Google Bes Evil
David Farrar at KiwiBlog has an excellent post on Google's decision to set up a Google China service which will censor out terms unacceptable to the Chinese Government.
Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil" so its fair to say that many, including myself are shocked and appalled by their decision.
Says David
"To put it more bluntly I totally expect Microsoft to censor information in return for market share in China. Google though has built up its brand and profile as supporting freedom of information everywhere and this week is for me the week they have jumped the shark and I go from being a passionate fan to merely a customer."
David also makes the point that Google's disgraceful decision will slow down the pressure for real change in China.
"Google had a chance of being a beacon of free speech and information by refusing to censor on behalf of the Chinese Government. Yes Chinese users would have remained unable to access many of their services but by doing so it would have encouraged more people in China to support a change in their political culture so they could access Google freely."
To the board of Google, I suggest they do a search on the word "Collaborator". Google has made a decision they will never live down.
Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil" so its fair to say that many, including myself are shocked and appalled by their decision.
Says David
"To put it more bluntly I totally expect Microsoft to censor information in return for market share in China. Google though has built up its brand and profile as supporting freedom of information everywhere and this week is for me the week they have jumped the shark and I go from being a passionate fan to merely a customer."
David also makes the point that Google's disgraceful decision will slow down the pressure for real change in China.
"Google had a chance of being a beacon of free speech and information by refusing to censor on behalf of the Chinese Government. Yes Chinese users would have remained unable to access many of their services but by doing so it would have encouraged more people in China to support a change in their political culture so they could access Google freely."
To the board of Google, I suggest they do a search on the word "Collaborator". Google has made a decision they will never live down.
posted by Trevor Loudon at
1/29/2006 02:14:00 PM
3 Comments:
For once Trevor I completely agree with one of your posts. It is absolutely shocking the extent some of these multinational corporations will go to appease the Chinese Communist Party in order to make a profit.
Yahoo reportedly handed over details of a Chinese dissident's emails to the Chinese police. Microsoft closed down a Chinese man's blog after being requested to do so by the Communist authorities, even though the blog was hosted in America so they had no legal responsibility to do so.
Rupert Murdoch had his Harper Collins publisher to stop publishing a book written by Hong Kong's former British governor, which was highly critical of the CCP, when Murdoch was attempting to buy into Chinese sattelite tv. One former journalist said that after Murdoch started pursuing business interests in China his British paper 'The Times' stopped "covering China in a serious way". (there's a good part on this in Naomi Klein's book No Logo)
You might want to have a look at this good article about George Monbiot on corporations collaborating with the CCP
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/09/13/the-net-censors/
Google joins a long line of shocking collaborators with tyranny.
Here is an article that throws more perspective:
http://www.blogherald.com/2006/01/29/supporting-google-in-china/
Yes Cameron, I think I'm as surprised as you are.
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