The question is not whether they would do the same - but whether they would the practice to other regions. Did Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel?
The question is not whether they would do the same - but whether they would the practice to other regions. Did Microsoft, Cisco, AOL, Skype, and Nortel?
Well AOL, Skype, and Nortel don't really exist as independent entities anymore. Microsoft already censors Skype globally (for profanity) the last I checked. Unfortunately censorship in other countries outside of China doesn't seem to get as much attention, but none of those tinpot dictatorship seem to have any trouble getting their hands on censorship technology from the west.
That Google already went down the road of developing a censorship platform with Dragonfly reveals their willingness to aid in government censorship.
Ah, it happened in China, so that makes it totally cool and justified.
I am not the kind of person to swing the morality flag pretty much ever, but if you don’t see what’s wrong with this, then I don’t know what else to say.
It's an appraisal of the article in relation to the original comment. What western companies do in China so far seems to be siloed from what happens in other regions, just like what happens in EU, given sufficiently incompatible regulations. Especially ones that are costly to enforce. It doesn't make it cool or justified, it just makes these appealing slippery slopes arguments not grounded in evidence.
As for the moral flag, I think in context of Sino-US topics, that ship has sailed long ago. It's more useful to contextualize these decisions in a geopolitical / great powers competition lense. Having Google in China is good soft power opportunity for the US. Chinese people are eager for a baidu alternative. I'm not going to pretend that more engagement with China is going to lead to liberalization in the short-term, but I do think it goes a long way towards preventing future hostilities. And I think google being incentivized to operate in China and becoming proficient in bridging the Chinese-open web is a net good.
