It's arguing that China could leverage Google's Chinese market access to influence how Google behaves around the world, sort of like how almost all airlines around the world now say Taiwan is part of China:
> Once Google’s new Chinese business is up and running, there will be nothing to stop Beijing from seeking to dictate how references to Taiwan are addressed not just in China but throughout the site globally. China may also demand to shape how protests in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or the mainland are addressed or what happens when people search for dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo or topics such as human rights. While Google executives may believe that their company would never accede to such requests outside of China’s borders, there are no guarantees. If China gains the leverage to shape how Google presents what Beijing considers to be sensitive topics throughout the rest of the world, it will deal a mortal blow to international principles of freedom of expression and thought.
I wish I had a super-upvote button. That is exactly my concern... once Google's China revenue is a significant part of the revenue, exactly this will happen. The European car manufactures already do everything that China wants. But at least they do not run a search engine or newspaper.
"Proof:" Google for "Mercedes apologies to China after quoting Dalai Lama" in a tweet for its European customers.
I presume that is on the premissis that every other state / regime will be able to leverage that deal between Google & China to black out whatever they think is not PC in their country.
Most of them already do this the slippery slope was started with Europe with it's right to be forgotten US with its Dmca. It's funny how many people have forgotten this if those things can be censored by Google because of these countries laws why is results cencsoring for China under Chinese laws is any different.
Because Chinese laws are intended to stifle debate and oppress human rights, where the EU laws protect privacy, and the US ones protect intellectual property?
"It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter"
I live in the EU where there's no freedom of speech and Google and the rest of tech companies are already being told about what they have to censor. I don't see how this is anything new. It's only in the news because it's China.
Of course this is nonsense. It's not completely unconstrained speech, but freedom of expression is right there in ECHR.
" Article 10 – Freedom of expression
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."
German here. Our government has pressured Facebook to allow private corporations (that of course are close to the government) to delete Facebook content -posts and pages with millions of followers- for political reasons as they see fit.
The legal process was completely removed. They use this to help their election campaigns by branding government critical content as extremist and having it removed without due process.
You'd think that when they remove content like that, they'd report the offenders to legal authorities -because after all, they are only allowed to remove content that is clearly illegal- but in most cases they don't. They just want the content gone and move on, which makes it very clear that this is just a censorship tool and their generous interpretation of illegal hate speech wouldn't hold up in any court.
No. The companies involved (Arvato/Bertelsmann) get to make their own rules. Facebook doesn't even have a say in this, although they're paying for it as required by the law. They were threatened with fines in the millions (up to 50 mil) if they didn't comply.
The situation is absurd. Facebook is legally required to pay for censorship by companies with close ties to the government.
Ah, you mean there is free speech and also reasonably scoped restrictions on hate speech. I’m okay with that. Do you have an example to share that shows how that is a bad thing in practice? Because I’n having trouble finding one.
See my other post. Hate speech laws are actively used in Germany to manipulate political campaigns. The legal process has been removed and private organizations close to the government get to decide what's hate speech and what's not.
And that's exactly the problem with it: It cannot be clearly defined and everyone is offended by different things, which makes it a perfect tool to censor just about everything you want.
Cause other countries might say "Ha, we also want this cool censored version. Please remove all negative information about our government and whatever we don't like. Here's your money (optionally). Otherwise we will find a nice reason to ban you in our country". Especially those with authoritative regime.
Beijing currently influences it's weaker trading partners(which is most of the developing world) on various political points. For example - Taiwan policy or Dalai Lama visits.
It's not hard to imagine China then asking them to use their "new and improved" version of Google too.
> Once Google’s new Chinese business is up and running, there will be nothing to stop Beijing from seeking to dictate how references to Taiwan are addressed not just in China but throughout the site globally. China may also demand to shape how protests in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or the mainland are addressed or what happens when people search for dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo or topics such as human rights. While Google executives may believe that their company would never accede to such requests outside of China’s borders, there are no guarantees. If China gains the leverage to shape how Google presents what Beijing considers to be sensitive topics throughout the rest of the world, it will deal a mortal blow to international principles of freedom of expression and thought.