Google – should we boycott?
I’m disturbed by today’s news that Google is colluding with the Chinese Government in offering a censored version of its search engine to China. I understand the dilemma that Google is in: there is already a (censored) commercial alternative within China, and Google risks losing its market share in that sector because of the blocking that the government is periodically doing against traffic to the Google computers. However, in my view, Google have completely capitulated in the interests of profit.
Who should be concerned about this?
a. Christians – the free practice of religion is still forbidden in Mainland China: all groups have to be registered with the State. Many underground housechurches continue to suffer persecution.
b. Anyone concerned with human rights – the Chinese Government has used its increasing economic power to ignore, completely, calls by western governments for greater openness to dissident voices. For details on the human rights abuses within Mainland China, visit the Amnesty International Website and for a briefing paper (prepared for the EU in September), see here.
c. Anyone concerned with free-market capitalism! The essense of capitalism, so loudly trumpted by the West, is that we need free societies for the interchange of ideas. This lies at the heart of a competitive economic climate, which allows new innovation and economic growth to continue. It was this argument more than anything which eroded the old Soviet Bloc and brought freedom to the peoples of Russia and Eastern Europe. It lay at the heart of Glasnost. Now we have one of the world’s biggest internet companies, colluding with the closing down of ideas. Short term gain, maybe. But ultimately, cutting off the hand that feeds it.
So maybe the time is coming for us to bid farewell to Google and its engine. To withdraw our accounts at Blogger.com. And to stop collecting our email on gmail. If the Internet is to bring genuine freedom to the world, we need to show the big companies that when it comes to the Internet, the World is bigger even than China!
Posted on Wednesday, 25 January 2006 by Paul | Posted in politics | 10 comments
Comments
Paul this is a good and serious point that I don’t want to dilute with flippancy…
but…
we definitely should boycott google coz I’ve just been looking for naff trad photos of vicars by doing a google image search on “vicar”. You #3!
Interesting questions. Not sure boycott is the answer, but it deserve to be asked.
Peace,
Jamie
Oh my goodness Richard – you’re absolutely right! That’s really spoiled my day. The only consolation is that way down at #7 is David Tennant, who is the new Dr Who (on the BBC).
I too was disturbed by this news. They must have a rather weak definition of evil that it doesn’t include censorship, especially when you consider what they wish to censor and why.
The news commentators have been telling us that it was inevitable because of the public ownership and the pressure to satisfy shareholders but they all knew what they were buying when they invested so it would not have come as any surprise if the company refused to compromise. There is no necessity to always grow, that is the downfall of many companies. They can gain strength by doing what they do well.
But now – what can we do? There are alternatives to Blogger and gmail but all the search engines are doing the same thing and the small ones are only using the databases of the big three. We rely on those to keep the visitors coming to our sites. If we are speaking out for freedom (or whatever) it will not be heard if we exclude the spiders.
I wonder whether there’d be a way of doing something a bit like ‘Seti at Home’ which would offer a route via millions of desktops to the ‘open’ Google servers from any IP (and only that route). It would then be impossible for a government such as China’s (or any other) to prevent access, short of closing down the whole of China to the internet.
Paul – I think your points are valid and the question of how we should respond needs to be asked. However a few thoughts;
1. It would be interesting to get (if that’s possible) a Chinese perspective. Perhaps this is the issue, we can’t because of censorship.
2. I understand Google unlike Yahoo and Microsoft will show the web address of sites that are being censored. Thus there will be more information available to the Chinese and for those who know how thee sites could be accessed via a proxy server.
3. What, for a non geek like me are the alternatives to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft? I use Google to search and the computer I’m using runs on Microsoft XP. Hey it’s not even my computer!
I too am worried especially when I read examples of what PRC’s govt want kept off the monitor. There’s a hopeful long term view here though:
“Google should take credit for avoiding privacy issues by refusing to locate its e-mail and blogging functions on Chinese servers, … the internet remains a force for a more open society.
“Government censorship can slow down, but can’t reverse this trend,” Xiao said.”
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,70089-0.html
I hope that hacking round this will be a possibility in the shorter term.
I’m also thinking of some Chinese students I have met in chaplaincy work. They have to be a little circumspect about what they say to whom, still. So even if the service were totally uncensored, the fear of what might be found out could be a big inhibition anyhow.
This action of Google’s seems somewhat feeble at a time when it seems that the repression of debate in China is becoming less effective and dissidence more open once more, as the BBC reports today
just wanted to note that i found this forum thing on google. . . .
Paul,
I can only assume you’re one of Blair’s Babes because your comments are devoid of understanding both politically and economically, but I forgive you as you don’t have to engage in the real world. China is an emerging superpower precisely because it’s dictated the terms of this wonderful ‘free market’ not America who merely employ the IMF and World Bank as a form of economic imperialism, and there really isn’t all that much so marvellous about the free exchange of ideas as most people don’t actually think they react and why get upset that a Government is honest enough to state its agenda is control? Better to know than to have to be coerced through such ridiculous propaganda as our ‘free world’ governments employ and wise up friend England’s Libel Law is the most effective muzzle going if you want to remove ‘freedom of speech’ along with our hate crimes bill blah blah blah.
