[whizzkid]

Quite the contrary, I think Chinese people would benefit much more if Google would refuse to build a search engine with cencorship.

By accepting their rules, Google would validate the cencorship that government is forcing to their citizens, and government could easily tell to their people: "Look, whole world is agreeing with me and what I am doing."

By not accepting to build it, Chinese people will always have the upper hand in the argument, and something to reference it to.

[seemuch]

I think you need to stop telling Chinese people what they need. We know what we need. As long as there is still cencorship, we will always have something for the argument. More to the point, an argument is not even what we need the most right now. It is not even close to the top of the list. We need the best search engine in the world much more than an argument with the government.

Looking at your comment makes me feel that it is not the Chinese people who are afraid of "losing an argument". If anybody, it is you. You believe so deeply in the evilness of Chinese government, that you are afraid your evidences are drifting away from you.

Just a hypothesis. No offense.

[kodablah]

> I think you need to stop telling Chinese people what they need. We know what we need.

Surely it's understandable from the outside looking in why people can't see what the Chinese people want/need. If you can't publicly post those "argument" you speak of under your name for fear of reprisal, how is anyone supposed to know any better?

I think the comment speculates because it's all they can do because it's less about "losing an argument" and more about not even knowing whether an argument exists. In the absence of clear feelings towards something (or the ability to state them), you should expect people to speculate and not be surprised when they are wrong.

[whizzkid]

Im sorry that my comment made you feel this way. I was not trying to win any argument here. My comment above would be my reaction if it would happen to me.

I think it helps to brainstorm all the aspects of a problem. Of course, I can not say what you need specifically, you are right about that.

> If anybody, it is you. You believe so deeply in the evilness...

Btw, this feels more like an attack than a hypothesis, just saying.

[seemuch]

I am very sorry to make you feel attacked. I honestly did not mean that. I really appreciate you still being able to stay cool even when you feel offended.

[whizzkid]

It is healthy to disagree with each other as long as it does not get personal with assumptions. Thanks for the discussion :)

[fizwhiz]

It confounds me that people who are not natively Chinese, or have never lived there, or ever used the existing search infrastructure (ex: Baidu) make sweeping claims with such confidence that they truly know what's best for Chinese people.

[hueving]

You don't have to directly suffer from genocide to know genocide is bad.

[fizwhiz]

Please unpack for me how opening up Google Search in China precipitates genocide.

[int_19h]

It does so by censoring information about what's going on in Tibet and Xinjiang, for example.

[fizwhiz]

It causes genocide? Or it doesn't help prevent it? Those are 2 different things. It's unclear to me how Google's absence from the Chinese market actually ameliorates your concerns regarding Tibet.

[jsgo]

maybe from a philosophical standpoint, but in the end then the Chinese people don't have access to Google.

The options in China are similarly censored. So it isn't like Google would be engaged in something that is an outright negative for the end Chinese user.

Maybe people prefer Google to Baidu/Bing/whatever. So if you are getting the same x results from Baidu, Bing, Google, etc. but you prefer Google's experience/filtering/page rank/whatever, are you hindered in any meaningful way beyond what you were already by using the censored version of them?

[whizzkid]

You are right on having a preference that Chinese people would like much more over "Baidu/Bing/whatever". I will give you that. But let's look at it from another perspective.

What stops then some other country to have the exact same exception for themselves? If you can do it for China, surely you can do it for us, right? Legally, this would work.

This situation has a risk of building a dangerous base against freedom :/

[anticensor]

You are unmeasurably right. Some people still continue to defend censor in spite of all these; I tell them this will also be abused against them. See my username.

[jsgo]

I don't think it is a situation that people are for censorship so much as they don't see any net benefit in avoiding a market that does do censorship.

Google was in China at one point. They took a stand and got out. Since then, Android has taken over the world. Also in that time, China has become one of the, if not the, biggest markets in mobile. So Google's creation, Android, is being sold within China completely divorced of everything that makes Google commit to Android in the first place. They've really gained nothing except a moral victory during this period and have lost considerably for said stand.

Feels really weird defending Google to be really honest, but in this particular case, I understand the decision to release a censored Google there. They fought the government and the government won.

[seemuch]

If some other country ask for something similar, then Google should either give them or quit that country. Simple as that. If Google, or any company, wants to operate in a country, they need to obey their laws.

It is not like Google has not done it before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google

[whizzkid]

I am genuinely little confused here. Are you defending cencorship?

[seemuch]

I don't think all the cencorship out there are good; and I don't think all of them are bad as well. More importantly, I don't think my view on cencorship is the point here. My point is, Google should not be the one who fight against any laws.

As an example, in Saudi Arabia, all women are required to wear an abaya a long black cloak that covers all, but the hands and face in public. [1] Is that a good law? I don't know. But if Google wants to do business there, e.g. some female Google employee went on business trip in Saudi Arabia, she needs to obey the law there. Of course Google can choose not to do any business in Saudi Arabia. Google can even exits Saudi Arabia as a sign of protesting this law. But if I were a Saudi Arabia resident who would suffer from lack of access to information online, I would certainly hope Google does not do this.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Saudi_Arabia#Dress

[whizzkid]

> I don't think all the cencorship out there are good; and I don't think all of them are bad as well.

This one is too broad of a topic to fit in this thread I think.

> My point is, Google should not be the one who fight against any laws.

I agree that it is not Google's job to fight against laws of a country. But, what we are talking here is freedom of speech, and freedom of Internet. The reason Google is the point of the discussion is because of their dominance worldwide when it comes to accessing information.

Let's have imaginary country named A. And Google wants to enter this country by providing a search engine. But country A has a law that states "It is illegal to say/read/write that Earth is round"

What do you think Google and other companies that lead the way for accessing information on Internet should do?

[anoncake]

If Google makes its female Saudi employees wear thesethese cloaks in public but gets to provide an uncensored search engine there, that's a win. But it can't follow censorship laws while providing an uncensored search engine. And a search engine that censors what the Chinese government wants to censor is pretty much broken.