I presume that is on the premissis that every other state / regime will be able to leverage that deal between Google & China to black out whatever they think is not PC in their country.
Most of them already do this the slippery slope was started with Europe with it's right to be forgotten US with its Dmca. It's funny how many people have forgotten this if those things can be censored by Google because of these countries laws why is results cencsoring for China under Chinese laws is any different.
Because Chinese laws are intended to stifle debate and oppress human rights, where the EU laws protect privacy, and the US ones protect intellectual property?
"It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter"
I live in the EU where there's no freedom of speech and Google and the rest of tech companies are already being told about what they have to censor. I don't see how this is anything new. It's only in the news because it's China.
German here. Our government has pressured Facebook to allow private corporations (that of course are close to the government) to delete Facebook content -posts and pages with millions of followers- for political reasons as they see fit.
The legal process was completely removed. They use this to help their election campaigns by branding government critical content as extremist and having it removed without due process.
You'd think that when they remove content like that, they'd report the offenders to legal authorities -because after all, they are only allowed to remove content that is clearly illegal- but in most cases they don't. They just want the content gone and move on, which makes it very clear that this is just a censorship tool and their generous interpretation of illegal hate speech wouldn't hold up in any court.
No. The companies involved (Arvato/Bertelsmann) get to make their own rules. Facebook doesn't even have a say in this, although they're paying for it as required by the law. They were threatened with fines in the millions (up to 50 mil) if they didn't comply.
The situation is absurd. Facebook is legally required to pay for censorship by companies with close ties to the government.
If I understand you correctly, this censorship only applies to Facebook. If that's correct, then I still do not agree with the statement 'there is no free speech' unless Facebook is your/the sole source of information.
However, I do agree that it's problematic.
Ah, you mean there is free speech and also reasonably scoped restrictions on hate speech. I’m okay with that. Do you have an example to share that shows how that is a bad thing in practice? Because I’n having trouble finding one.
See my other post. Hate speech laws are actively used in Germany to manipulate political campaigns. The legal process has been removed and private organizations close to the government get to decide what's hate speech and what's not.
And that's exactly the problem with it: It cannot be clearly defined and everyone is offended by different things, which makes it a perfect tool to censor just about everything you want.
Do you have an example to share? The comment I’m replying to is pretty specific about topics: homophobia and denying the holocaust. Do you feel those are reasonable things to include in a hate speech regulations?
That depends what you mean with free speech. "I want to say anything I want, and no one can punish me for it" only makes sense if you believe your words have no consequences.
Government critical pages with millions of followers were deleted, playing directly in the hands of the (re-elected) government.
I don't want to be the judge of what's reasonable and what's not. As you see, having any kind of hate speech laws can and will be abused and end in censorship and stupid political games, as almost anything can be labelled as hate speech. It only depends on the perspective.
Personally, I'd go with the American model of anything goes. I don't think it's great, but it's better than this. Hate speech laws don't change anything - there will always be people who say something stupid or something you don't like. I prefer offensive people any day to people who deliberately misinterpret things and paint themselves or others as victims to discredit their opponents.
> there will always be people who say something stupid or something you don't like. I prefer offensive people any day to people who deliberately misinterpret things and paint themselves or others as victims to discredit their opponents.
Well, hate speech is not about offending people... It's about inciting violence. A good example would be a nazi or ISIS leader publishing a video calling on their followers to attack, say, Jews, homosexuals and journalists. Hate speech laws exist to forbid such communications, because they are likely to result in violence against others. Of course there are many cases which are less clear cut than my example, where it's debatable (and hotly debated) how much violence is actually caused... but that's very different from debating "offense" or "misunderstandings", which have nothing to do with hate speech laws.
> Government critical pages with millions of followers were deleted, playing directly in the hands of the (re-elected) government.
Can you give us sources on this please?
> As you see, having any kind of hate speech laws can and will be abused and end in censorship
Not really, you haven't provided any evidence or details.
That's an earlier screenshot of the page. It had about 2 million likes at the end. They posted provocative content, government critical stuff, some of it true, some of it false and some of it utter nonsense. None of which is illegal. Welcome to election campaigns around 2018. It's not our fault they have sunk to such a low level, but that's what it is and there's no consolation price for being the good guy.
This page had more readers than all but the biggest printed newspapers, which is quite a feat. Then one day their page was disabled and later deleted.
No real person has been and would be prosecuted for what they did. Personally, I think their content was crap and didn't follow it, but that's besides the point. They did what most politicians and official newspapers do to get attention and clicks.
This was in the early days, when the law was in planning, but not officially passed. Since then, many other pages like that simply disappeared.
So a facebook page was deleted. Are you sure this wasn’t Facebook enforcing their obscure and often-changing terms of service? What makes you think this was the German government enforcing hate speech laws?
Of course this is nonsense. It's not completely unconstrained speech, but freedom of expression is right there in ECHR.
" Article 10 – Freedom of expression
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."
It's arguing that China could leverage Google's Chinese market access to influence how Google behaves around the world, sort of like how almost all airlines around the world now say Taiwan is part of China:
> Once Google’s new Chinese business is up and running, there will be nothing to stop Beijing from seeking to dictate how references to Taiwan are addressed not just in China but throughout the site globally. China may also demand to shape how protests in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or the mainland are addressed or what happens when people search for dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo or topics such as human rights. While Google executives may believe that their company would never accede to such requests outside of China’s borders, there are no guarantees. If China gains the leverage to shape how Google presents what Beijing considers to be sensitive topics throughout the rest of the world, it will deal a mortal blow to international principles of freedom of expression and thought.
I wish I had a super-upvote button. That is exactly my concern... once Google's China revenue is a significant part of the revenue, exactly this will happen. The European car manufactures already do everything that China wants. But at least they do not run a search engine or newspaper.
"Proof:" Google for "Mercedes apologies to China after quoting Dalai Lama" in a tweet for its European customers.
Beijing currently influences it's weaker trading partners(which is most of the developing world) on various political points. For example - Taiwan policy or Dalai Lama visits.
It's not hard to imagine China then asking them to use their "new and improved" version of Google too.
Cause other countries might say "Ha, we also want this cool censored version. Please remove all negative information about our government and whatever we don't like. Here's your money (optionally). Otherwise we will find a nice reason to ban you in our country". Especially those with authoritative regime.
Once a company becomes comfortable with censorship, search manipulation in the name of their own politically motivated agenda... censorship and search manipulation can be repackaged if the price is right.
There are many here (as well as those 1,400 Googlers who signed the letter) who turned a blind-eye toward censorship and public manipulation when they agreed with the politics. This is the end result. Sadly... it's just the tip of the iceberg as the future looks much more bleak.
«In May, Google quietly removed “Don’t be evil” from the text of its corporate code of conduct, deleting a catchphrase that had been associated with the company since 2000.»
So it is now official, Google can not longer be considered as "not Evil". And we know this thanks to this sentence that has finally served as a warrant canary.
Yes, the article linked [1] also mentions it. But it also shows what have been removed, such as:
«“Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect.»
The fact they removed this (e.g. "providing our users unbiased access to information") and that they are now setting up a censored version of their search engine shows that everything that they have removed in there should now be considered as deprecated.
The censor ship has long sailed and its first passengers were American copyright shills, followed by European criminals who wanted their crimes to be removed from Google.
Interesting title. What future would Google have, regarding China, if it doesn't even exist in that country?
By exiting China, except pleasing the those moral puritans, I fail to see what exactly Google achieves. China now has a self-contained internet ecosystem, which is moderated and censored by the party's will, yet vibrant and providing countless business potential and shaping the society at breakneck speed. The only one holds China's internet's future is apparently, China.
> By exiting China, except pleasing the those moral puritans, I fail to see what exactly Google achieves.
You don't even have to have much imagination to realize that by exiting China, Google removed the leverage the Chinese government had over it. If Google has operations in China that it values, the Communist Party can use those operations as a hostage to manipulate Google, just like it did with the airlines.
Do you want an authoritarian government to have leverage over the service that you use to search for the answers to your questions? It's not inconceivable that that the CCP might use that leverage to get Google to change the rankings of its search results to be more to its liking.
And there's no way to stop it, yet there's no escape for it.
If Google is going to be more cooperative, there are more than just censorship that Google and Alphabet can provide.
Personally I would flee China but the relocation would require a higher-than-medium paying job which is difficult to get as a foreigner in most of the Countries, and I believe the status also applies many others.
All this blaming Google for being evil, when they suffer due to political implications, why we just watch and do nothing about it ? Because it's private company ? So why now ? It's still private company.
Excellent, an Internet that is heavily censored by Google. I guess thats the ultimate agenda of most governments, which means its the end goal of Google's greed.
To be honest, I don't see this censorship as such a big deal, it's an annoying speed bump, but not much more. Media has censored things forever, and as long as the internet remains open, it's not like censoring search results will prevent information from existing on the internet. It just means that we might need to build some new channels to share it. To me, the scary thing is the centralization of power with respect to networking (DNS/BGP/switching/etc. - see net neutrality). If internet infrastructure remains open, we'll continue to have the opportunity to build mastodon, duckduckgo, OSM, etc. And eventually those things will overtake the walled gardens that "Megacorp"s are cornering themselves into. Linux is the shining example of this.
We've seen this before. AOL was a monster on a ledge, and it fell. Google is a monster on a ledge, and it will fall. Funny enough, it's the ledge(r) that will bury it. All hail Internet 3.0 :P
I tend to feel the same way (in principle though not convinced it will be because of "Dweb" tech). I've been using searx.me for a year or so. This is a metasearch engine based on open source software, anyone can run an instance of it. I get a mix of results from Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo. It tells me which results come from which engine and I don't think it would be a big deal if Google started censoring stuff, or if it was removed altogether.
If Google starts censoring results in the US or EU with clear political motives, a Searx instance will be clearly superior (probably Bing and DDG standalone will be too). Many people will switch and search will become a more competitive market all of a sudden.
I'm not pro-censorship and I think Google censoring results for China would be disgusting. But if they migrate the practice to Western democracies I think they'll basically commit suicide. (Therefore they probably won't do it.)
I wonder if Google having a stronger presence and relationships in China, even if censored, would in fact be a better alternative than not having a presence in China. Another way the west can influence China and its direction is from the inside. It seems pretty clear that just avoiding the market due to morality isn’t really achieving anything. It just leaves a bigger void for local Chinese companies to fill. I’m in China now and I can tell you most people don’t really know or care about Google. Also, for the most part, your average person doesn’t even perceive the fact that their internet is restricted, and those that do, use VPNs anyways and have probably traveled abroad at some point. I’m beginning to think we should be injecting as much influence INTO China as possible if we want to have any ground later.
It feels like this story was suppressed from HN. Here's a story that's older but has a similar number of points that's still on the front page (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17964942; 64 pts, 13 hours ago), while this story is on page 4 (63 pts, 8 hours ago). Seems to be happening a lot for stories on topics like this.
> decisions over what content to algorithmically uplift or suppress can involve agonizing questions of interpretation, intent, and cultural context.
Or you know, why not bring back chronological feeds... I'm convinced part of the polarisation in previous years can be put down to "algorithms" boosting particular posts.
59 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 76.8 ms ] threadThe legal process was completely removed. They use this to help their election campaigns by branding government critical content as extremist and having it removed without due process.
You'd think that when they remove content like that, they'd report the offenders to legal authorities -because after all, they are only allowed to remove content that is clearly illegal- but in most cases they don't. They just want the content gone and move on, which makes it very clear that this is just a censorship tool and their generous interpretation of illegal hate speech wouldn't hold up in any court.
It does point toward a bigger issue, where Facebook is used and trusted by so many users that they do not access alternative sources of information.
The situation is absurd. Facebook is legally required to pay for censorship by companies with close ties to the government.
Directly from the devil himself.
Arvato belongs to Bertelsmann. Here's a German article about how close they are to the government.
https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Lobbyismus-Koenig-Bertelsma...
And that's exactly the problem with it: It cannot be clearly defined and everyone is offended by different things, which makes it a perfect tool to censor just about everything you want.
Government critical pages with millions of followers were deleted, playing directly in the hands of the (re-elected) government.
I don't want to be the judge of what's reasonable and what's not. As you see, having any kind of hate speech laws can and will be abused and end in censorship and stupid political games, as almost anything can be labelled as hate speech. It only depends on the perspective.
Personally, I'd go with the American model of anything goes. I don't think it's great, but it's better than this. Hate speech laws don't change anything - there will always be people who say something stupid or something you don't like. I prefer offensive people any day to people who deliberately misinterpret things and paint themselves or others as victims to discredit their opponents.
Well, hate speech is not about offending people... It's about inciting violence. A good example would be a nazi or ISIS leader publishing a video calling on their followers to attack, say, Jews, homosexuals and journalists. Hate speech laws exist to forbid such communications, because they are likely to result in violence against others. Of course there are many cases which are less clear cut than my example, where it's debatable (and hotly debated) how much violence is actually caused... but that's very different from debating "offense" or "misunderstandings", which have nothing to do with hate speech laws.
> Government critical pages with millions of followers were deleted, playing directly in the hands of the (re-elected) government.
Can you give us sources on this please?
> As you see, having any kind of hate speech laws can and will be abused and end in censorship
Not really, you haven't provided any evidence or details.
https://i.imgur.com/mY0iBWU.jpg
That's an earlier screenshot of the page. It had about 2 million likes at the end. They posted provocative content, government critical stuff, some of it true, some of it false and some of it utter nonsense. None of which is illegal. Welcome to election campaigns around 2018. It's not our fault they have sunk to such a low level, but that's what it is and there's no consolation price for being the good guy.
This page had more readers than all but the biggest printed newspapers, which is quite a feat. Then one day their page was disabled and later deleted.
No real person has been and would be prosecuted for what they did. Personally, I think their content was crap and didn't follow it, but that's besides the point. They did what most politicians and official newspapers do to get attention and clicks.
This was in the early days, when the law was in planning, but not officially passed. Since then, many other pages like that simply disappeared.
" Article 10 – Freedom of expression
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."
> Once Google’s new Chinese business is up and running, there will be nothing to stop Beijing from seeking to dictate how references to Taiwan are addressed not just in China but throughout the site globally. China may also demand to shape how protests in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or the mainland are addressed or what happens when people search for dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo or topics such as human rights. While Google executives may believe that their company would never accede to such requests outside of China’s borders, there are no guarantees. If China gains the leverage to shape how Google presents what Beijing considers to be sensitive topics throughout the rest of the world, it will deal a mortal blow to international principles of freedom of expression and thought.
"Proof:" Google for "Mercedes apologies to China after quoting Dalai Lama" in a tweet for its European customers.
It's not hard to imagine China then asking them to use their "new and improved" version of Google too.
There are many here (as well as those 1,400 Googlers who signed the letter) who turned a blind-eye toward censorship and public manipulation when they agreed with the politics. This is the end result. Sadly... it's just the tip of the iceberg as the future looks much more bleak.
So it is now official, Google can not longer be considered as "not Evil". And we know this thanks to this sentence that has finally served as a warrant canary.
Last updated July 31, 2018"
https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
«“Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally – following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect.»
The fact they removed this (e.g. "providing our users unbiased access to information") and that they are now setting up a censored version of their search engine shows that everything that they have removed in there should now be considered as deprecated.
[1] https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
If no one got nothing of value to add, there's always some reference to "evil" and suddenly everyone has an opinion on a Google related topic.
By exiting China, except pleasing the those moral puritans, I fail to see what exactly Google achieves. China now has a self-contained internet ecosystem, which is moderated and censored by the party's will, yet vibrant and providing countless business potential and shaping the society at breakneck speed. The only one holds China's internet's future is apparently, China.
You don't even have to have much imagination to realize that by exiting China, Google removed the leverage the Chinese government had over it. If Google has operations in China that it values, the Communist Party can use those operations as a hostage to manipulate Google, just like it did with the airlines.
Do you want an authoritarian government to have leverage over the service that you use to search for the answers to your questions? It's not inconceivable that that the CCP might use that leverage to get Google to change the rankings of its search results to be more to its liking.
If Google is going to be more cooperative, there are more than just censorship that Google and Alphabet can provide.
Personally I would flee China but the relocation would require a higher-than-medium paying job which is difficult to get as a foreigner in most of the Countries, and I believe the status also applies many others.
If Google starts censoring results in the US or EU with clear political motives, a Searx instance will be clearly superior (probably Bing and DDG standalone will be too). Many people will switch and search will become a more competitive market all of a sudden.
I'm not pro-censorship and I think Google censoring results for China would be disgusting. But if they migrate the practice to Western democracies I think they'll basically commit suicide. (Therefore they probably won't do it.)
Or you know, why not bring back chronological feeds... I'm convinced part of the polarisation in previous years can be put down to "algorithms" boosting particular posts.