When most people think of Google, they think of an intellectual utopia where innovation, creativity and a diversity of ideas are celebrated. I think that's true, as long as it's okay with the government whose market they hope to make money from. In the difficult fight of profits versus ethics, it seems that Google is choosing the side of profits. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is working tirelessly to make sure all pornography is blocked via its Chinese website, so to comply with government demands. Will Google's willingness to censor websites will stop there?
From the WSJ:
Google was admonished late Thursday for the third time this year by a government-backed Internet regulator for "disseminating large amounts of pornographic and vulgar information."
"We are undertaking a thorough review of our service and taking all necessary steps to fix any problems with our results," the company said in a statement. "This has been a substantial engineering effort, and we believe we have addressed the large majority of the problem results."
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that pornography is China's key to freedom and prosperity. I mean, I hope not. But this situation raises the question of what other content Google is willing to censor.
My guess would be that there is plenty of philosophical literature on the internet that the Chinese government may deem dangerous or harmful to its stability. As the article explains, it already attempts to block "sensitive political content" through what many refer to as their "Great Firewall."
If the Chinese government asked them to do so, would Google be willing to block its search engine results for the online writings of, say, Austrian school economist Friedrich Hayek? I can't help but wonder if Google is willing to assist in such censorship in order to gain a foothold in a Chinese market with enormous potential. Working to debilitate freedom of information certainly seems to go against the very principles that resulted in Google's success in the first place.
Sadly, freedom of access to information is far from a universal value, even among Americans. Little doubt, an executive's duty to the bottom-line, for most, would trump solidarity with faceless foreigners, all the more when there's no American law against it.
That comment from Google was product manager speak for "we're not actually going to do anything but I know I can't just say that."
If Google's been "admonished" three times this year it's because they don't care.
would Google be willing to block its search engine results for the online writings of, say, Austrian school economist Friedrich Hayek?
Or, even worse, they might end up blocking Atlas Shrugged, or Geddy Lee videos on Youtube, or the thoughts of Megan McArdle, or... or... or comic books!
Meanwhile, when Google - through Youtube working with CNN - put their finger on the scale of the presidential election, I don't recall anyone aside from me pointing out what they were doing. As you might recall, a couple years ago they solicited questions from the public and then CNN - perhaps with Youtube's help but at least as part of their effort - chose the weakest of the bunch. And, those weak questions were then asked by A. Cooper, someone who doesn't know enough about anything to ask a follow-up. For more about that, see this and youtube.com/watch?v=wm0uWz2BS9M
Note that I added both those videos as replies to CNN's raw footage (from user YTdebates), and both videos were subsequently deleted from the list of replies.
Wasn't Google the company that said "Don't be Evil"?
Right. [/snark]