I read fewer tech blogs now. I find better commentary on Reddit. The site rephrased Google’s “New Approach to China” announcement like so: “Dear World, The Chinese government stole intellectual property from us and others. The censorship is crazy over there and we are seriously considering ceasing our Chinese operation. – signed google.” (A little more context: The recent IP theft Google is investigating was related to a hunt for Chinese human rights activists. My extremely uneducated take is that Google suspects the government. More on that later.)
A Reddit commenter summed up the phase change we’re witnessing: “An international corporation challenging a country on its human rights record.” Rawk.
Granted, another Reddit commenter, echoing an opinion from far too many bloggers who should know better, writes, “Impressive would have been refusing to do business that way [offering censored results] in the first place.” Ugh. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Let’s do some very basic critical thinking. Most of you already know this shit, that’s why you read Lalawag and not Scripting News. But just in case someone stumbles over here from Techmeme-land:
Google’s decision to offer censored service in China was a painful one. The company has demonstrated regularly that they honestly believe in the freedom of information. They don’t want to free information because it makes them money; they make money because they want to free information. Thus Google Books, Google Maps, the evolution of the search results themselves. (Say the ads on a certain search don’t load as quickly as the results: sometimes that’s why you don’t see ads on a page. Google won’t slow down your load time to give you ads.)
Google’s censored results, controversial from their first announcement, were different than the results already offered by Chinese search engines: any results page with missing entries carried a notice at the bottom. This way, search users would at least be aware when their results were censored. That was already a small victory.
Second, they were building a foothold in a tough-to-enter market. Obviously, that could be explained purely by profit motive. But it’s also a smart thing to do if they later wanted to pressure China into doing things Google’s way: freeing up some information.
Third, Google wasn’t promising to bow to China’s censorship laws forever. They were reserving the right to do what they’ve just done: to change the rules, to say “we’re sick of censoring,” to opt out. The tricky thing about opting out is, you have to have a chance at opting in.
So what would have happened if Google wasn’t censoring in China in the first place? They wouldn’t be in China at all. China would have just let Baidu dominate the country’s searches. And Baidu has a history of collaboration with the government. So do its Chinese competitors. Even Yahoo has a dark history of cooperating with Chinese authorities and turning in dissidents.
So Google entered the market to change the market (and to make a boatload of money). By trying to compromise, by mastering the world’s toughest major language, by serving a fifth of the world’s population, Google learned some big-ass lessons. They probably learned a hell of a lot about Chinese censorship that no other Western internet giant knows. And now they’re using their knowledge.
So big ups to Google for making the minimum compromises, Trojan-horsing the Chinese search business, and demanding that China let it operate uncensored. I have no clue whether they’ve got the leverage for this, but either answer makes them noble: If they don’t have the leverage, they’re abandoning a huge market to stick to their principles. Oh well, they tried for half a decade.
But if they do, then China will have to consider freeing information for its citizens. Politics, porn, religion, everything everyone else gets to see, the Chinese get to see. That’s the kind of sea change even Obama can’t make.
(Top cartoon via Joy of Tech)
