. I interact with Chinese people pretty regularly there.
China isn't as closed of a Country as they once were. They have had to open up some to encourage foreign investment. They have had to loosen control in exchange for the information and investment with which to build their economy. At the same time they are building up their military and they are becoming a serious economic threat to the US. However, at the same time the changes are becoming a serious threat to the control their government has over their people.
Their government is still working to maintain that control, and seem to be being quite successful.
So what can we do to help the Chinese people?
We also need to ask what we can do to protect our own country from the very real threat that China poses to our way of life.
The problem is that the answers to those two question quite often push us in the opposite directions.
That is the myth you and most liberals wish to perpetuate, that more trade has and will help China "soften" and "loosen" and not be the human rights thugocracy they "were".
I'm not a liberal and I don't simply regurgitate the talking points of others. I think about what I'm told. I use my knowledge to guage it's credibility. I think things out logically. I seek out new information. I then come to my own conclusions. Those conclusions aren't always correct, which is why I'm willing to listen to the reasoning of others and try and learn.
However you aren't presenting reasoning. You are asserting that you are right and anyone that disagrees with you are liars, apologists, sympathizers. Not because you are willing to argue your point. You don't argue your point, you attack the people that disagree with you.
It hasn't worked that way and the only thing strengthened by our enormous trade deficit with Red China is their military budget.
The standard of living in China is way below that of most industrialized countries. They live in oppression. However, the widespread poverty and starvation that they lived with a generation ago is mostly gone.
They are still oppressed, they are still relatively poor, but they have something they didn't have a year ago, they have hope.
I was talking to my brother in law about the Chinese people over the holidays. I told him that I thought as their economy's growth would likely stumble as they grew like the Japanese economy did and while they would be a large player in the world economy, they wouldn't unseat us.
His response was that he's worked with both the Chinese and Japanese people. They Japanese have a societal arrogance that restricts them. The Chinese on the other hand are hungry to learn, they are hungry to grow, they are aggressively looking for ways to succeed.
So what's the goal here regarding Google?
Are we trying to help the Chinese people? Are we trying to fight thought control?
Google because it's value lies in it's honesty.
Google provides access to information. Much of it is honest and truthful, much of it is not. Providing people with unrestricted access to information is ideal. It gives people a better opportunity to stumble over the truth. However, the real tool for fighting thought control isn't merely providing information, it's teaching people to think for themselves.
We have much more access to information here in the US yet there are many, many people who follow people blindly that tell them what to believe.
Right now the Chinese people are getting much more widely educated. They are learning problem solving skills. They are learning to question things. They are learning to look at what they know and what they don't know in order to solve a problem.
Ideally google would be able to geive them access to all the information on the internet so that they could more easily figure things out for themselves. However, we don't live in a perfect world. Google cannot just do whatever they want in China. The cannot overtly break the Chinese laws, and it's rather difficulty to do at all, because their own publicly available search tool is what would be used to verify that they are following hte law.
That pretty much leaves them with the option of following the horrible laws in China and providing content that is being censored, or not operating in that market.
So once again I will ask, which choice better serves the Chinese people.
The issue doesn't boil down to your choices no matter how many times you limit the possibilities and demand an answer to the choices you have determined exist.
Fine. By all means come up with other viable option. However, don't justify them based fake all or nothing premise.
Google can't provide completely unrestricted access in the US. They can't provide completely unrestricted access in Europe.
They restrictions in the US and Europe aren't nearly as horrible as those in China, but the point is that Google has to make a judgment on if the censorship they have to work under legally is enough that they should not do business under those laws.
So what tangible guidelines do you suggest they use?
If it's all or nothing, every search engine in the US and Europe should close their doors and go out of business.
Once you give up the all or nothing stance, it gets a lot harder to determine the right thing to do. I would think that if you're trying to do business in China, and it's censorship you're concerned with that your guideline would be doing what is best for the Chinese people.
So is it better for the Chinese people if Google offers the service they can offer under Chinese law, or if they offer no service at all?
Do you think that there's no value to the Chinese people to give them a search engine with both you and them knowing that the results are censored for political reasons?
What is the harm in doing so? The government can develop their own search engine as well. It won't likely be as good as Google's is currently, and it will be censored at least as much.
It's statements like this that precipitate emotional response because they are not really worthy of a rebuttal.
I know of no restrictions on the search engine Google except those that might involve criminal activity, i.e. child sexual exploitation and pornography.
These so-called restrictions do not involve free, non-criminal speech in any way. (Perhaps plans for making nukes are banned, I would hope so and could care less). You have repeatedly brought up the notion that there is restrictions Google has placed on itself in the U.S.
You are wasting my time with your arguments that speech isn't entirely free in the U.S. via Google because you can't, in essence, yell fire in a crowded theater.
You somehow believe that the interactions between Chinese and americans have loosened the restrictions on free speech and that is a dangerously false notion that flies in the face of the reality of widespread detention and slaughter of civilians occcurring as I at this moment am freely posting on the internet.
I know an american businessman who travelled the world on behalf of several motion picture companies as a cartel, and offered those companies movies on a "take this package of all of these companies as a package regardless of what you want, or leave it." They ALL took it.
If all of the internet companies, search engines, web sites, anyone on the internet, takes the postion, as an association--"Take us all, or leave us all." they will have the power to take on the Chinese thought police.
There may also be technological remedies for Chinese current thought police actions.
What isn't accpetable is to deceive the Chinese people, which is what they are doing, particularly when they deny Tianamen Square, when they redirect every searching Chinese Christian, or person curious about Christianity, to a site maintained by the Red Chinese thought police, and probably many other outrageous acts of propoganda and/or censorship. Google is operating in a free county, America, the United States of, and plenty can be done to change the wholeslae capitulation Google is engaging in with the the Red Chinese government thought police.
Of course it is, a parody of your own assertions that culminate in demanding that I choose between two of your assertions which you would have me accept as truth.
There are not just the two choices you assert. Sorry you didn't get the parody.
These so-called restrictions do not involve free, non-criminal speech in any way. (Perhaps plans for making nukes are banned, I would hope so and could care less). You have repeatedly brought up the notion that there is restrictions Google has placed on itself in the U.S.
No I have not brought up Google placing restriction on itself in the US. I have brought up Google working within the restriction placed on it by the laws in the nations in which they operate.
Are you suggesting the Google is placing restrictions on itself that are not required by the Chinese laws when operating in China?
Google is following the Chinese laws. They are not what I consider to be good or reasonable laws, but they are their laws. China can either follow them. Not operate in China. Or they can break them and pay the consequences.
You are wasting my time with your arguments that speech isn't entirely free in the U.S. via Google because you can't, in essence, yell fire in a crowded theater.
We're only having that discussion because you're insisting that Google has zero value unless it's completely uncensored. It the argument is pointless, it's because your argument is false.
You somehow believe that the interactions between Chinese and Americans have loosened the restrictions on free speech and that is a dangerously false notion that flies in the face of the reality of widespread detention and slaughter of civilians occurring as I at this moment am freely posting on the Internet.
You do understand the difference between the words "loosened" and "ended" don't you?
There is still tyranny in China. There will still be tyranny in China a month from now, and likely years from now. Progress is often slow. That doesn't mean that people should stop trying, nor does it mean that we should ignore that progress has been made.
If you don't believe that people learning how to think for themselves and learning about the facts is how to change things, then you are a liberal, nor a conservative. This goes right to the core beliefs of conservatives versus liberals. Conservatives believe in personal responsibility and that people need to think for themselves. Liberals believe that the people are not capable of making the right choices and therefore must have someone making them for them.
For things to change in China the Chinese people will have to be the primary instrument of that change. Another country or countries could possibly overthrow China, but that won't really result in long term change unless the people of China change things themselves.
No the Chinese government loosening restrictions on communication with Westerners hasn't been accompanied with them oppressing those they consider to be serious threats to their power. However, that loosening is providing education and hope.
Rigidly oppressed societies don't historically rebel against their government because they lack and important ingredient for revolution, they lack hope.
I know an American businessman who traveled the world on behalf of several motion picture companies as a cartel, and offered those companies movies on a "take this package of all of these companies as a package regardless of what you want, or leave it." They ALL took it.
If all of the Internet companies, search engines, web sites, anyone on the Internet, takes the postion, as an association--"Take us all, or leave us all." they will have the power to take on the Chinese thought police.
Those motion picture companies have a monopoly on the content they own. Google does not have a monopoly on Internet searching. Even if all the American companies banded together, they do not have a monopoly on Internet searching.
There are also already Chinese companies that provide Internet search engines, such as Baidu. It's simply not a market that lends itself to such a cartel.
There may also be technological remedies for Chinese current thought police actions.
It's hard to have a technological remedies. The Governemnt in China controls the backbone. For a search engine to be useful in providing information to a wide base of people, it needs to be widely available and easy to use. That makes it easy for the government to discover and easy for them to determine if it's complying with their laws. Because it requires that a request be sent, it's also easy to determine who is using the service.
Encryption could be used to hide what was being searched about, but not the source or destination of the packets, and it wouldn't take long for the government to discover that a site was receiving a lot of such traffic, and then show up and ask a lot of uncomfortable questions of the people running the service, or the people communicating with it. Once they verify their laws were broken they could go back through the logs on their network and find out who had used the service. What isn't acceptable is to deceive the Chinese people, which is what they are doing, particularly when they deny Tianamen Square, when they redirect every searching Chinese Christian, or person curious about Christianity, to a site maintained by the Red Chinese thought police, and probably many other outrageous acts of propaganda and/or censorship.
They are lieing to their people, and likely deceiving many. However, ask a few people from former Soviet countries if they believed the government propaganda at the time. In my experience I've been told that they didn't believe it, but publicly questioning it was dangerous. Of course I also primarily work with engineers who have come to the US to work, and they are typically more informed and skeptical of such things because they know how to think for themselves.
Google is operating in a free county, America, the United States of, and plenty can be done to change the wholesale capitulation Google is engaging in with the the Red Chinese government thought police.
You're still not answering the question of if the Chinese people are better off if Google provided the services they can legally provide in China even though they are censored in accordance with he Chinese laws, or if they Chinese people would be better off if Google left that market.
You did kind of attempt to answer it this time at least. You suggested that Google should not offer services there unless the Chinese government changed the law, and band together with other companies to force the Chinese government to submit to that demand.
However, There is no way to monopolize that market and force China to submit. China wants foreign investment and wants the west to help train and educate their people, but they aren't willing to give up their censorship to gain it.
If Companies such as Google band together and decide to not do business there, I guess Baidu gets a bigger share of the market there, and Chinese companies get less information for targeted marketing, and the Chinese people get a little less advanced search engine.
I don't really see that they really have any power to make the Chinese government to do as they wish. The Chinese government is only going to do what they feel is in their best interests. The training and investment they could gain from these companies is desirable. They are apparently willing to give up enough control to allow their people to be trained by and work with westerners, but if they were willing to give up their censorship for something like that, they wouldn't be the despots that they are.
False parody. Yours wasn't a question. Mine was.
There are really three options Google has.
1) They can operate in China and obey their laws. 2) They can operate in China and break their laws. 3) They can not operate in China.
I pretty much discounted Google operating there and breaking thier laws, because it would be easily detectible using thier own search engine. You din't seem to disagree with that, so I didn't include that in the options when I kept repeating the question.
Are you suggesting that there are more options?
Your implicit anwser always seemed to be that they should go with #3 and not do business there, at least not until China changes their laws.
Is that an unfair representation of your opinion?
That brings us once again to our central question.
Does that stance, or whatever your stance is if you care to define it differently, provide a greater benefit to the Chinese people than Google providing their service that is being censored in accordance with the Chinese laws.
That is the central question of this discussion isn't it?
From this discussion you obviously hadn't though that through when we started this discussion, but you should have done so by now.
You don't believe that the Chinese government allowing their people to train with westerners is having any effect.
You seem to believe that the information that Google can provide people in China access to within their laws is not of any real value unless it's considerably less censored. You at first seemed to infer completely uncensored, but you would seemingly allow censoring some things that should be considered morally wrong universally, such as kiddy porn.
I guess I feel that is a bit overly idealistic. I feel that even the limited service that Google can provide is valuable.
You do have a reasonable argument that by providing a censored service to the extent that the service is censored in China, Google is helping to perpetuate lies.
However, those lies are not Google's lies. It is not Google helping perpetuate them while other companies do not like we have with our own mainstream media that voluntarily chooses to perpetuate lies.
These are lies that are uniformly and harshly forced on all who do business there.
If Google had a choice of censoring the information while still operating there I would definately agree that would be the right choice. I don't think they have that choice.
Therefore they need to weigh the benefits they may provide the Chinese people against the harm they might do to determind the best thing for them to do.
They also have to ask themselves is associating with the Chinese government something they want to do unless the benefit to the Chinese people is significant.
I think that the only way we are going to change China is by communicating with the Chinese people, and business ventures give us access.
If we want to help the Chinese people change their government, I think we need to take advantage of such opertunities. We need to work within the limited freedoms the Chinese people have in an attempt to expand them rather than just criticizing the Chinese government and institing that it much change but not really doing anything to change it.
Increased communication through such routes is hardly a foolproof plan for gaining more freedom for the CHinese people. However, like free radio broadcasts into regions governed by oppressive governments, it's worth trying.
You were the one who called me a defeatist. I'm not. I just disagree with your way of addressing the problem, and I think in the end it does more harm than good.
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