More on Chinese censorship
January 15th, 2006 by herichon
Another good piece on censorship in China, and the complicity of American tech companies, appears here in the International Herald Tribune.
Google won’t stop it because Yahoo and Microsoft have complied, and they can’t afford to lose the market. Yahoo won’t stop it because Google and Microsoft have complied, and they can’t afford to lose the market. Microsoft won’t stop it because Google and Yahoo have complied, and they can’t afford to lose the market.
Okay. Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco even, I can understand are supremely focused on their bottom line, but come on, Google, isn’t your whole corporate mantra about doing no evil? Hey Larry and Sergei, here’s a chance to put your money where your mouth is. Every day I’m sure you’re confronted with myriads of business decisions where the “evil vs. not evil” question is murky. This is not one of them.
But you’re afraid of losing ground to your competitors. Fine. Pull out of the Chinese market loudly and publically. Do a press release about how you realized that participation in Chinese experiments in government suppression and censorship are fundamentally incompatible not only with your own corporate vision but with the ethical responsibilities of any American company. Plaster this all over the web, and let your cadre of media allies loudly make the point that your competitors are choosing the low road while you choose the high road. With any luck, Microsoft and Yahoo are forced to follow suit.
But even if they’re not – do you really want to go on record as a complicit partner in what’s happening in China right now? The world is watching, Google. Take a stand for what’s right.