Google agrees to Chinese censorship

Google isn't playing in America here.. they are on China's turf, and this is just what they have to do. It does not affect us here... and the people who it does affect are used to a government that enforces censorship.

 

My first reaction to this news was:

what on earth is Google doing?? it is not following "do no evil" philosophy

But after some thought and reading, i thought if something illegal (in your/my country) and a company X from country Y does not agree with the law, should Company X just enter the country and provide the service even if it is illegal?

"do no evil" means follow ethics and follow the law. If it is illegal, what should Google do, break the law?

Isn't breaking the law evil?

The same applies to all other companies.

Personally i do not agree with censorship, since freedom of expression is one of the main articles in the constitution but a company cannot go in China and not follow their laws just like a country cannot open a business in EU (your country here) without following the laws.

Just my opinion, comments welcome

 

*shrug* they did what they had to do to expand their empire. if they didn't someone else would and would've reaped the benefits.

 

In some countries you can beat your wife to death LEGALLY. In China they shoot protesters LEGALLY.

So no doing the LEGAL as defining EVIL is way off.

 

That's like saying "If I don't rob the old lady next door, someone else will."

But hey, I'm the guy who checks clothing labels before he buys just to make sure that the clothes are not manufactured in China.

 

It's the difference between malum juris and malum per se.

 

A clarification,

True, in the first place, Google should not have gone in China with those restrictions.

But i was talking about the point that once it decided to go into China, it has to accept the rules.

You do not go into a football (soccer) team and carry the ball with your hand.

But then neither do you go to play soccer in the first place if you don't like soccer.

So yes for replies to my message, looking at it from your point of view you are right, Google should not have gone into China in the first place.

 

This is massive - It's the biggest item on the news on C4.

 

Please save that into your mind: China is NOT, I repeat NOT a communist county, it never really have been, but nowadays there isn't much which even remotely reminds me of socialist or even communist structures. It has become a capitalist nation just like the US, where the rich exploit the poor to get even richer every day. Direct exploitation of workers is even worser than in the US. The Chinese government has become willing executioner of mulitinational corporations and vice versa, the great market "reforms" only are good for the small new bourgeois minority. Maybe there are relicts of planned economy left, but that will change soon as well.

And where we speak of censorship and "freedom" you think you enjoy in the US in comparison to China: Ironicly a college student got a visit from the FBI (!) for renting Mao's red little book at the library. Wow, what a great degree of "freedom" (talking about Internet censorship? Google for "Sherman Austin", a boy who get a year in jail for posting a link to website that the US government didn't like, or actually just for running an anti-govenrment website). But this is just one example of many which are proofing the tyical American hypocricy, or just how good the US government is at brainwashing it's people, many posts in this thread are a perfect proof for that. Wake up!

 

While you are correct in saying China is not communist, it's also not capitalist.

And capitalism has allowed more poor people to work their way out of poverty than any other system ever. This 'rich exploiting the poor' doesn't wash. How do you make a living?

The college student being visited by the FBI for checking out mao's book - that's just silliness, the guy it supposedly happened too has admitted it didn't happen. see: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/24/31717/786

 

Looks like the reason this "news" is being recycled was that someone just put out a study of Google's censoring. Apparently, despite the censoring (which I think started what, in 2001-2002? (according to CBS Nightley News, which just ran the story a minute ago)), 2005 actually saw REDUCE in censorship. But you still can't find anything on Tiannemen Square.

I guess this explains why the story is at the front again.

 

Urgh, I knew some non-American would divert the topic by bashing America for something. So typical.

 

It's state capitalist to say the least. There is private property of means of production so it's capitalist. Also I doubt that a non-capitalist nation can join the WTO...

Not true. This is same old lie of the great american dream. Most people in capitalism are born poor, and die poor. Also, if you look at Cuba for example the general poverty rate is much lower than in most other latin American countries. There are no slums in Cuba at all, and no homeless, noone has to starve. Unlike than in the US may I add...Also, if you look at Russia today, the poverty rate is also much greater than before 1990. Again, only very few profited of the new capitalist system.

And of course 'rich exploiting the poor' DOES wash. I mean if you are my boss, I sell you my labour, and you are profitting from buying my labour, which means that I'm working a fixed amount of time just to make YOU richer, what's that if not exploitation?

Well, okay so that story was a hoax. I wasn't aware of that. But don't you think that it's at least worrying that the worldwide reaction to this story have shown how many people , also in the US, thought that something like this could easily happen within the current political climate in the US? However, my other example about Sherman Austin (see raisethefist. com/news.cgi?artical=underseige) is not a hoax and a fine exaple of censorship and insane governmental repression in the US.

 

I wouldn't have any problem to bash my own, Germany, government either. It's policy towards China for example is nothing but hypocricy as well, just like it's anti-war rhetoric.

 

People are better off in Cuba, economically, than people in the US?

I can't argue with that.

Not because it's right. It's just so outlandish that, well, it would be fruitless to agrue about it. What you are saying just doesn't make sense. I thought in a similar way to you after taking a high school political science class, then I got a little life experience and started to see how things really are. It's all a learning process.

 

The evil evil USA who invented the damn thing you're surfin on, and stopped you from slaughtering half the world. Yes it's actually so horrible here we have people by the thousands risking their lives in Florida to get on inner tubes and make it to sanctuary in Cuba....riiiiight.

If it's so bad why does everyone keep coming here

What's really funny is that the google guys whom this thread was about were average Americans(not rich) who are now insanely rich.

But I guess we're oppressing the poor for the rich. Bill gates same kinda story, and probably a few CP members as well.

 

I agree, and one thing that pisses me off is when a lot of people who come here have a lot of bad to say about the U.S. Yet they are here. We're not asking anyone to come here. People come because they want to. Our borders are open, anyone can leave anytime they wish.

 

God, you are such a child. Stop listening to what people say and regurgitating it and try to formulate your own thoughts. Christ. What are you, 16 and impressionable?

 

The WWW was invented in Europe. Internet in America

Maybe because i am European so i am biased, but i think Europe has the best balance of a system. It is a mixture of a capitalist economy, but has a social security system.

A

 

Yeah, a mixture of good and bad... what a great idea -- just like Cheerios and piss.