Has Google Done Evil?
Google enters the Chinese market, and in order to do so has agreed to actively censor materials in its searches that annoy the local authorities. There's a lot of largely unreflective thinking on how this contradicts Google's mission statement, "Don't be evil."
Hogwash.
The silliest comparison I've come across finds expression on Publius Pundit:
Google will resist the U.S. government, but won�t stand up in any way to China? Judging by its actions at home, one would think Google to be a pioneer in bringing access to information and resisting attempts from governments to repress it or monitor it. This says that isn�t the case, and it makes me wonder � just a little � what its motivation is to resisting the U.S. government and giving in to the Chinese. Perhaps they should change their motto to, �It�s just business.�
That's apples and oranges. In the U.S. case, Google doesn't want to provide oceans of private data so that Attorney General Gonzalez can make stupid arguments about the efficiency of web filtering. With the Chinese, it's exactly the opposite: Google can filter its searches without moral qualm so long as it's relatively certain that the Chinese people will have freer access to information with Google than without. There's really only two things you need to know to evaluate this: how good is Google? How well do the web-filters work?
We know Google works. We also know that most internet filters are pretty easy to avoid. If the new system is filtering based on government blacklist, ineffective filters have a double benefit: not only don't they stop the flow of information, but they also burn hundreds of man-hours in maintenance time that might be used on some more effective method of oppression. Unless Google is unveiling some vast new technology that will allow the Chinese government to throttle information more effectively through Google.cn, we have a net win for Chinese freedom.
Would Chinese websurfers be better off with Google obstinately refusing to enter the market? Only if one feels that the search engine behemoth is so powerful that the Chinese Communist Party is going to adopt First Amendment jurisprudence in wholesale lots just to get some GoogleJuice.
I'll change my opinion if it turns out that Google has set up a brand new Censorship Division looking into CensorRank technology. Until that happens, consider this my corollary to the Google mission statement: "Most of the time, doing evil very badly isn't functionally different from not doing evil at all."
Comments
Posted by: Debs | January 26, 2006 3:29 AM
Posted by: Bateleur | January 26, 2006 5:07 AM
Posted by: A. Rickey | January 26, 2006 11:41 AM