In fact, no country allows unrestricted flow on the Internet of pornographic, violent, gambling or superstitious content, or content on government subversion, ethnic separatism, religious extremism, racialism, terrorism and anti-foreign feelings.
The US basically does. The government never censors the Internet; producing child pornography or running an illegal gambling site may be illegal, but there is no filter on Google to prevent you from finding those things. Terrorism, anti-foreign feelings, racism, government subversion, ethnic separatism, etc., are reprehensible, but are protected speech here. The government could find itself in trouble if it prevented someone from publishing something about one of those topics ("prior restraint"), and has lost many cases where it has tried to remove this information after the fact.
Basically, anything goes except libel, obscenity with no cultural value, and speech to incite imminent lawless action.
So basically Xinhua, get a clue. China is the outlier.
Pervasive: Burma, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, People's Republic of China, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam
Substantial :Australia, Bahrain, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen
Nominal and others: Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Ireland, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia , Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America
Well, even countries with very US-like legal heritage, such as Australia and Britain, have tried to impose national-border content-filtering. So sadly, the US is still somewhat of an outlier. Turns out putting an explicit absolutist free-speech right in the written constitution was a good idea!
Yeah, but even in Britain respected publications are free to speak their mind about inappropriate government actions, like cases where freedom of speech is violated, like this one ...
Which is even debatable if it was the right thing to do, and it's not like you can't find that movie (Fitna) on the Internet with a simple Google search.
Sorry, but this article is just setting up a straw man.
And it's the same story all over ... governments try to impose more restrictions to "protect" it's citizens ... people fight back by rioting or voting against the government. That's how democracy works ... you win some, you lose some, but mostly it's a balance (I'm thinking about the state of affairs in the EU here).
What really worries me is the current situations where many people and companies are paying lip service to China's policies, even though it's not in their interest to do so.
Sooner or later other governments will adopt similar policies ... hey, if it works so wonderfully in China, why shouldn't it work for the rest of the world? Australia is apparently doing just that ... although it's not like Australia hasn't been guilty of other crimes against humanity, like genocide, so personally I don't have any expectations from them.
If someone was found showing child porn on the net, arrested, and put in prison -- which does happen, even if those children are anime characters -- is that not censorship? What is the difference between putting someone in jail for producing a particular type of content and censorship? The FCC fines television stations for saying "fuck" on the air or showing female nipples -- is there a difference? I'd rather my fuck be censored out than fined for it. If it is censored, I don't lose anything.
Frankly, if I was producing some kind of illegal content that today would land me in jail, I'd rather the government just censor it and leave me my freedom to walk around and produce other types of content that aren't illegal.
I don't see a lot of difference between censorship and threats from the secret service for putting a picture of gwb on your myspace page with a knife stabbed through his hand. If that poor teen had simply had her photoshopped image censored she'd probably have had a less traumatic experience with the whole thing -- she'd still be livid -- but she wouldn't be afraid.
The point is that censorship does happen in the U.S. Playboys have black plastic covers on them in the convenient stores here, but not in Switzerland. Why is it okay for our government to censor some types of things and not others? Where do we draw the line? Perhaps it is being drawn between what most of us find acceptable and that which we don't.
Perhaps China is drawing the same sort of line in what they require Google to filter? Perhaps the stuff they censor creates a social environment that most people don't appreciate just like fuck and nipples in the U.S.
Pretty smooth of the PRC to redefine this as "Google trying to make a political statement" rather than "Google deciding it can't do business in a country that sponsors attacks on its systems."
I see no reason why these two are mutually exclusive. If I boycott a company due to disliking their business practices, can I not also be making a statement?
In fact, I support Google in this because it is making a statement, even if that's not the primary intention.
That's not a correct statement. Your Chinese company has the rights set forth by their laws. It is true their judicial process is prone to more corruption than in the U.S. But thats spotty and changing as well. You just can't always count on winning a court battle in China because your rich and connected anymore.
I have witnessed very powerful Chinese officials and businessmen not take action against a rival because the action would have been unlawful and they didn't want to risk the penalties. I have seen mid-level government officials block attempted actions from senior officials because the actions didn't follow the rules.
I'm assuming the CCP can win a court battle because it's rich and well connected in government (well, if dominance can be described as "well connected").
The CCP _is_ the government. The distinction is that government is operated with officials that sit on the administration side and others that sit on the "party" side. They all have their functions.
Here's an anecdote for you: a young chinese lady contracted HIV from a hospital blood transfusion. When it was found out, she was fired from her job and her family threw her out.
She sued. Not just her employer and the government hospital but the government as well for not protecting her. She won.
There are quite a few stories of the little person going up against government and winning.
A few months ago, a waitress at a restaurant (hotel) was being accosted by two drunk men..assuming she was about to get raped, she stabbed them. I think one of them died. Turns out they were high level local officials. The girl was given leniency by the court as they understood it was self-defense.
From my understanding of the use of TaoBao and Baidu in comparison to eBay and Google, void is a description of what western companies occupy in the Chinese marketplace — not what would be left by their leaving.
I really don't think China is afraid of Google leaving at all. Baidu is beating Google in China. China also has hackers that according to Google themselves are able to defeat Google's security measures, so I'd say China will do plenty fine without Google.
I'm not to certain about that. Chinese internet users will need to be as valuable as other users around the world to warrant more investment in new companies. Unless some one has data that contradicts this, I believe that revenues per user is much much lower in China then elsewhere and it might take a while for it to catch up. The total revenues of the Chinese internet market doesn't seem to be worth it currently. It's certainly a future investment and it doesn't seem that foreign companies are winning the battle with local companies for the market. It seem that the Chinese Internet market is isolating itself.
I'm not sure history should disagree with it. The underlying message is that corporations shouldn't be playing politics, and that's an increasingly popular public sentiment in the USA as well (or the internet amplifies it).
How is Google trying to manipulate foreign government different from the health industry lobbying for their own interests?
No company should be forced to do something it's executives and employees find morally wrong. They are not actively trying to usurp the Chinese government and I don't see anyone claiming Google is bribing people and push for self serving laws in Beijing.
Lobbying can be ok if it's done in a fair and open matter. Which it is not. Lets not forget that corporations have employees and those employees are often better off when their corporation has an easier time doing business.
While I agree in general with what you're saying I don't think most of it applies to Google's situation.
- Google was never forced to do anything. They chose to. The cost of doing business in any location is abiding by any number of laws that businesses must evaluate to see if they're willing or profitably able to operate within.
- They didn't seem to have many moral problems for the first 4 years.
- They very publicly announced they had a problem with the situation and tried to force the Chinese governments hand with an ultimatum - change the laws or lose Google's business.
Perhaps they did have moral problems, but decided that providing some access to the internet's vast amount of information to Chinese users was better than providing none. It's the reform-from-within approach. Perhaps they hoped the situation would improve with time, and then it didn't, or there was indication it was not going to in the foreseeable future.
I don't have any more evidence for those motives than you do for the ones you presented.
I really hate that argument. It's not like the internet stops existing or has no value or information if you can't use Google to find stuff. Even in China - Baidu has existed since 2000, and Google had enough confidence in what Baidu was doing to buy 2.6% of their shares a year before they decided to tackle the Chinese market themselves.
All they were ever bringing to China was the opportunity for themselves to make money. Just like any business anywhere.
Except for the fact that google was allowed to get away less censoring than the other search engines as well as making it obvious that filtering was going on. Google provided a service in china while making that money and improved the freedoms of Chinese citizens with the above mentioned tools.
I'm proud that google is not above turning away from money on moral grounds. And whether you buy the Press Releases or not they seem to have had plenty of moral reasons for the withdrawal.
They didn't turn away from taking money on moral grounds. In fact, they censored results for 4 years until now. Why now do you think, after 4 years they are changing their stance?
Did it take them four years to come to their senses? Why now?
Why? There's other search engines, other maps, other email providers, other blog platforms, other analytics systems, other instant messengers, other social networks, other rss readers etc.
All that would happens is you'd replace whatever you use with something else, just like every other time something online stops being available.
Sure, in 1998. This is 2010 though, there are alternatives especially in China where Google's never even had majority market share.
Even outside of China there are alternatives even if we laugh at their efforts - at this point if you hid Bing behind Google's interface people probably wouldn't even notice the difference most of the time. DuckDuckGo's made by a single guy and seems to be widely applauded.
The biggest argument against some competitors is how familiar we are with Google rather than actual inferiority.
Baidu cannot compete internationally on the strength of their technology. The quality of their results is sub-par, and subject to gaming if you have enough money to pay them.
Their market share is as big as it is because of the fact that Baidu is essentially the Chinese Pirate Bay.
Feats somewhat more difficult to reproduce when competing on a level playing field where promoting, aiding and abetting piracy is somewhat frowned upon.
Who would want to compete with the deck stacked against you like that? Sure, China's market may be big enough to mask such deficiencies, blinded as everyone is by that 1 billion+ number, but its a net loss, long term, losing access to a quality competitor.
- They didn't seem to have many moral problems for the first 4 years.
The reason Google didn't have a problem for the first 4 years, is because for the first 4 years it wasn't clear who was going to win the search engine war in China. Now it is clear, the winner is Baidu.
Google is leaving China because they have clearly lost in China and rather than take second place, they are inventing a principled stand and forcing China to kick them out.
Baidu has 3/4 of the search market in China and it's growing.[1] Rather than Google search traffic hitting zero, they're leaving in a political charade. What better excuse for losing to Baidu?
The problem is dealing with a socialist country you never really own what you have made. They can come in anytime and take away your manufacturing plant, confiscate your physical goods, or block your website. It always happens without fail.
Google has 1/3rd of the Chinese market, which it got after Baidu was entrenched. That is pretty much what MS and Yahoo have collectively (IIRC) in the rest of the world, but nobody says they don't factor. Google is very much aware of them, as Baidu is of Google in China.
> The underlying message is that corporations shouldn't be playing politics, and that's an increasingly popular public sentiment in the USA as well (or the internet amplifies it).
It all depends on what kind of politics are being played. Plenty of people in the U.S. supported divestment from South Africa because of apartheid, and would probably still do so if it still existed.
Yes, and unfortunately most in the U.S. don't know the real effects of the South Africa divestment. Here's what happened:
Coke, IBM, etc had to get out. They couldn't own the parts of their companies in SA. So they created new entities and sold them off, or just renamed them, took away the branding rights and sold their shares. The share values took a dive and people that couldn't afford such losses sold. Those that could afford to hold for 10 years bought up all the shares. Keep in mind, you could still buy a coke, it just wasn't branded as coke anymore, the companies still were open for business so much as they could without support from the U.S. entity.
When SA was allowed to take in U.S. investments again, Coke, IBM, etc bought back those entities. Some of the deals were a guaranteed buy back from the initial divestiture. So guess who reaped the rewards, who had the deep pockets to buy up all the shares? Yep, the old-moneyed white guys that the divestiture was supposed to hurt.
Speaking of Coke, you can still buy Coca-Cola in Cuba despite there being a trade embargo for decades between the US and Cuba. I remember watching a news report where they mentioned this once. Coke somehow uses loopholes to export it from the Canadian subsidiary which doesn't need to comply with US regulations.
Did everyone forget that China tried to break into their network?
Most corporations don't want to be involved in the politics game. However, as MS found out if you aren't involved you quickly become a target of opportunity.
It's a free world for the Chinese gov't if they'd like to do business with companies like Google they'll have to offer a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Well, for one, lobbying is legal. Why Google isn't lobbying the Chinese government to change its censorship laws is my question. Instead, they are putting people in harm's way and tarnishing the relationship between east and west.
What really are they going to accomplish? What are they trying to accomplish?
The only thing that I wonder (and fear) about this piece -- is whether this is the only slant on the story that Chinese citizens will be allowed to access.
I suspect that's unlikely. Google and it's country specific domains are the most trafficked sites on the internet. The level of visibility is too high to make examples of anyone. Worst case scenario they block access and carry on like nothing changed. Best case, China realizes it must make certain concessions if it wants to continue growing it's economy and fostering competition. There is no reason India should be the only billion person democracy.
How exactly does Google help grow China's economy? I don't really think China cares much for Google -- not the people or the govt. They won't care to lose them. I don't see any evidence that they will. Baidu can take care of whatever crumbs Google leaves behind.
Check out alibaba.com, the website basically do SEO on Google and it visions itself as a bridge for small business owner in China (manufacturers) to the global market. By the way, it is a listed company in Hong Kong.
I use alibaba, but I didn't get there through google. Nonetheless, it's a good example, except that the google that is referring people to alibaba is the US google.
I should have been clear, how is google.cn benefitting google's economy in a way that isn't also being covered by baidu or any other search engine for that matter?
It benefits Chinese users to have competition between Baidu and Google. Otherwise, there's no reason for improvement. China want's to have a part in the information economy, not just the manufacturing economy.
I believe improvement is valuable for the sake of improvement. I don't believe competition is the only reason for improvement. See my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1213199
Maybe a few centuries into the future, but at this stage we're still focused on market economies. In your other post you mention betamax vs VHS. You can build a superior product, but if it's cost is too high it won't fit the market need. Baidu has captured significant market share in China and has little reason to spend money innovating. Google has global market share and can continue to compete and innovate in other markets without the Chinese.
> It is unfair for Google to impose its own value and yardsticks on Internet regulation to China, which has its own time-honored tradition, culture and value.
But fair for the CCP to impose it's filtering on the people.
I think the fundamental issue is that they are trying to make improvements (opening up) to its policies but wants to do it on it's on terms, which is slightly understandable. "It" being the Chinese communist party. And the prevailing sentiment among all Chinese is that the west (aka pretty much just US) is meddling in the "opening up." I mean after what the US did in Iraq, I can see why they are hostile.
In fact, no country allows unrestricted flow on the Internet of pornographic, violent, gambling or superstitious content, or content on government subversion, ethnic separatism, religious extremism, racialism, terrorism and anti-foreign feelings.
Not true, the US allows all this, with very minor exceptions.
The sites may be illegal, but are not blocked. There are plenty of people who still gamble online from the US through off-shore accounts and using off-shore websites.
Yes, online gabling is mostly illegal, thus my "minor exceptions".
But all types of porn except child porn are allowed as far as I know. Definitely all types of anti-government websites are allowed. The first amendment confers very strong protection on free speech.
This Chinese news release is trying to mislead. I think the average Chinese citizen would be shocked to learn the level of freedom of expression and access to information in the US.
I think that free speech is a basic human right, not an American cultural value.
The Chinese government is trying to evoke feelings of xenophobia and fear of cultural imperialism to justify its control of information and muzzling of criticism. In this case, it is a total feint to redirect attention away from a core issue: that an uncensored Google lets you find anything, including "objectionable" information. That's not an American idea. The ability to search for information is a core human right.
And the numbers seem to indicate that they are choosing to use Baidu over Google more and more. Google has less than 20% of the search market in china and it's declining.
But the websites of offshore gambling sites aren't blocked at the national border; it is the transaction, rather than publishing information, which is illegal.
(Apparently, the state of Kentucky has recently tried to seize gambling-related domain names held by remote entities, but that's a new local enforcement tactic which may not endure.)
There are also lots of laws about fraud. Imagine if a Chinese company came to the U.S. making fraudulent claims about its products. We'd condemn them, yet we applaud Google. I don't understand.
Ironic for the Chinese government to talk about obeying laws, when they don't even obey their own laws.
Maybe Google should point this out to them.
And there's no rule saying companies need to stay out of politics. Even if there was, Google, from the outset, said it was going to be a different kind of company.
How many people in China have internet access? How many people in China even know what Google is? How many people in China do even care about all of this? I may be naive, but I don't see chinese people being vocal on any matter regarding "their rights" - either they are satisfied (in majority) with their system and it's not anyone's business outside of China, or they are contempt but silent about it - which, again, shouldn't be anyone's business outside of China until they ask for outside help.
I think that this is an interesting and valid point. My perception from visiting China and talking to recent mainland immigrants to America is that most people in China think that their government is basically doing a good job, and basically looking out for the best interests of the Chinese people. No one there would argue that everything the government does is in their best interest, but if you think that the government is doing a good job on most issues, you'll probably be complacent.
To a certain degree, the same thing is true in America and other western nations. There are a lot of issues to be upset with, and that most people would disagree with the government on. Everyone has problems with the government, and on certain issue most people think the government is wrong (e.g. most people think that Congress spends money wastefully, and that our representatives look at more for their own interests than those of their constituents). But as long as you basically feel that the government is doing the right things -- and I think most people do, looking at things from a holistic perspective -- then you're likely to forgive the transgressions of your government. Or at least you'll limit your disagreement to grumblings, instead of actively protesting or campaigning against the government.
I would argue that the position of the Chinese people is, if not right, at least defensible on these grounds. The quality of life has been improving rapidly in China, and certainly the prestige of the country has been on a huge upswing for the past twenty years (e.g. in economic terms, the space program, political power in international diplomacy, etc.). In such an environment you might not be too worried about Internet censorship (most of which is probably censoring things you don't really care about). As their expansion catches up with them, and the rate that China can increase its wealth and prestige slows down, that will probably change, and people will find more reason to be concerned with censorship and other human rights issues within China. But that could be a while off.
It's a usual stance for China to claim some situation is an internal affair to block outside meddling.
When the bird flu broke out, China blocked Taiwan's access to the World Health Organization to get information on how to deal with it--mostly on the grounds that it is an internal affair.
In fact, no country allows unrestricted flow on the Internet of pornographic, violent, gambling or superstitious content, or content on government subversion, ethnic separatism, religious extremism, racialism, terrorism and anti-foreign feelings.
<sacasm> ...except Sealand </sarcasm>
Anyway, there is a great divide between letting a good majority of this kind of stuff through vs blocking as much of it as you can (eg, 99.9% vs ~30%)
In both instances you can say that no country is allows unrestricted flow, but that is not an adequate measuring stick for data flow.
Has this been machine translated, I wonder why is the English of the article so poor? News agencies in China don't have anybody who write proper English?
"we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there"
Doesn't sound like they're leaving to me. If they were to leave properly they would shut down all operations and 404 the .cn domain. Instead they've just redirected and uncensored their services. To me thats just more drama, another move on the chessboard.
They are no longer serving search from china. That means they are no longer responsible for censoring those results. China is responsible for censoring them. China has no laws that say just because you have a presence in our country you must censor all of your sites on the internet. The redirection is merely a courtesy to the china users not all of whom by the way are in china. The Hong Kong site is still censored just this time China has to do it all by itself without Googles help.
The US basically does. The government never censors the Internet; producing child pornography or running an illegal gambling site may be illegal, but there is no filter on Google to prevent you from finding those things. Terrorism, anti-foreign feelings, racism, government subversion, ethnic separatism, etc., are reprehensible, but are protected speech here. The government could find itself in trouble if it prevented someone from publishing something about one of those topics ("prior restraint"), and has lost many cases where it has tried to remove this information after the fact.
Basically, anything goes except libel, obscenity with no cultural value, and speech to incite imminent lawless action.
So basically Xinhua, get a clue. China is the outlier.