The jewels of American hightech - Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco - have been criticized for coopearting with the totalitarian regime of the People’s Republic of China, which, in the case of Yahoo, may have resulted in the longterm incarceration of a dissident. China Syndrome blog examines the ramifications.

Special Pajamas Media coverage: exclusive video interview with Congressman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo,CA)

When Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) invited representatives of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco to explain to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus their cooperation with the repressive policies of the Chinese government, they didn’t even bother to show up. Undaunted, Lantos then invited them to testify to a select committee of the House Committee on International Relations. Under threat of subpoena, the companies’ people had to appear for that. Here are excerpts from that hearing and an exclusive Pajamas Media interview with Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor currently serving in the US Congress.

Windows Media Player version.

Google’s decision to censor search results in China in order to gain entry into the Chinese market is not the preferable state of affairs. Lovers of freedom deplore state censorship wherever and whenever it happens. But the company is not evil — and its compromise is better than not doing business in China at all.

Let’s say a contractor had the tools and materials to build the sturdiest modern structure, but the local building code required less-than-perfect construction. Would putting up a structure as required by local code be “evil”? Nothing of the sort.

By their logic, though, critics of Google’s engagement with China would rather see people freeze in the cold than take shelter in substandard housing.

This, however, is a very bad idea:

The subcommittee’s chairman, Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, plans to introduce legislation by week’s end that would restrict an Internet company’s ability to censor or filter basic political or religious terms — even if that puts the company at odds with local laws in the countries where it now operates.

This is a bad idea for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it will hurt, rather than help, the very people it is trying to support. But I’ll get back to that in a bit.

Fascinating. With Google, Yahoo! Microsoft and Cisco about to be called on the carpet in Congress on Wednesday, AOL releases a new Chinese-language portal. It focuses on culture and sports, with a major feature being downloadable Chinese movies. But the target audience is – at least officially – meant to be the Chinese-speaking community in the United States.

I can confirm: the search engine on this portal is uncensored.

Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Yahoo and the entire China enabling Internet crew are headed for some interesting hearings in Washington, thanks, in part, to a new Mr. Smith:

“I was asked the question the other day, do U.S. corporations have the obligation to promote democracy? That’s the wrong question,” says Rep. Chris Smith, the New Jersey Republican and chairman of the House human-rights subcommittee that is holding the hearing. “It would be great if they would promote democracy. But they do have a moral imperative and a duty not to promote dictatorship.”

Given all the recent attention on free speech rights sparked by the publication of 12 Danish cartoons in a small Danish newspaper that morphed into a huge riotfest throughout parts of the Islamic world, the continued Chinese crackdown on free speech has slipped under the radar.

The intrepid Roland Soong of the ESWN blog points out that Reporters Without Borders has gotten some facts wrong in its latest press release on Yahoo!’s role in the jailing of yet another Chinese dissident, Li Zhi – a release which I reproduced on my blog yesterday.

Consider the evil in the Google motto (those who do not recognize that our choice is often only to do the lesser evil, often do the greater evil), and ask yourself if Google is doing any evil when it simply posts (thus neither actively defending free speech nor taking any responsibility for what it hosts) the following warning on a blog, in response to the ire of leftists and Muslims:

CONTENT WARNING
Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog’s content is hateful. In general, Google does not review nor do we endorse the content of this or any blog. For more information about this message, please consult our FAQ.

I just received the press release below e-mailed from Reporters Without Borders. The BBC also has a story here.

My initial reaction: A company that cares about human rights should not put user data in jurisdictions where full compliance with the law makes collaboration with human rights violations inevitable.

Since the beginning of the year, both Microsoft and Google have seen self-inflicted public relations disasters stem from their decisions to censor political content deemed inconvenient by the Chinese government. Now, Microsoft has decided to make its censorship policy ever-so-slightly-less-offensive

Google is a company that we Speculists generally have a lot of respect for. Almost anytime I use my computer, I use Google.

We understand that Google is motivated by profit just like any other company, but they have usually had the good sense to pursue profit in ways that help people. Google’s motto, “Don’t be evil” might come across as a bit too precious, but it also has the benefit of being easy to understand.

Unfortunately it’s not always easy to live up to.

So it turns out Google is evil after all. Like a toddler who’s just caught Santa beating up his little helper round the back of the grotto, the geek community reacted as one when Google entered the Chinese market with its censored google.cn service last Wednesday. Anger and disbelief quickly gave way to a sense of abandonment and fear, and as Daddy sat us down for a grown-up talk about publicly-owned companies, market economies and shareholder rights, we felt our tiny little world dissolve into a new, scarier reality. Now we’ve all had our little cry, what next?

It’s time to start asking a few grown-up questions.

Today is a day for good news! Freedom for Chinese people is of course tied up with freedom for Chinese bloggers, and microsoft have made a potentially costly decision which I applaud.

Google is making a sacrifice, and a big one at that, risking its democratic image for more access in a country that will contribute very little business in the near future. Right move for shareholders? Possibly. Ironic move? Yes. Noble move? Hardly. Maybe China’s riches are worth it. I don’t think so. But when you’ve tasted billions — like Brin and Page — I guess you can hire a boatload of attorneys to justify any choices you make.

Paul Boutin has noticed that the Chinese Google filter only works if you can spell.

Image results for the correct spelling.

Now try Tianenmen, Tienanmen and Tiananman.

Danny Sullivan has side by side pictures of results of searching for Tiananmen on google.com and google.cn.

Jan. 31, 2006 (UPI delivered by Newstex) — California-based Google Inc. refuses to send representatives to appear before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.

The caucus, which wants a Google representative to come to its Wednesday forum, wants to know why the giant search engine is complying with a Beijing request to censor search results but opposing a Washington request to subpoena randomly picked search results …

I suspect that a lot of people are rethinking their attitude toward Google now. And that attitude goes beyond the moral, to the financial — as the Times article reports, it’s showing up in stock prices: “The company is now worth $20 billion less than it was a month ago.”

Google has agreed to submit to censorship of search results in exchange for operating in China.

The full scope of the censorship is a work in progress. Wired says: “To obtain the Chinese license, Google agreed to omit web content that the country’s government finds objectionable. Google will base its censorship decisions on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.” And C|Net News’ Declan McCullagh’s research found: “Many Web sites censored from Google’s Chinese results touch on topics known to be unpopular with the Communist Party: the Tiananmen protest and massacre, political criticism in general, Tibet, Taiwan and Falun Gong (a growing movement that combines traditional Chinese breathing exercises with meditation and that’s been renounced by the Chinese government as a cult). But others are more puzzling, such as jokes and alcohol.”

As a result, Google is being roasted in the flames of an outraged Internet, accused of selling out its “Don’t Be Evil” corporate birthright for a mess of Yuan.

Americans have a long history of selling out - think Warren Beatty and “Ishtar” or politicians and Indian casinos. The public is trusting until proven otherwise, then turns on icons like rats on garbage. Never more so with culture: Being “cool,” “tight” or “wicked excellent” is a hard image to keep and one boneheaded move can send you to tomorrow’s cut-out bin. Ask Michael Jackson. Or Madonna.

Which brings us to Google.

I fully admit to being completely uninterested in reasoned discourse here. Indeed, I am being completely unreasonable. Because there is, to me, a difference between doing business under the communist bootheel and putting your own foot in the boot. Freedom made what you do for a living possible, Google, and now you crap all over that? Go to Hell.

I have a simple question:

The apartheid government in South Africa, in 1986 (i.e. 20 years ago today) asks internet search engines operating in South Africa to block any sites regarding anyone named Mandela, the African National Congress, the notion of democracy, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or even the Declaration of Independence. Google rolls over like a cheap whore and says “Yes master! You’re in charge!” and then tells the rest of us “hey, we’re only complying with local laws and customs.”

Yes it is the same thing!

RConversation is still in daily multilink mode. Yesterday’s helping is here.

Nicholas Carr says Google is getting blasted more than other Wall of Shame members because its “Do No Evil” slogan represents a big “Hit Me” sign:

I think the reason Google is getting its feet held to the fire is simple: It asked for it.

Google is getting a lot of flak for caving to China on Internet censorship.

I suppose I should be embarrassed to even raise that subject here on a Microsoft Web site, since Microsoft’s role has been, if anything, even more compliant than Google’s. But heck, people have called Microsoft an “Evil Empire” for a couple of decades now, while Google has gotten a lot of mileage out of its corporate slogan, “Don’t be evil.”

google.cn image search for Tiananmen: Gate of Heavenly Peace.

google.cn image search for Tianenmen, Tienanmen and Tiananman: Tanks, tanks, more tanks.

Google won’t stand up to Beijing. But they’re fearless when it comes to putting Brussels in its place:

Google, the giant internet search company, is to lead industry opposition to new proposals from the European Commission to regulate online content.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin defends the deal:

We ultimately made a difficult decision, but we felt that by participating there, and making our services more available, even if not to the 100 percent that we ideally would like, that it will be better for Chinese Web users, because ultimately they would get more information, though not quite all of it.
I met the guy at Brainstorm, I think his name’s Xiao. Just over the years I’ve been interested in this question, and talked to three or four different people in China. My point of view really did change. And don’t forget that I was born in the Soviet Union and my early childhood was spent there, so I’m very sensitive to this kind of issue. It wasn’t easy. But I gradually grew comfortable, and I think we’re doing the right thing.

Glen,

I run a small gourmet coffee company that does decent business on the internet, thanks to the reach of Google Ad Words. However, I cannot live with Google’s decision to succumb to the wishes of the brutal dictatorship in China. So, as of today, my company has suspended all business with Google. This will have a substantial negative impact on my bottom line, but in some cases principle means more than money. As a veteran of OIF, I know all too well how valuable freedom is and I cannot support a company that helps to suppress it.

I would ask you to encourage any of your readers who might use Google Ad Words to take the same actions and send a message to Google. It is time for Americans to tell businesses when they have gone too far in compromising the most basic principles of freedom and make them pay a price for their actions.

Sincerely,

Jeff Schneider
www.texasroast.com

As someone who often describes himself as something of a free speech absolutist (which is a bit of a misnomer, really—I’m closer to a free speech pragmatist with absolutist tendencies), I’ve really kept up only peripherally with the Google / China / US conflict. In fact, it wasn’t until dinner last night, when my wife mentioned something to me about the DoJ handing out subpoenas …

Google still doesn’t get to claim any moral high ground here, as far as I’m concerned. On one hand they’re willing to oppose our government’s demand for their records, which I applaud them for. On the other hand, they’re perfectly willing to bend to another government’s demand for the suppression of certain types of information.

Charles Johnson at LGF has a vivid example of what this means to Chinese searching for subject like Tiennamen Square. The US version shows the famous photo of the lone man standing in front of a row of tanks holding them at bay. The Chinese version is sanitized of all references to the demonstrations and crackdown against the dissidents. Marathon Pundit has additional examples.

Romerican writes “The U.S. Government is questioning Google in relation to corporate behavior under anti-bribery laws. The government is also questioning Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco about their dealings with the Chinese government. Where do Slashdotters see this going?” From the Red Herring article: “There is precedent for the U.S. government establishing laws governing the conduct of U.S. companies abroad.”… ats-tech wrote to give us the link to Google’s response to these events, via the Googleblog.

The Google Help Center used to have the following question/answer as part of its FAQ:

Does Google censor search results?

Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by hand. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the web to determine the inclusion and ranking of sites in our search results. To learn more about Google’s search technology, please visit

http://www.google.com/technology/index.html

Now, however, since Google agreed to modify their search results so that they could gain access to China’s market place they’ve taken the above statement down.

Of course, the argument of free speech online and internal Chinese law is not a new one. In a country which has experienced centuries of famine, disease and revolution due to dynastic cycles and social unrest, China has stuck to a strong policy of Internet governance.

In Deng Xiaoping’s thriving Socialist Market economy, businesses which want to operate in China must of course follow Chinese law. Overtime, just as Kissinger, Nixon, Clinton and Mao have found, the long term potential of accomplishing change through working with the people and wishes of China is much more powerful than appeasing the short term preferences of interest groups by working against China.

Does Google’s concept of “evil” exclude surpressing the free access it currently offers the 100 million Chinese estimated to be on the internet? What’s going on here?

It is simple enough. Google is talking out of both sides of its mouth. Google is perfectly willing to posture as a brave defender of the privacy of its users in the U.S. marketplace it already dominates while caving to the immense commercial opportunity awaiting it in China. Booming China is already the second largest Internet market in the world and soon will pass the largest — the United States.

The Financial Times is reporting that Google will be heading before the House subcommittee on Human Rights following its controversial decision to help Communist China in its ongoing efforts to fight free-speech. The high-flying Internet stock is launching a version of its website that blocks specific search results like “Tiananmen Square” and “Taiwan,” in an effort to avoid ruffling the feathers of China’s Communist head-honchos. Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco are also scheduled to appear.

Repeat this with me now: There is no such thing as an efficient dictatorship.

Not that a democratic government like ours is some lean, mean fighting machine – but a dictatorship is even worse. Sure, the Head Honcho* appears to call the shots, and maybe he does. But there’s a big difference between shouting “Fire!” and the riflemen actually hitting anything.

Michelle Malkin tipped us off on Google selling out to the oppressive Chinese government and Atlas Shrugs says “DIVEST of GOOGLE STOCK”

I loved Gmail. I almost had a single email address for 18 months. But this one thing pushed me over the edge. It is reprehensible what the government of China does to its people and we are enabling it with our money and interests. Already too many companies within the States turn a blind eye to human rights in China in order to fatten their wallets.

Google caves to China’s demands to censor search results the Chinese government might find embarrassing. Or the Chinese people might find informative or inspiring.

On the other hand…

Yesterday Google launched its Chinese-government-approved search engine, Google.cn. Users of the Chinese Google service will have great difficulty finding information on such controversial topics as—well, controversial in China—human rights, Falun Gong, and the Dalai Lama.

Google justifies this kowtowing to Beijing as a positive, claiming that Chinese users of Google will be better off, since the Communist government’s own efforts to block Google searches resulted in very slow response times …

I’m collecting photoshopped/altered Google logos by bloggers and others in response to the search engine company’s decision to kowtow to China. Let a thousand protest icons bloom!

Here was mine:

Murdoc:

Pam at Atlas Shrugs, who’s calling on you to divest from Google:

Point Five:

Tonight, a long Friday night, I don’t have too many things to do at around 23:00 in the office. The office is completely empty. Only the small noisy laptop is with me. Well. Maybe it is the good time to register my blog with the government - 13 days before the deadline.

The registration process itself is not complicated, at least not as complicated as registering at another free email provider. It seems so easy maybe because I expect it to be a long process. Here is what I did, in case you are interested.

As the AP is reporting, Google “has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country’s free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet’s fastest growing market”.

Needless to say (if you know anything about me), I generally object to such censorship. But there’s another way to look at this: In the long run, this trade-off could prove to be a boon to political reform in China. The internet is a liberating medium, after all. Is it not better for Google to penetrate the Chinese market with restrictions than not at all?

Whoa! Talk about overselling a story with a hyperbolic headline! I’m starting to get why the media uses headlines to really rev up the bias and slant — because it’s fun! And easy!

The headline is too much, really, but the story does softly support it:

China is preparing to “strike hard” against rising public unrest, a senior police official said according to state media on Thursday, highlighting the government’s fears for stability even as the economy booms.

Prosperity tends to undermine the government’s power, not enhance it.

In today’s S.F. Chronicle, Debra J. Saunders has a great op-ed on the recent Google controversy. Key excerpts (emphasis ours):

Google painted itself as heroic in refusing to help the U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to reinstate a 1998 federal law on online child pornography, then revealed that it was going to help the Chinese government suppress free speech.

… and a Canadian weblog. Of course. (Thanks to FT.com and Drudge.)

“Chris Smith, a Republican congressman from New Jersey [ ] on Wednesday accused Google of “collaborating .. with persecutors” who imprison and torture Chinese citizens “in the service of truth”.

Here’s a company that helps Chinese internet users get around their government’s totalitarian controls: Dynamic Internet Technology. (Hat tip: Kokonut Pundits.)

I’m late on this first post to CPB; I’ve been busy exercising my Freedom of Speech on some people who needed it. Since I don’t like posting short things, it posed a bit of a problem with balancing other responsibilities. But I’m here, now, and thought that maybe my first post should be something with some weight.

The weight is simple. Someone let the blogs out. If you have a blog, you’re still a minority.

How Censorship Works

Censorship works in the obvious ways …

…So there’s the other side. Some believe that Google’s decision to work within the limits imposed by the Chinese government is just the foot under the tent. As with all the West’s previous dealings with China, the latter will become more Westernized and more open as a result of the contact. Thus, we ought to welcome the idea since it means China becomes less a threat to us.

Just a thought: Google’s making headlines in its refusal to cooperate with the Justice Department on kiddy porn, but shows no qualms in cooperating with communist China in repressing free speech. Hmmm.

In light of alarming events inhibiting the free flow of news and information in China, the most egregious violaters of human rights, Roger Simon calls for divestment. Hear hear!

So it has happened. Google has caved in. It has agreed to actively censor a new Chinese-language search service that will be housed on computer servers inside the PRC.

[…] What we do know at this point is that Google seems to be trying to minimize it’s evilness in several ways, according to how their statements describe the service:

[…] At the end of the day, this compromise puts Google a little lower on the evil scale than many other internet companies in China. But is this compromise something Google should be proud of? No. They have put a foot further into the mud. Now let’s see whether they get sucked in deeper or whether they end up holding their ground.

First, read the Actual Google Code of Conduct.

[…] Apparently, evolving corporate principals mean that if China wants you to actually be evil, you say, “sure!”.

Also, this is why Codes of Conduct, Vision Statements, Etc. have such a dismal reputation among American corporate workers. They’re either rah-rah bs designed to get us to put more time and effort into a company than it’s worth. Or simply a waste of time to keep the executives busy.

Google joins Microsoft, Yahoo and others in agreeing to omit web content the Chinese government finds objectionable.

[…] I imagine Google is going to get enormous flack for this—but not from me.

The reality is that the U.S. also imposes restrictions on Google and other public information systems in a number of ways. One that comes to mind is bomb-making instructions. Sen. Feinstein amendment to a 1997 Defense appropriations bill made it a crime to distribute bomb-making instructions in the U.S. or incur a fine of $250,000.00 and a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

If this were 60-years ago, would Google be agreeing to censor out news of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in order to have access to Nazi Germany’s Europe? Why are we tolerating this corporate immorality?

They’re wrong. What they’re doing isn’t only evil in and of itself, it’s willingly acting in concert with the far greater evil of the Chi-Com dictatorship.

And my friend is quite right when he says, “This has got to be as bad as anything CNN’s ever done.”

Shame on Google. Shame on Microsoft. Shame on News Corp. Shame on anybody who even attempts to defend this in the name of making a buck.

As noted previously on GOP Vixen, this blog is inaccessible in China (as determined by a globetrotting, Web-testing blog pal). I must’ve run that defaced photo of Mao one too many times. But I’m proud to be deemed subversive by those commies.

Google, however, is more in the mood for capitulating.

Now, remember, Google is refusing to cooperate with the U.S. government about providing statistical information about online pornography searches—which does not directly impair anyone’s freedoms—but they are willing to cooperate with the Chinese government to censor political content. Hypocrites.

I went to Google.com and searched on Tiananmen Square. … I went to Google.cn and did the same. I got a little bit different picture. … Raw numbers. Google.com returns 1,830,000 results. Google.cn returns 13,200 results.

I’m fond of saying that corporations are neither moral nor immoral. I’m also fond of pointing out, to the irritation of some of my conservative and libertarian pals, that corporations are state-created and state-sustained paper fictions. Until government created the idea of a corporation, you only had individually owned businesses, family-owned businesses, and the occasional partnership. It took state power—Big Government power—to create the whole idea of a corporation, and it is only state power that gives a corporation “rights” or protects its owners from legal responsibility or accountability for that corporation’s actions.

If there’s any unavoidable reality besides death and taxes, it’s human greed. Google, like many corporations, can’t look at a nation like China and not want a piece of the action. It has the largest population on earth, and in many respects, an audience starved for new things. Western things. Things they have been denied for decades.

You can’t swing a cat right now without hearing about Google’s decision to ’self-censor’ itself in order to do business in China. It’s indeed a troubling thing; bad enough that a government should hinder the free flow of information, but should an American success story like Google facilitate it? Oh, sure, it’s China, and that means the biggest developing economy in the world…it’s not hard to understand WHY Google did what it did…but it brings up many, many questions of an ethical and political nature.

Now that Google has agreed to block certain Chinese search terms like “e**ality” and “de***racy,” the solution, it seems to me, is to take an entrepreneurial approach to helping the Chinese find work-arounds that will give them access to the information they seek.

So here’s what I propose: let’s look at the list of these forbidden keywords (here) and devise clever euphemisms for them, followed by descriptive definitions that make clear what the new terms denote—the list can be passed around like a chain letter. If enough bloggers posted the list, it will be impossible for google to block every site, and our Chinese brothers and sisters could simply google the new word for China—rutabaga—and find the list (along with the odd root vegetable appreciation blog, but hey, it’s the most obscure-yet-ordinary, hide-it-in-plain-sight word I could come up with on short notice).