I understand that reaching the Chinese consumer is a huge opportunity, but drawing the line at refusing to assist in the censorship of 1.4 billion people seemed like an easy line to draw and stick to. If Google won't stand against this, won't the rest tumble? I fear a domino affect that won't be possible to undo.
For the first time in a long time, I am genuinely disappointing at Google and am questioning thoughts I've had in the past of going back to work for them again.
Arguably (very arguably), US and EU censorship is somewhat justified by the attempt to protect individuals, but Chinese censorship is pretty blatantly about protecting existing power structures (in the name of "stability").
I don’t support this theoretical move, but asserting Google should pull out/stay out of China and not obey/comply with local laws, and yet argue that the EU local laws should have global reach seems unjustified and unequal respect for sovereignty.
So yes, absolutely, there are strong moral reasons to treat EU laws differently than Chinese laws.
... to persons who value moral higher than shareholder value. Advertisers will mostly be happy to enter previously untapped markets.
It is cold, but why should Google care? The times when an publicity stunt like "dont't be evil" was required to establish a big user base are over.
If it would in any way raise the revenue of google, i assume google would instantly proclaim another "don't be a dick" COC.
What is the use of showing the result, if the users can't access the content? It makes sense to filter the result than showing an 'unauthorised' error on clicking the link.
I think it's pretty clear at this point Google is willing to sell their own mothers (and your data) just to keep those profitable quarters up for many more years.
As more advertisers start preferring Facebook, I think Google will become even more desperate in regards to what it will be willing to do to increase revenue and profits quarter after quarter. Expect many big "evil" things to come from Google in the near future.
I worry a lot about the long term. What is going to be done with FB and Google's data once their founders are gone and Wall St has complete control? As far as I know, from their point of view there is no line that cannot be crossed for shareholder value. I believe in many cases the founders of these companies have actually been more morale than your generic fund manager. What's going to happen when the founders are gone?
Now that google is big enough to have the sort of financial incentives old Microsoft did, they’re making the same decisions. No it’s not identical, the EU is after them for their anticompetitive behavior, not the US.
Advertisers are also not leaving Google at all, and Facebook is not a replacement.
Isn't it actually illegal for publicly traded companies to do otherwise?
“More to the point, corporate directors are protected from most interference when it comes to running their business by a doctrine known as the business judgment rule. It says, in brief, that so long as a board of directors is not tainted by personal conflicts of interest and makes a reasonable effort to stay informed, courts will not second-guess the board’s decisions about what is best for the company — even when those decisions predictably reduce profits or share price.”
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
I'm sorry, but providing services to the US military (as an American company) does not qualify as 'evil'. I hear the same insane calls for not providing services to ICE, a federal, civilian agency enforcing American democratically-derived laws.
With respect to Google's dealings with China (and similarly Facebook's dealings with Russia), you can't expect technology companies to fight or even ignore major world military, economic and geopolitical powers.
It's not fair for Google to take the 'high-road' with China when nobody else does. I'm certain OP has no qualms in buying and using Chinese-made goods but still complains about Google being evil because they can't afford to ignore 1.4 billion people.
It is not fair for Facebook to fight Russian attempts at election engineering. It's not fair when the public demands that Facebook take all responsibility for being targeted by a major global power with unlimited resources to launch cyber attacks (looking at you Swisher).
Both cases are failures of US, and European governments. US and EU should exert diplomatic and economic pressure on China and Russia to liberalize their governments, and economies (the shit the China gets away with in the kinds of hoops it requires foreign companies to jump through is insane). In the case of Russia, it is the US and EU that should take every step necessary to force that government to stop targeting western technologies companies for purpose of manipulating the voting public.
This is particularly directed at the EU and Germany as they are very fond of publicly stating that with Trump being Trump that EU/Germany should take on a leadership position in world and they have the most to lose. Thus far, EU has done very little to curb Russian aggression (Germany particularly has been quiet) EVEN in light of the fact that Russia funded and took active role in the misinformation campaign that led to Brexit, and multitudes of EU and European nations have been either targeted with military force (Ukraine) or dirty money for corrupting politicians. Apparently none of this is enough for EU and Germany to pay more than lip service to Russian aggression.
ICE's conduct isn't following the laws unless there were changes that called for putting tearing children away from families to place in steel cages in the custody of known child molesters and psychotropically drugging children without specialized medical licensing. Even if you accept their job the way they beyond the pale. They are literally acting in ways that would get a work critically panned as having such cartoonishly evil strawmen villains a few years ago. Don't fall for the hypernormalization efforts.
It is absolutely the responsibility of every sovereign citizen and every company made up of those citizens to resist objectively evil behavior regardless of the larger apparatus at work.
Saying it “isn’t fair” for google to take the high road is the most asinine childish argument you could possibly put fourth.
It isn’t fair that people are having their human rights curtailed for profit. So that some people in some part of the world get amazing healthcare and amazing lunches, others have to suffer.
ICE was invented recently under Bush in 2003 preceding the Homeland security act. You are wrong to say we democratically voted in ICE. Even if we did vote it in, kidnapping children is evil fullstop and should be protested.
No American is free of using third world slave labor. This is unavoidable and all we can do is bring attention to it.
Your kowtowing to the powerful and buying into their propaganda is insanely stupid, evil and you should be ashamed of yourself.
I don’t support this theoretical move, but asserting Google should pull out/stay out of China and not obey/comply with local laws, and yet argue that the EU local laws should have global reach seems unjustified and unequal respect for sovereignty.
Let’s face it, the core issue here isn’t free speech and censorship, it’s speech you like or censorship you like vs those you don’t.
It's not hypocrisy per se. We all agree that there are some limits to free speech (the classic "shouting fire in a crowded theater" springs to mind but feel free to substitute your own impossible-to-disagree-with example).
Hypocrisy would imply there's an absolute principle at stake ("absolute free speech" vs "reasonable level of censorship") but nobody truly believes the former so we are all simply disagreeing about "reasonable" in the latter.
In some societies, criticizing religion, parodying religious icons counts as bigotry and hate.
American liberals used to be pretty united and in agreement with Voltaire but it seems things have changed.
