[solaarphunk]

They are blocked because they don’t censor content. If they did agree to, they would be allowed - just like Microsoft, Bing, Apple, and a handful of other digital products are not blocked in China.

Edit: for those downvoting me, Google literally shut down their China operations because they were unwilling to comply with censorship requirements. Conversely, Google and other US companies seem completely willing to comply with national security letters that compel them to spy on non-US persons, which should make other countries where US companies operate equally uneasy.

[supriyo-biswas]

"Doesn't censor content" is probably not describing the situation correctly; while some companies like Google have typically resisted such in the aughts, they regularly take requests from other countries of this sort, and it'd be very simple for them to reenter the China market by having a stance similar to what they have for other countries.

The issue here is probably caused by the requirement for an ICP recordal which requires removal of violating user-generated content within 15 minutes, which is probably a very tight deadline, probably coupled with a strong false positive rate which is why said companies are also hesitant to introduce automation.

It could also be argued that Tiktok is not completely value-aligned with US interests, although this has not been provably shown and whatever we have thus far is speculative.

[hiddencost]

Google tried to, but failed due to employee revolt:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

Microsoft Bing has been merrily operating in China for a very long time: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-03-07/microsoft...

[tw1984]

and it is the top1 desktop search engine in China, way ahead of baidu.com.

[est]

> ICP recordal which requires removal of violating user-generated content

And the reason behind that? Copy from other comments, "So China can't spy on Americans and astroturf propaganda", swap China/America

[supriyo-biswas]

> Copy from other comments, "So China can't spy on Americans and astroturf propaganda"

The Chinese versions of these services are walled off from the rest of the world (otherwise the ICP license probably ends up applying to the worldwide service), so this is not even a plausible explanation.

Further, asserting that the requirements imposed by the ICP recordal as being equivalent to following laws in other democracies is laughable; since most democracies make considerations towards good faith motives towards following a law even though there might be misses otherwise, not to mention the kind of content being censored.

[est]

this is why I don't like online political arguments, it always come down to faith and infidels

[fidotron]

Try releasing a mobile news app in the US and see how it goes.

Even one that just scrapes Yahoo or something.

[gkanai]

> They are blocked because they don’t censor content.

These platforms certainly do censor content. They have large teams globally that do just that.

[solaarphunk]

I agree, but they have clearly not met the standard for what China needs. I mean Zuck literally was jogging around Beijing 10 years ago trying to build goodwill to get in, and it was Google that made the decision to exit the market.

[est]

> They have large teams globally that do just that.

You are spreading the misinformation. Google can't keep up with the censorship shit and gave up as stated in their official blog

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin...

> a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results

> We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn

People seem to forget Google had a notorious record a terrible customer service. And China always demand more.

[gambiting]

In China. They obviously run censorship globally in every country that demands it, it's just that China's demands were worse than everyone else's and they decided it's not worth the effort.

[solaarphunk]

Google did everything right in terms of local execution to get all the required licensure and top talent, and then Sergey threw it away.

[seanmcdirmid]

Both founders having grown up in communist block countries supposedly had something to do with their aversion. At least that’s what I heard (was working for MS china back then).

[tgma]

Larry grew up in Michigan... a communist country?

(As I heard it, the legend is mostly attributed to Sergey pushing for it, and every time I've heard Eric talk about it it felt there was some disdain there, so I would agree with you that Larry was probably convinced also, otherwise Sergey alone wouldn't have pulled it off.)

[est]

And the worst part of a Communism is "planned economy", e.g. the state decides which app/service is good or not.

[wiseowise]

Surely planned economy was the worst part and not repressions and millions dead under red boot.

[kelnos]

The US banning a foreign-owned service from operating on its soil (when that foreign country bans many US-based services from operating on their soil) is not a "planned economy". Please don't use low-effort, bad-faith arguments.

[seanmcdirmid]

There was the PLA hacking gmail accounts in Hong Kong also, which supposedly was why Google stopped playing nice in the first place.