Internet censorship

innerSpaceman · 01-25-2006, 01:35 PM

Yep, hypocritical in my book, too. But corporations will follow the money. No surprise there.

It's only if there's no particular windfall to be had or lost that we might see some action indicating corporate spine. Just because Google is dead-wrong (imo) on the China issue does not mean that they are precluded from taking the proper stand (imo) with other governments.

Alex · 01-25-2006, 02:02 PM

I'm not particularly bothered by it. Pretty much every company that does business in China has to decide to do things the way they're told or leave.

Google already complies with "censorship" laws in various countries and will do so in the United States where they're found constitutional (should Google fold rather than block searches for child pornography if a law passed muster here that required such?).

Complete freedom of information is a relatively novel idea in the world and telling information companies that they should only work in countries with complete freedom of information is quite the limitation(for example, Canadian courts have powers to squash publication that would never fly in the U.S. and it isn't hard to imagine a requirement that Google News, in Canada, filter out articles that would be illegal).

Should NBC refuse to do business in Saudi Arabia because of a requirement that they not broadcast swearing?

I don't approve of China's government or censorship, but globally some form of censorship is the norm and considering that the alternative is either no internet searching or no internet access then it doesn't seem that big of an issue to me.

I see this as a completely separate issue from the subpoena. There is a huge difference between censorship and surveillance.

01-25-2006, 01:35 PM	#1
innerSpaceman Kink of Swank Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Inner Space Posts: 13,075	Yep, hypocritical in my book, too. But corporations will follow the money. No surprise there. It's only if there's no particular windfall to be had or lost that we might see some action indicating corporate spine. Just because Google is dead-wrong (imo) on the China issue does not mean that they are precluded from taking the proper stand (imo) with other governments.
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01-25-2006, 02:02 PM	#2
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	I'm not particularly bothered by it. Pretty much every company that does business in China has to decide to do things the way they're told or leave. Google already complies with "censorship" laws in various countries and will do so in the United States where they're found constitutional (should Google fold rather than block searches for child pornography if a law passed muster here that required such?). Complete freedom of information is a relatively novel idea in the world and telling information companies that they should only work in countries with complete freedom of information is quite the limitation(for example, Canadian courts have powers to squash publication that would never fly in the U.S. and it isn't hard to imagine a requirement that Google News, in Canada, filter out articles that would be illegal). Should NBC refuse to do business in Saudi Arabia because of a requirement that they not broadcast swearing? I don't approve of China's government or censorship, but globally some form of censorship is the norm and considering that the alternative is either no internet searching or no internet access then it doesn't seem that big of an issue to me. I see this as a completely separate issue from the subpoena. There is a huge difference between censorship and surveillance.
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