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- sundancekid503, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18I think this is sad:
google.com:
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen+square&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images
VS
google.cn:
http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&lr=&q=tiananmen+square&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2 - TubaTechno, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14the road to hell is paved with good intentions?
- Aidenag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14 finally.. i couldnt believe Sergey signed off on this in the first place.. was against EVERYTHING I have ever heard him talk about in public, publication or over the net.. and ive been a fan since going to google meant going to a certain College's .edu to use what would become google.
- jb978, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13They should get out of China right now.
- PrayerNeeder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Wow. a public mea culpa from a company the size of Google. If only it had come BEFORE they were hauled before the House....
- Cytranic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Now if Microsoft would pull out of the EU.....
- tallgreen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Well said oGMo. We can't blame people for their past, just for their stance. And saying, "maybe this wasn't a good idea", is a great stance. Learning from our mistakes is a primary learning tool for humans. Covering up our mistakes and pretending we are perfect, is evil.
- dkm201, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7That might have been the most impressive, interesting, concise and informative post I have ever read on digg.
- konspence, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8People take Google's "don't be evil" phrase waaaay too seriously.
If Microsoft says their commitment is to write good software, does that mean they will at all times?
Besides, "evil" is an ambiguous word. - lrm21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Kudos to Brin for being honest and at least showing that it's a problem. However they need to now take some action.
China will not be freed by Cisco or Google, or more MickeyD's. We trade with China for money and for our own self interest not because it is the way to change China.
The problem is China knows how to play the game and they are winning their people have been granted limited economic freedoms in exchange for ZERO political and social freedoms.
This is the danger of censorship:
From the frontline: the tank man
"After the massacre of 1989, [Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping] in effect said, 'We will not stop economic reform; [but] we will, in effect, halt political reform.'"
The Chinese government has responded to this threat by cracking down on dissent, and on the media. The regime has managed to erase the Tank Man's image, famous throughout the world, from Chinese memory. Thomas shows the iconic picture to undergraduates at Beijing University, the nerve center of the 1989 protests; none of them recognize it. Central to the regime's struggle to control information is its filtering of the Internet, a complex undertaking that raises serious issues about the role of Western IT companies in China's censorship strategy
source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/view/ - anagramarama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6the tiananmen square images are an excellent visual illustration of the point.
well done. - ben_nushmut, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6That it happened at all is amazing. Let's hope something good actually comes out of this, and that it not just remain talk.
- aplusbi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yeah but that's not evil.
- MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Keep in mind, they haven't said anything about pulling out. They are going to monitor the situation. Seems like they're trying to douse the rising flames a bit.
- aresef, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Thank you Google. If they do exit stage right from the Chinese market, it would be a great gesture if they decided to help out Bill Xia and those guys at Dynamic help render useless that Great Firewall of China.
- mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Remember, China used to be a close shop to everyone. Look at them now.
Things change over time. - BlueFiberOp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Despite the moral issues, as a company, you really need to stick around in China. Because it will make a difference 10-20 years from now.
- Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Damn.. I lost alot of respect for them when they made the China move, but this certainly goes a long way towards restoring it. A corporation publicly acknowledging a mistake, apologizing, and taking steps to fix it? Amazing.
- v3xt0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4wise man once say: don't feed hungry dragon, just slay the damn thing!
- MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Humpf, good luck convincing the board of directors. China is only one of the biggest markets in the world = $$$. I am sure the suits will understand. :-P
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Microsoft's commitment was to have a computer on every desk in the world and have it run MS software. I think they're doing pretty well on that
- deesine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"While that is a good comparison, we cannot impose our knowledge or values on anyone else....[snip]"
Congratulations, you get the moral-equivalence award of the day!
Throwing people into prison for political, sexual, or religious orientation is wrong no matter what country you live in. - tackle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Google saying it is bailing out of China....
is like an employee telling his employer, "YOU CANT FIRE ME!!! I QUIT" after he has been fired. - PoptartKing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3To be fair, Tiananmen Square is a *major* plaza known outside China only for the protests, and I'm guessing the system's geared for audience.
The real kicker is this:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&sa=N&resnum=0&q=tiananmen%20square%20protests&spell=1&tab=wi
http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&lr=&q=%E5%85%AD%E5%9B%9B%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2
(Tiananmen Square protests in chinese, thanks Wikipedia)
...error? Low, Google. - mntpng, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Even though China will never admit it but China needs Google more than Google needs China.
Also to note, China is notorious for outright stealing intellectual property and I'm not talking about some movie or music piracy. I've heard of some horror stories of major corporation that moved their manufacturing over there only to have their technology stolen by the Chinese government and then kicked out of the country. Unlike other countries, there is absolutely no legal recourse for these companies to file a complaint because it's the Chinese government that's doing the stealing. If entire factory and trade secrets can be essentially taken over by Chinese government, it's not that hard to imagine that Chinese government may decide to simply take Google's trade secret right under them. To me, it's one thing to sell product to China but to actually have servers, code and data residing within walls of China is whole different matter. If Google has any worries about protecting their core assets like search technology, they should think twice about operating there. - cabazorro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Nobody can knock you down when you don't stand for anything. Google should get out of China and let China decide on its own what they stand for.
- mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They wont. Theres too much at stake not to set up shop there. The only thing they can settle is wait till the people in power in China change their minds or at least be removed from position.
- b7j0c, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3i applaud google for coming clean and recognizing that making money has to have some limits.
- drinkGreen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The issue with Google China was the first thing in a long time to cause me to write a letter to a company. I really hope that admitting it, doesn't mean they won't fix it.
- mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Exactly! Wasn't there a story that revealed that China decided to censor Google? Of course it was a mistake "to compromise their principles" after they're being censored anyway! How moral of them to realize that.
- pacificdave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2wow... you are really an idiot flashboca.
- Daniel591992, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4More importantly, Bush should take the troops out of Iraq right now!
- founderofpork, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I liked Google before, but holy hell...in this world where corporate responsibility is an oxymoron I'm just blown away by this. I knew it was possible for humans to be decent people while still running a successful company.
- macewan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I admire a company that can admit wrong doing. Wish our governements leaders were strong enough to admit failures.
- spyro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I may get blasted for this but here goes. Google should stay in China. Why? Because they can't sensor everything no matter how hard they try. This means that things will slowly leak through and build up and eventually break down the walls, or at least help. Its like war. Why pay with lives when all you have to do is drop in everything from western culture into the country which will spread like a plague.
- mathie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't think they gonna get out of China anytime soon. Google is a public company and operates as a profitable business.
- mahler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Those are probably 311 million results of "democracy" being described as bad ;)
- pingveno, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Google's decision isn't just about making money (though that obviously is part of it). There are Chinese search engines popping up inside of China, censorship and all. If Google pulls out, the Chinese search engines will simply fill the gap. Pulling out wouldn't decrease censorship, it would merely shift it to different search engines. Do no evil? At least Google isn't creating more evil. Besides, they may be able to push for free speech reform, which the Chinese search engines don't give a rip about.
- JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1if "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" then
what is the road to heaven paved with? - PBoiIceBerg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is a common tactic many people use to get away with something that may hurt their image. First, you do what it is you set out to do, then back track if it doesn't go over well with some people by apologizing. You show your compassion for other peoples views, in the heat of the moment, without actually doing anything to alter what you have accomplished. If it really bothered Google they would have never done it in the first place just to secure google.cn. This is just PR to help Google combat the backlash, while time goes by and the story fades.
- raynevandunem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Evil my ass. This ***** concern over Google being "evil" makes me vomit.
Maybe the West (especially the US) is being evil for "colluding" with *****-rich Singapore because it (Singapore) gets away with just as much human rights-violating ***** as modern mainland China. But hey, they're trade partners! How could we ignore them?
For China, repressing civil liberties by any degree in the name of economic progress works for the government just as much as it does for any "free", Western(ized) nation-state. Why do you think secession is always dubbed as "illegal" (its not even listed as such in the ***** 1787 Constitution) here in the United States?
I say again: EVIL MY ASS. - raynevandunem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Doesn't Singapore, a majority-Chinese country, get away with just as much of these "violations of human liberties" and "evil" (note the recent hanging of that Vietnamese-Australian guy), and yet the US doesn't say *****?
Talk about hypocrisy up the yin-yang. - buss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1When China adopted a free(er) market than what they had, it was accepted that it would only come with strict government control of society. You don't understand China or its politics at all.
- buss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Tankman is an excellent documentary that I learned a lot from. Everyone should see it before they take a position on the censorship in China.
- bennyboy371, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think it'd be interesting if they kept it up, but dropped the censorship. Granted I wouldn't want to go up against that government.
- Krush, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@morganm
Actually it shows the Chinese Government that some American companies will not look the other way just to make a profit. Hopefully they will pull out, and others will follow, but I doubt it. - drizek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If MS made a commitment to write good software everyone would just laugh at them.
"Dont be evil" has bee with google from the start. - mathie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They have decided: "Google is committed to doing business in China despite criticism the company has faced for abiding by Chinese government censorship restrictions, co-founder Sergey Brin said this week."
Read more at: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6081929.html - b7j0c, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sadly you still subscribe to the william gibson-era thinking that the "net" cannot be controlled. its a data network. it can be shaped, observed, enhanced, or destroyed.
why do you think this technology cannot be controlled? -
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