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by petee 2763 days ago
I wish more people knew that workers fought and died for those rights.

Its one thing to say maybe you'll quit, or skip your pay check for change, its another to actually put your life on the line for what you know is right.

1 comments

Since China is known for its countless human rights violations, Are these Google employees also going to...

1. Give up their Chinese-Manufactured iPhones/Android Phones? Tablets? Laptops and workstations??

2. Give up watching movies/shows on their Chinese-manufactured TVs??

3. Stop wearing Chinese-made iwatches/fitbits/etc.??

4. Boycott silicon valley startups that have accepted chinese investments?

5. Boycott every product by US/Foreign company (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, GE, Disney, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, etc.) doing business in China?

There's a difference between boycotting products made in China and protesting against building technologies that enable dictatorial regimes. They do not deserve to be conflated.
They're not "enabling" a dictatorial regime, they're just following the laws of a foreign government. Making a censored search engine isn't "supporting" the government, it's just abiding by it.
A censored search engine is a direct instrument of oppression.

Contracting to build a censored search engine is the moral equivalent of contracting to build a barbed wire fence around a concentration camp.

You're being an active participant that directly assists in making that oppression happen by building tools required for the actual act of oppression, as opposed to building something that merely done in the same country.

"You're not allowed to do anything good ever if you're not already a maximally good person. That would make you a hypocrite, which is way worse than someone who doesn't do anything to help in the first place."
I don't understand the context in which you're posting this quote. pompousprick's argument was that we shouldn't morally prosecute these companies as supporting dictatorships just because they do business in China.