NEWS - Chinese Google--why I think the controversy won't die
I'm sure you've heard by now that Google is censoring results on its Chinese Google.cn website. The latest incarnation of the story apparently is circulating because there's a moderately arcane problem with their licenses there.
Full disclosure time--I'm being paid by Google. In theory, eventually. (As of this writing, Google AdSense says I've earned eight cents. I've not yet seen a dime--in any sense of the cliche.) Probably the bigger consideration is the fact that Google, through Blogger.com, hosts this blog. Still, I've felt free to speak my mind on Google before, and in this case, I do feel Google deserves some defense. The fact of the matter, though, is I like Google--I found their search engine and news features to be extremely useful long before I decided to keep a blog.
No, I don't think they're right to censor the results on the Chinese website at that country's government's order. I am opposed to censorship--and Google is supporting such a policy through their action. Ultimately, though, they have every right to decide what information to display on their search results, and what not to--the reasons why they omit some results may be inconsistent with their mission or otherwise bad reasons, but they can still choose to do so. The Chinese government is wrong to try to force their hand, but Google should be free to comply or to refuse to operate there--the latter decision being in conflict with their mandate as a company to do right by their investors.
However, listening to the coverage, you would think Google is, just by complying with the Chinese law, of comparable malevolence with Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidous, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, or Satan himself!
As Justin Raimondo pointed out in his column, Google tells users of the Chinese website when the results are censored. This both alerts and reminds people in China about censorship of certain topics, and tells them when their search requires braving the "Great Firewall of China" and using the American-based, Chinese-language version of Google, and when the results are complete without that sometimes cumbersome step (a tactic suggested by Washington Post columnnist Sebastian Mallaby). Then there's Google's point that some information is better than none. It's easy to say, "yes, but you're caving to censorship," but it is also undeniable that some information is better than none.
However, what finally drove me to defend Google is that I'm suspicious as to why the furor is directed at Google. Perhaps it's simply that they're an easy target--they're arguably the best search engine on the net, and their motto is "don't be evil." That doesn't explain it to me. While their censorship seems to be more restrictive than Yahoo's and MSN's, in principle--if not total effect--it's no worse than their competitors'. In any case, their action is certainly no worse than Yahoo's decision to actively help the Chinese government find a dissident who subsequently wound up in prison. Nor is it worse than Cisco actively helping the Chinese government set-up the "Great Firewall of China"--the very hardware that makes access to the uncensored U.S. site slow and unreliable to begin with.
At the risk of seeming to delve into conspiracy-theory territory, I tend to think the reason why they've gotten all the bad press is their recent decision to fight the U.S. government's demand for a week's worth of search data. First, people smelled hypocrisy. It looked like--and to some extent, was--an example of a U.S. company showing greater deference to a foreign government than to our own. As a practical matter, Google could fight the U.S. government's inappropriate action--they're backed-up by our own Constitution, but if they tried to fight China's outrageous demands, they'd no doubt be told by the Chinese government to "go fly a kite." Second, at least two of the search engines that caved to the U.S. government's demands--AOL and MSN--are both not only competitors of Google, but are also owned by companies that have major stakes in news-outlets: AOL's parent company Time Warner also owns Time Magazine and CNN, and Microsoft, owner of MSN, holds a stake in MSNBC; this story might have offered them a chance to counter bad press they got for not fighting the government's grossly unconstitutional subpoena by making the company that stood up to it look bad otherwise. Finally, the government doesn't like to be told "no"--and when Google did just that, I can imagine someone in Washington decided that they needed to be punished--even if for something else. Of course, if the Feds get upset about anything, that makes it news.
The sad thing about the whole spectacle is that I tend to believe Google is a much nobler company than its competitors. This, of course, is a hard to measure, highly subjective, and all too subject to change, but it's my impression nonetheless. Yet it's the one getting skewered in the press--from my perspective, because the fact that they're generally better makes them inconsistent--as though that's worse than being more consistently bad.
I don't think Google should censor its results. However, when I entered the phrase "Tiananmen Square Massacre" (in English, as a phrase) on Google.cn, the first hit was a page, apparently hosted in China, that featured the famous AP/Jeff Widener photo of the man blocking the tank column after the massacre. Proposed U.S. legislation that would shut down the U.S.-owned website designed to deliver that picture to the Chinese people won't make the world a better place, even if Google is wrong to censor their website.
Full disclosure time--I'm being paid by Google. In theory, eventually. (As of this writing, Google AdSense says I've earned eight cents. I've not yet seen a dime--in any sense of the cliche.) Probably the bigger consideration is the fact that Google, through Blogger.com, hosts this blog. Still, I've felt free to speak my mind on Google before, and in this case, I do feel Google deserves some defense. The fact of the matter, though, is I like Google--I found their search engine and news features to be extremely useful long before I decided to keep a blog.
No, I don't think they're right to censor the results on the Chinese website at that country's government's order. I am opposed to censorship--and Google is supporting such a policy through their action. Ultimately, though, they have every right to decide what information to display on their search results, and what not to--the reasons why they omit some results may be inconsistent with their mission or otherwise bad reasons, but they can still choose to do so. The Chinese government is wrong to try to force their hand, but Google should be free to comply or to refuse to operate there--the latter decision being in conflict with their mandate as a company to do right by their investors.
However, listening to the coverage, you would think Google is, just by complying with the Chinese law, of comparable malevolence with Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidous, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, or Satan himself!
As Justin Raimondo pointed out in his column, Google tells users of the Chinese website when the results are censored. This both alerts and reminds people in China about censorship of certain topics, and tells them when their search requires braving the "Great Firewall of China" and using the American-based, Chinese-language version of Google, and when the results are complete without that sometimes cumbersome step (a tactic suggested by Washington Post columnnist Sebastian Mallaby). Then there's Google's point that some information is better than none. It's easy to say, "yes, but you're caving to censorship," but it is also undeniable that some information is better than none.
However, what finally drove me to defend Google is that I'm suspicious as to why the furor is directed at Google. Perhaps it's simply that they're an easy target--they're arguably the best search engine on the net, and their motto is "don't be evil." That doesn't explain it to me. While their censorship seems to be more restrictive than Yahoo's and MSN's, in principle--if not total effect--it's no worse than their competitors'. In any case, their action is certainly no worse than Yahoo's decision to actively help the Chinese government find a dissident who subsequently wound up in prison. Nor is it worse than Cisco actively helping the Chinese government set-up the "Great Firewall of China"--the very hardware that makes access to the uncensored U.S. site slow and unreliable to begin with.
At the risk of seeming to delve into conspiracy-theory territory, I tend to think the reason why they've gotten all the bad press is their recent decision to fight the U.S. government's demand for a week's worth of search data. First, people smelled hypocrisy. It looked like--and to some extent, was--an example of a U.S. company showing greater deference to a foreign government than to our own. As a practical matter, Google could fight the U.S. government's inappropriate action--they're backed-up by our own Constitution, but if they tried to fight China's outrageous demands, they'd no doubt be told by the Chinese government to "go fly a kite." Second, at least two of the search engines that caved to the U.S. government's demands--AOL and MSN--are both not only competitors of Google, but are also owned by companies that have major stakes in news-outlets: AOL's parent company Time Warner also owns Time Magazine and CNN, and Microsoft, owner of MSN, holds a stake in MSNBC; this story might have offered them a chance to counter bad press they got for not fighting the government's grossly unconstitutional subpoena by making the company that stood up to it look bad otherwise. Finally, the government doesn't like to be told "no"--and when Google did just that, I can imagine someone in Washington decided that they needed to be punished--even if for something else. Of course, if the Feds get upset about anything, that makes it news.
The sad thing about the whole spectacle is that I tend to believe Google is a much nobler company than its competitors. This, of course, is a hard to measure, highly subjective, and all too subject to change, but it's my impression nonetheless. Yet it's the one getting skewered in the press--from my perspective, because the fact that they're generally better makes them inconsistent--as though that's worse than being more consistently bad.
I don't think Google should censor its results. However, when I entered the phrase "Tiananmen Square Massacre" (in English, as a phrase) on Google.cn, the first hit was a page, apparently hosted in China, that featured the famous AP/Jeff Widener photo of the man blocking the tank column after the massacre. Proposed U.S. legislation that would shut down the U.S.-owned website designed to deliver that picture to the Chinese people won't make the world a better place, even if Google is wrong to censor their website.
Labels: NEWS
posted by John at 2/22/2006 04:53:00 AM
1 Comments:
That was a nice entry. I like a lot of your points, and I especially like how you pointed out that Google is the only company really catching public ire for this at the moment, and that is definitely some BS.
However, I dont understand how you can say that you don't think that Google should censor its results and at the same time defend Google for censoring its results (i.e. for doing business in China, which requires the censorship of results). What do you really mean by this, and if you dont think they should censor their results, what do you think it is that they should do?
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