
Leaked Transcript Contradicts Google’s Official Story on China - jbegley
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/09/google-china-censored-search-engine/
======
hn_throwaway_99
Wow, reading this article and some of the other linked Intercept articles, in
my mind the culture at Google has finally hit a tipping point, having gone
full-bore over to the "evil" side.

I know most folks on HN will think "Google has been this way for years", but I
think the way The Intercept articles describe the erosion of the culture at
Google is a perfect template for how virtually all large profit driven
companies eventually turn "evil". It's the added secrecy that can be
rationalized at first, the stretched gray areas (e.g. "we're just in an
exploratory phase") that eventually cross over to full-fledged lies, but
you're still able to convince yourself it's just a little "spin" for the
greater good.

The really hard thing about "not being evil" is that in requires conscious,
continuous effort to forgo profit (sometime huge profits) to adhere to that
value. The lure of the Chinese market is simply too great, so people convince
themselves it's possible to get at that potential market without compromising
their values, and they do lots of mental gymnastics trying to get those
opposing ideals into congruence.

I've seen this pattern many times before, honestly with much lower stakes than
what Google is contending with, so I applaud Google for holding out as long as
they did. This is one reason I hate talking about "company values": it's easy
to adhere to those values when they're not in conflict with the company making
money, but the second there is a quarter to hit or a metric at risk, those
values always seem to go out the window (or at least get vastly watered down)
in the pursuit of profit. I think it's pretty inevitable, and I wish companies
would just admit to it.

~~~
jiveturkey
do you remember a few years ago when CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) was
all the rage? thank god it's disappeared for the most part. i made it a point
to not pursue or do business with companies that put forward a CSR agenda.
it's such hypocratic BS, to be dropped as soon as inconvenient. it's a sign
that the company is itself a lie.

anyway, back on point, the turning point for google wasn't gradual, it was
sharp. yes they danced around china before -- i'd say this was required of
them, you can't properly say no if you don't assess -- but they stood up to
their values. it's ok that there were other factors.

no, the turning point was when they hired ruth porat. ask any insider. that's
when it became all about the benjamins.

~~~
shemnon42
How can you say they became ruthless at the exact moment they hired Ruth?
Aren't they now ruthful?

~~~
r_smart
Booooo!

 _Throws tomato_

------
cromwellian
I'm curious why HN users don't seem to have a problem with Apple censoring the
App Store on demand, blocking VPNs and other crypto tools which have real life
consequences for some in China. Seems like they get a pass for operating in
China (and earning huge yearly revenues from it, which would obviously be
threatened if they didn't comply) Is this just a grandfathering in? If Google
had never left China and merely obeyed censorship requests in 2010, would
people be less upset because they've been acclimatized to it?

I don't support Dragonfly, and I do fear the allure of the Chinese market is
influencing people to put aside ethical quandaries for revenue growth, but it
seems to me that standards are different for different companies.

~~~
creaghpatr
The censorship aspect is a red herring. Google is giving the government the
infrastructure to identify candidates for "re-education" via their Google
searches. Is Apple funneling dissidents to the government via their app store?

~~~
cromwellian
The answer is, we don't know, Apple is a much more secretive company with far
fewer leaks. But Apple does tens of billions in revenue a year in China, and
it's entire edifice is built on Chinese manufacturing, and so there is the
potential for tremendous leverage by Chinese authorities. If China asked Apple
to provide a list of accounts which downloaded VPNs in Xinjiang, are you 100%
confident they wouldn't if threatened with sanctions? Perhaps it's even via a
plausibly deniable mechanism, like buying keyword targeting on the Chinese app
store, and phishing people to fraudulent apps in a 'sting', while you look at
other way.

There's enough money involved that anyone should seriously question how strong
an executive's ethics can be if they've got a $1 trillion market cap to
defend. I'm not saying any company is superior to the other, I'm saying the
allure of tens of billions of dollars is a powerful motivator for weakening of
ethics, and I wouldn't even trust Edward Snowden's ethics if tens of billions
was on the line.

~~~
creaghpatr
I get that you are trying to sow doubt, but consider:

>The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project,
disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to
log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting
history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.

[https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/google-suppresses-
memo-r...](https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/google-suppresses-memo-
revealing-plans-to-closely-track-search-users-in-china/)

When you discover a memo like that for Apple, feel free to share it with us.

~~~
nostrademons
Apple's ethical lapses have all been on the supply-side.

Rare-earth mining, contributing to serious environmental problems in China:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/business/global/30rare.ht...](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/business/global/30rare.html?pagewanted=all)

[https://www.cnet.com/news/digging-for-rare-earths-the-
mines-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/digging-for-rare-earths-the-mines-where-
iphones-are-born/)

(Apple stopped mining rare-earth minerals in China in 2017, 7 years after the
NYTimes story broke.)

Child labor, with teenagers working 11-hour days to assemble your iPhone X:

[https://nypost.com/2017/11/21/apple-has-been-using-teen-
labo...](https://nypost.com/2017/11/21/apple-has-been-using-teen-labor-to-
assemble-the-iphone-x/)

Child-labor in the mining of rare-earths:

[http://fortune.com/2017/03/03/apple-cobalt-child-
labor/](http://fortune.com/2017/03/03/apple-cobalt-child-labor/)

~~~
djrogers
These are not _Apple’s_ ethical lapses - they are the failure of an entire
industry. An industry, it’s worth noting, that Apple has been extremely
transparent about, and has worked to fix. Also worth noting that Apple’s
suppliers have improved dramatically in recent years - something that can’t be
said about most other manufacturers.

------
iamdave
Honest question:

Google working on project Dragonfly, a service that-according to the article:
'would blacklist phrases like “human rights,” “student protest,” and “Nobel
Prize.”'

People are (rightly) bothered by this.

Facebook and Twitter tell Alex Jones to pound sand.

People argue "Private corporations don't have to give anyone a platform".

I'm not here to promote the idea that the members of the first group are
automatically members of the second, some overlap could probably be
found...probably.

Why does the first get so much coverage and ultimately ending up in The
Intercept with an inferred tone of apoplectic disappointment-and in some
cases-anger towards Google, but coverage of the latter seems to be glee,
jubilation and almost schadenfreude?

Note that I'm not making any sort of value judgments about Alex Jones'
politics or statements, suggesting that I agree with his views, or that even
that he may be right about gay frogs (this really shouldn't have to be said,
it should be painfully obvious but I'm covering my ass out of trained habit:
unless one explicitly says "I am not supporting this person", _someone_ will
come out of the woodwork and make the association because it's easier to
debate). I'm pointing to actions of corporations and our responses to them:
between the two things here, I'm hard pressed to find a difference beyond a
matter of _scale_ between what Google is doing and what Facebook and Twitter
have already done.

~~~
dumbfoundded
The difference is intolerance. I don't think the problem with Alex Jone's is
the subject matter or beliefs but the advocation of violence and spread of
intolerance, hate, and misinformation. Freedom of speech is not without
reasonable restriction. You cannot yell "fire" in a crowded movie theater
without punishment.

Silencing Jones on these platforms in my opinion amounts to good housekeeping
allowing others to actually express their opinions without manipulation. Part
of an intellectually open and honest society is banishing those who seek to
manipulate it.

~~~
adventured
You're conflating two entirely different things. Yelling fire in a crowded
theater isn't an issue of speech, that's an act of violence. You're attempting
harm upon people. Once you step into the realm of acts of initiating violence,
you've crossed out of matters of free speech, they're two different things and
must be addressed differently.

If I take out a bullhorn and blast it into someone's ear, harming their
eardrum, that's also not a matter of speech, it's an act of violence against
that person.

Holding someone down and painting a swastika on their chest is also not a
matter of speech, that too is an act of violence, for the exact same
conceptual reason as the bullhorn and yelling fire are.

Disgusting speech should be protected. The absolute worst thing you can do, is
try to bury that type of speech under laws. The US culture defeated the KKK -
which was once large and influential at its peak - precisely because the realm
of debate and ideas was firmly held open. Their speech and ideology was not
outlawed, their ideas overwhelmingly lost in the public cultural debate.
Extremely liberal free speech protections are why the KKK couldn't win then,
and haven't managed to resuscitate themselves in the last 30 or 40 years.

~~~
dumbfoundded
There's a difference between disgusting speech and hate speech. I like that
you use the KKK as an example. In your world view, do you tolerance a bunch of
people marching through the streets screaming: "Kill 'em all"?

It's obviously a gray area but you should read up on the paradox of tolerance.
The only logical solution for a tolerant society is to be intolerant of
tolerance.

~~~
dandellion
I am all for that, as long as it's the other intolerants that are not
tolerating, right?

I've since come to the conclusion that it's mostly pointless to talk about
"tolerance" and that it's the individual acts of intolerance that should be
addressed on a case by case basis.

------
molticrystal
Power Corrupts. Control is Power.

They were at one point neutral and uncompromising in their principles even if
it excludes them from a market, fighting for freedom of speech and being
against censorship, trying to provide the best information whatever it
concludes.

They now impose their biases, believe the power consumer doesn't know best and
thus change the interfaces of their products removing advanced options or open
standards, have biases in their search results, and are trying to make the
world conform to their ideals where possible, or compromise principles and
submit to illiberal societies if it means market access.

~~~
jiveturkey
> believe the power consumer doesn't know best

to be fair, often they don't

~~~
smolder
but then neither does google.

------
opportune
Better to be the ones censoring over a billion internet users than to miss out
on that sweet sweet profit

lol if any of these employees think they will be protected from the
repercussions of doing this. I would never hire or want to work with someone
with such cheap morals

~~~
zethraeus
Realistically, profit seeking corporations would hire them. Insufficiently
profit seeking corporations will be out-competed by ones that aren't.

They're also not becoming social pariahs outside of, perhaps, the vocal
liberal segment of silicon valley.

I bet they'll be fine.

~~~
opportune
There are a much wider group of political views beyond "liberal" where profit-
seeking censorship is a bad thing

------
gumby
On a technical basis I'm surprised this project was / needed to be undertaken
at all. What am I missing?

The reason for my confusion is that the search engine already implements
various "knock out" rules, for example:

\- it inherently makes a choice as to how to respond to a query based on what
it knows about the user ("Tyler" is more likely to refer to "Cowan" for me
while "Swift" for the little girl next door).

\- Though Google has resisted to some degree, it has whole swaths of results
which are not permitted in various jurisdictions (various definitions of "hate
speech") for example

\- New "right to be forgotten" restrictions and copyright attacks

\- "Fake news" attacks and complaints -- spam

Given that there have already been implementations (of varying levels of
compliance -- I believe many of the censorship demands are intractable) really
how would Dragonfly be different? Couldn't a censorship request from CCP use
the same API the RIAA does?

------
kodablah
> We are working with you to make sure your careers are not affected by this.

This is how you can hurt recruitment efforts indirectly. If I, as an employer,
avoid Xooglers to make a statement, even if it has no material impact to the
actual employment market as a whole, some people will hesitate before working
there in the first place. People should work on parts of the company they can
brag about shamelessly or any efforts as a tech community to blackball
developers of perceived immoral features will expand to developers of entire
companies.

Similarly, employees of these companies will now have to realize they are
judged by the company they keep so to speak. I will say Google employees,
compared to other companies, seem to have taken this judgement seriously.
Don't think "I didn't work in that area" will save you if "that area" comes to
fruition. There is not much pity for employees with other outs/options.

~~~
dixie_land
> If I, as an employer, avoid Xooglers to make a statement

You mean the bank statement you have to show your top dollar lawyer to keep
him on retainer for the discrimination lawsuits?

~~~
opportune
Since when is having previously worked at google a protected class?

~~~
ohithereyou
If I'm a startup and I am looking at two equally situated candidates, and one
has Google experience and one does not, then I'm going to hire the one without
Google experience every time based on culture fit alone.

------
baybal2
I can confirm that something is definitely going on for sure.

Since 2008, google in China were: coding mules, tech support for ad
doubleclick, sales for minor 3rd tier products. That was stable for 10 years,
but suddenly, since around a year ago, they began to talking about whole new
campuses, and rumors began circulating that country's top tier talent is being
poached through shell companies by an obscure "internet search startup"

------
tempodox
During the cold war, cozying up to the Russians the way Google is now sucking
up to the Chinese would have been rated as treasonous. How times have changed,
the almighty dollar sign reigns supreme.

(edit: slight change in wording)

~~~
clubm8
>During the cold war, cozying up to the Russians the way Google is now sucking
up to the Chinese would have been rated as treason.

I am a huge critic of China's human rights record, but "treason" has a very
specific legal definition. Doing trade with a country is not "treason".

~~~
tempodox
What would be a better term in your opinion?

~~~
mikejb
Doing business?

How many US companies do business in China, and have at least some
access/collection of Chinese users' data? Are they all traitors?

~~~
tempodox
I was asking the question in the context of my comparison with the cold war
era. Doing business with Russia then wouldn't have been called just “doing
business” either, especially if it happened in support of practices
diametrically opposed to our own professed values like Democracy and Freedom.

How much of a sellout or a cynic do you have to be to call betraying those
values for money merely “doing business”?

(edit: added last sentence)

~~~
afiler
Even during the cold war, Americans did business with Russia. No large
computers or munitions, but Americans still ate Russian caviar. There was this
call to boycott it at the same time as the Moscow olympics, but I don't think
anyone called it "treason".
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/01/31/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/01/31/boycott-
caviar/a1768462-9f6a-4f3e-a334-188e7ecd82b8/)

~~~
ArchTypical
Nobody was actively participating in oppressing the russian population during
the cold war. This attempt to dance around the issue is transparent.

~~~
mikejb
The post you replied to is a direct answer to claims about trade between the
US and Russia during the cold war.

~~~
ArchTypical
The post I replied to is making false equivalence comparisons. There's nothing
subtle about the issue being circumvented.

~~~
mikejb
The equivalence comparison wasn't made by the post you replied to, but by it's
parent.

~~~
ArchTypical
> Even during the cold war, Americans did business with Russia

ie A false equivalence.

Me selling flags to Russians is doing business. That has nothing to do with
the issue of what constitutes or can be construed as Treason _which is certain
kinds of business that ally against national interests_.

------
PhantomGremlin
Here's a summary of the current meaning of "Don't be evil":

re. the USA: No, we can't possibly bid on the US Department of Defense cloud
computing contract. because the contract may not align with the company’s
principles.

re. China: Yes, we want to build a censored search engine for Chine because
there are a billion potential users there.

To me the hypocrisy is astounding. What I don't understand is how Google's
employees deal with the cognitive dissonance. I guess they're real good at
compartmentalizing.

~~~
echevil
> What I don't understand is how Google's employees deal with the cognitive
> dissonance.

There are so many Google employees that I won’t expect them to all agree on
these things. There are probably enough number of Chinese employees who would
want to make such a product

~~~
topspin
> There are so many Google employees that I won’t expect them to all agree on
> these things.

At some level there are shot callers at Google that simultaneously reject the
DOD for "values" and green light Dragonfly. I'm left to wonder how many
euphemisms they'll need to employ to obscure their inherently unavoidable
facilitation of China's Social Credit System. Good news for Google is they'll
be ahead of the curve when the stars eventually align and the establishment
gets its opportunity to deal with wrongthinkers in the the US.

~~~
pteredactyl
God help us.

------
dqpb
I think this is a turning point for Google's dominance in search. While they
focus on reducing search quality in order to access more users, somebody out
there will focus on improving search quality.

~~~
indigochill
DuckDuckGo is already better than Google in some areas at least. You also have
SymbolHound which made it a point to support searching for nonalphanumeric
characters.

~~~
ur-whale
>DuckDuckGo is already better than Google in some areas

Mmmh. I do use DuckDuckGo as my main search engine, but I'm sorry to say: I
unfortunately have to fall back to Google quite often to find what I'm looking
for.

I'd be curious to know where they are better than Google.

~~~
hulahoof
Anything non-localised has been pretty good on DDG recently, much better than
a few years ago. I tend to only pull up google for searches like 'XXXXX
Opening Hours' and maps related queries nowadays.

------
cryoshon
looks like the main contradictions are in terms of the scope of the google
project (300 employees, full time), the amount the project has been developed
already (a very substantial amount), and the awareness of political issues as
demonstrated by the leading google employees on the project (more than enough
to know they're doing the wrong thing).

it also appears as though they are fully conscious of the prospect of social
censure:

>We are working with you to make sure your careers are not affected by this.

so, they know they're clandestinely doing immoral things. but google corporate
is determined to protect the minions from the consequences of being identified
as an aid to totalitarianism.

given that we don't have a list of the google employees working on dragonfly,
i think he's just succeeded in tainting the reputation of 100% of googlers and
former googlers.

any one of them could have been working to keep the chinese oppressed via
censorship by knowingly joining a new project designed explicitly to do so.

~~~
berbec
I agree holeheartedly that Google management should be taking major flak for
this and turn back from this plan, but I won't paint the engineers working on
this as evil.

I know the people working as full time engineers aren't living on Ramen
noodles and sleeping in boxes, but it's real hard to fight something when your
and your family's livelyhood depend on not fighting it.

We should champion those willing to take the extraordinary step of walking
away, leaking or pushing back on this; while recognizing such actions _are_
extraordinary, and should not be expected of everyone.

It would be nice to live in a world where anyone can stand up and fight in
this manor, but I just imagine an engineer who really, really can't lose his
health insurance and the inner turmoil they go through.

~~~
opportune
This is pretty funny. If you have a job as a SWE at google, you have the
opportunity to start working at probably 80+% of _good_ software companies
that are currently hiring. It is pretty cowardly to do something you know is
bad just because you'll go from $300k/year at Google to $200k/year somewhere
else

~~~
delroth
Other view on this: if you have a job as a SWE at Google, you might have had
to relocate to a different country where you are not super well integrated
(for example, only basic knowledge of the official language). Leaving your job
might make you lose your visa, having to relocate and lose a large part of
your social circle. Make that even more fun if you have a partner or kids or
whatever.

Of course it's usually going to be somewhere in the middle. But not everyone
lives in the Bay Area where you can hop between jobs and change employer every
week.

------
ur-whale
The Google execs who had big enough balls to walk away from the mountain of
cash that the Chinese market represents are all long gone or retired.

Larry and Sergei in particular are nowhere to be seen in these discussions.

The people left in charge are nowhere near having the kind of backbone and
ethics-driven decision making style the top management team had 8-10 years
ago.

What Google has become in the last 10 years just another boring evil faceless
corporation.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
> What Google has become in the last 10 years just another boring evil
> faceless corporation.

Has there ever been a company that made it big, big enough to be in the
Apple/Microsoft/IBM/Google class, that didn't become evil? To me, it seems
inevitable once a corporation reaches a certain level of success in the
market.

~~~
xvector
Is Apple terribly evil? IMHO they have always had a strong focus on privacy,
even in China, and haven't exactly resorted to 'evil' tactics.

------
gurumeditations
Does Google seriously believe the Chinese government will let them threaten
Chinese companies? Are they just planning to use it as a window into a more
technologically-integrated society to gain an advantage in the West?

~~~
reustle
I'm not very educated on this aspect, but could the US gov potentially be
pushing Google to get more involved in China for this reason? More data on
their lives.

------
bordercases
If we're worried about one country using a tech corporation's hardware to spy
on another, there is in some sense where we're denying the potentially neutral
or amoral nature of what it means to be a multinational corporation that needs
to consider the costs of operation in many different business environments. We
might be unwarranted in our complaints in this regard.

At the other extreme, there is the possibility of legitimizing the company
that operates in international markets to be aligned with a particular
nation's values, and that this alignment is baked into the core of its
business operations.

This option will probably leave a bad taste in the mouths of some hackers here
who resent a consolidation of government power over companies, given that this
smells a lot like some other rulerships in history that we frown upon.

But I'm unsure if there is a middle ground here. That's my fault if I'm
missing it. Can we really hold a global company accountable to our ethical
standards, which would not allow them to engage in the moral relativism
necessary to access all markets?

------
majia
I wonder how people would react to the following situation:

There are many Google mirror sites, most of which are currently blocked by
China. If the Chinese government decides to work with some of the mirror sites
to deliver Google search results in China, on the condition that the mirror
sites apply a government filter to the search results, what would happen? I
could think of three reactions:

1\. Block those mirror sites from accessing Google search results, but this
may be difficult since they could just use a different IP address.

2\. Do nothing. A censored Google is available in China but people can hardly
blame google for not blocking the mirror sites.

3\. Work with the mirror sites (for example, require them to display Google
ads along with search results).

------
dvtrn
_When pressed to give specific details, Enright refused, saying that he was
“not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of scope for that
project.”_

I'm not sure what is more intellectually offensive: that an executive would
say this, or say it and actually believe it would fly. A senior manager? Okay,
sure. You might not know what project outside of your division is working on.
An executive really shouldn't be this oblivious to their organization working
with a foreign government.

~~~
xvector
The intent _is_ to be intellectually offensive. He said it and knew it
wouldn't fly. The attitude is "this is none of your business, deny deny deny,
what are you gonna do about it?"

------
krn
I don't like the secrecy, but I don't mind Google being in China. Just like
with Apple, Chinese people would be better off with censored Google than
without it at all.

------
djrogers
This is insane - for all the folks out there saying that Apple and Amazon’s
recent statements have been vague, here’s your first lesson in Dodging 101:

> When pressed to give specific details, Enright refused, saying that he was
> “not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of scope for that
> project.”

Bravo - you’ve managed to make the parodies of Valley-speak look tame!

------
barnesto
who believes that some version of Dragonfly hasn't been deployed in the US?

~~~
codezero
What search terms do you think are being censored?

~~~
glup
any word that starts with a minus sign, for one!

~~~
pgeorgi
'fsck "-v"' and "fsck -v" return significantly different results for me.

~~~
glup
We should probably tell the EFF that there’s a great way to circumvent
Google’s censorship!

------
curt15
>Gomes referenced the sheer size of the Chinese market, saying “we are talking
about the next billion users” for Google.

In one word: "profitsssss"

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I am not defending Google. But, come on, what are they supposed to do? America
is all about shareholder value and quarter after quarter after quarter gains.
We created this beast. We share in some of the blame.

~~~
mikeash
They’re supposed to do the right thing even when it costs them, just like the
rest of us. They don’t get excused just because they’re incentivized to do the
wrong thing. Most of us manage to keep our morals even when it would be to our
advantage not to.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Also worth remembering that complaining about this is a very important action.
The market is amoral by definition, and values morality only as much as
participants demand it to.

~~~
mikeash
Yes indeed! The answer to “What are they supposed to do?” could be “Realize it
will cost them too much due to the backlash.”

------
JeremyBanks
[deleted]

~~~
opportune
I think this is a pretty good argument in favor of any large enough
corporation having its mission become corrupted over time. It is impossible to
maintain a certain employee culture over decades of employee turnover and
growth, doubly so if you have public shareholders.

------
writepub
Google employees' outrage is derailing profits and opportunities at this
point.

If the protesting employees think they're winning, they're patently wrong. One
hiccup in the market, one quarter of slow growth is all it takes for Google to
remove obstacles to it's goal.

As for shareholders & wall street, if Google continues to display impotence at
capturing obvious opportunities, money will move elsewhere, & said slow growth
of stock will happen

~~~
kopo
Well it's good to see. The transition from the "endless growth" and scale
story to a sustainablity story is going to cause major tension given much more
than just the financial stakes involved.

There is no point talking about controlling the world's temperature if every
exec in a corporation is programmed by the stock market to robotically keep
things mindlessly scaling.

But from experience I also know the exec class when under attack are well
trained to just get defensive/batton down the hatches and do nothing. They
will change their minds only when everyone is on the same page solution wise.

So rather than just be satisfied with the Us Vs them narratives, focus has to
shift to solutions. The Chinese have to be pushed to have these discussions in
the open about what they want and why it's good.

~~~
writepub
The Chinese aren't the ones pleading for a Google search solution. They won't
talk about squat.

Google will, however, need to talk to curious investors on missing billion
dollar opportunities while Bing goes about serving search without a fuss in
China

~~~
kopo
You need to use some imagination here.

They are clearly giving Google a list or a process to follow. Make them own
it. Publish the rules and regulations and let the world and Chinese people see
it. Let people also see what Microsoft or whoever else is happy to accept.

They aren't pulling these censored words and processes out of their ass. They
have methods to decide what causes "social instability" or whatever. Just as
pressure is mounting on Facebook Twitter and YouTube framing similar rules in
an ivory tower, the pressure has mount on the Chinese too. Their own people
will increasingly have things to say about it.

Everyone benefits if the process is pushed to be transparent esp now since the
unintended consequences of big tech on society are becoming more and more
clearer.

