[hypertele-Xii]

> The only people that care that {some company} is censored in China are distinctly people outside of China.

That's how censorship works. The people inside the bubble don't know, by design, what information has been omitted, and therefore can't care.

[ehhthing]

You seem to have taken this quote out of context. My point is that "a less censored platform is always better", in other words "Google but censored is better than Baidu".

[carapace]

Back when India was throwing off the British Raj there was a strategy among the rebels to murder the good British officials (judges and so on) rather than assassinating the corrupt or incompetent ones.

The idea was that the good British made the Raj more tolerable.

- - - -

Edit to add: I should point out that that strategy did not result in victory. It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately succeeded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_independence_movement

Is Gandhi censored by the CCP?

[ashwagary]

>It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately succeeded.

Was Ghandi's method really the reason for success or does western media (& ruling class) prefer that narrative?

[carapace]

How would I know? I wasn't there, and I don't have a crystal ball nor a time machine.

If you check the Wikipedia link in my previous comment you'll see that it was actually a whole epic constellation of events and forces and personalities and masses of people. Not quite the Mahabharata but still pretty epic.

The particular thing that Gandhi's "arc", if you will, achieved was to demolish utterly the rationale for the British Raj in the first place: that Indians needed outside governance. The non-violent movement showed that Indians were the moral equals or even superiors of the British, and Gandhi knew it.

Winston Churchill: What do you think of Western civilization?

Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

[hypertele-Xii]

My counter-argument is that a complete lack of alternate platforms, although worse in the short term, might actually catalyst a long term improvement.

Just like russians are now being forced to learn to live without Ikea furniture or Intel computers, for the hopes that the complete lack of the better stuff might encourage them to think about overthrowing their oppressors.

Google with censorship is like a false hope, a kind of political PR greenwashing. The people of China use Google and think it's the same Google the rest of the world uses. It might be better to reveal the ugly truth, and say, you either get the whole truth, or no truth at all. To reveal the liars.