[WikiEN-l] Google bows to censorship

[Gwern Branwen]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:13 PM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>> If censoring some things (like "the most offensive sorts of racial
>> vilification you could possibly find"), and refusing to censor other things
>> (like an historical account of a pro-democracy demonstration), is hypocrisy,
>> then let me be the first to say that I'm in favor of hypocrisy.

Silly Anthony. Don't you know that China was simply asking Google to
comply with local laws against morals-destroying smut, the propaganda
of life-destroying evil cults, and the subversion of mass-murdering
terrorists?

What's some peculiar racist humor compared with *that*? Strange moral
standards you have there.

> But then, treating one country differently from another country is not
> hypocrisy.  Treating one situation differently from another situation is not
> hypocrisy.  Looking at the relevant part of the Google statement, it was
> this: "We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our
> results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing
> with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an
> unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."
> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html
>
> It was a statement specifically about the Chinese government, and about
> results on google.cn.  Google did not claim or even imply that it was
> stopping all censorship altogether.  So I don't see the hypocrisy.

It is, at the very least, inconsistent. One set of rules for the
Chinese (and the world), and another set for the Australians. What
difference is there between the 2 situations that justifies this? If
there is no difference, then it's a plain contradiction. (Oh, you
happen to agree with one and not the other? I see...)

-- 
gwern