
Google Scientist Resigns Over “Forfeiture of Our Values” in China - jessaustin
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/13/google-china-search-engine-employee-resigns/
======
llboston
Background: I've spent the first 25 years of my life in China, and the next 20
in the US. I know my opinion probably won't be popular, just wanna point out a
few things missing in the current discussion.

Most of us here on HN are entrepreneurs. We wanna make something useful to the
world and make tons of money in return. Just as we should look at what kind of
impact our products have on our users' lives, in the discussion of whether
Google should return to China, we shouldn't focus on the Chinese government
and ignore the 1 billion Chinese people.

If Google launch a new Google.cn:

1\. The Chinese government won't benefit much from this. Compared to these
Chinese companies, Google will always be an outsider. It will have to work
with the government, but won't be eager to do so, and might cause troubles to
the government from time to time.

2\. The Chinese people will benefit a lot! Without good competition, the
dominant search engine Baidui has become such a bad actor over the years. If
you are annoyed by Google ads, Baidu is 100 times worse, especially on mobile
devices. For many search terms, the first a few pages are all ads. People are
really fed up with this. In a recent survey by Sina
([http://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/s/2018-08-07/doc-
ihhkuskt26...](http://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/s/2018-08-07/doc-
ihhkuskt2689184.shtml)) 72.8% the users surveied wanna use Google if it goes
back to China.

If you were a farmer in the North right before the civil war, you probably
would still have been willing to sell to the people living in the south that
are against slavery, even if Southern government would benefit from tax.

~~~
ibrault
Your opening statement of "make something useful to the world and make tons of
money in return" is completely antithetical to all discussion in and around
this article. That idea of amoral profit at all costs is exactly the point the
employee in the article is refuting.

Point 1 makes no sense, Project Dragonfly demonstrates a willingness to work
with the Chinese government in the first place, so this does what for the
Chinese people?

And in point 2, your only claim of the provided benefit is less annoying ads?
Really? This is not a very convincing argument and reads like standard HN
Chinese astroturfing...

~~~
netheril96
> Point 1 makes no sense

Because all the companies operating in China already cooperate with the
Chinese government. Google entering or not entering China changes nothing
about the control of the Chinese government over its people.

> so this does what for the Chinese people?

Bringing a better search engine back while leaving everything else (like
censorship) at its status quo.

------
n1231231231234
> At that time, Google co-founder Sergey Brin made clear that he was strongly
> opposed to the censorship. Brin had spent part of his childhood in the
> Soviet Union, and said that he was “particularly sensitive to the stifling
> of individual liberties” due to his family’s experiences there. In 2010,
> after the company pulled its search engine out of China, Brin told the Wall
> Street Journal that “with respect to censorship, with respect to
> surveillance of dissidents” he saw “earmarks of totalitarianism [in China],
> and I find that personally quite troubling.”

Poulson's view seems to align with Brin's view from 2010. I wonder what Brin
would have to say about the issue today, because the facts in China have not
changed much since 2010, certainly not to the better.

~~~
jonas21
> I wonder what Brin would have to say about the issue today, because the
> facts in China have not changed much since 2010, certainly not to the
> better.

I wonder about this too.

By this point, it's pretty clear that Google's strategy of leaving China
hasn't led to any improvement in China with respect to censorship and
individual liberties. Instead, Chinese companies that are willing to do
whatever the Chinese government wants without question have filled the gap
that Google left.

I wonder if he's concluded that this strategy is a failure and the best way to
improve conditions is to re-enter China, even if it means playing by their
rules.

~~~
sampo
These are not easy questions.

Taking this to an absurd level: If the Aztecs still existed and were
sacrificing humans with their volcanic rock blades. Should we sell them at
least some steel blades, so their victims could die a little quicker and less
painful death? Or should we absolutely abstain from selling any weapons to
those murderous bastards?

I don't know.

~~~
pas
We do trade embargoes against North Korea, but not against Saudi Arabia. Maybe
because the latter is (or seems) less brutal.

Before a certain size and/or complexity use of force to literally force
changes seems like the best option. But above that, there's no point in waging
a war for more world happiness.

And then, on the other end of the spectrum we have the sophisticated
autocratic propaganda machines (that are democratic in name), where people 4
year after 4 year vote in (almost) the same kleptocrats. Of course the
election system favors the ruling party, of course there's a lot of ordinary
cheating, of course the ruling party somehow manages to spend many times more
on campaigning than the opposition, but the brain washing works, so why not?

~~~
Bendingo
> Maybe because the latter is (or seems) less brutal Or maybe not [1] [2]

[1] -
[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/sa...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/saudi-
crucifixion/567128/)

[2] - [https://www.businessinsider.com.au/saudi-arabia-crucified-
ma...](https://www.businessinsider.com.au/saudi-arabia-crucified-man-in-mecca-
while-calling-out-canada-human-rights-2018-8?r=US&IR=T)

------
arcanus
I know Jack and based on all my dealings with him, I am not surprised he would
act on his conscience in this regard.

I'm not sure I feel as strongly on this subject as he does. Nevertheless, he
is one of the finest minds I've ever encountered.

------
ElBarto
I'd argue that what Google is doing is in the US's interests.

As I see it the choice is to either do what Google is doing, which means being
involved, staying relevant, and making a few bucks along the way, or to stay
away. In the latter case the only result will be diminished influence for
Google and by extension the USA, as that won't damage China at all, it will
just leave the door open for new Chinese tech giants.

It's called realpolitik.

~~~
nafizh
Can you expand on how staying relevant in China (acquiesce to the demands of
the Chines Govt.) helps the human rights concerns long time? And why should a
private company act on behalf of the interests of the US Govt.?

~~~
ElBarto
Whether Google works with the Chinese government or not will have absolutely
no impact on human rights.

The only question is whether Google and American interests want to be in the
room or left outside in the cold.

It's always better to be involved and informed.

~~~
geezerjay
> Whether Google works with the Chinese government or not will have absolutely
> no impact on human rights.

That assertion only makes sense if you assume that helping perpetuate human
rights abuses has no impact on human rights abuses.

~~~
ElBarto
No, the point is that if Google does not work with them then they'll do
exactly the same without Google.

~~~
ionised
That's a lazy argument and one I personally find morally repugnant.

It's no different than the justification some use when we talk about the
ethical ramifications of selling arms to middle eastern states in conflict.

 _" They are going to buy their arms from someone, it may as well be us!"_

~~~
ElBarto
I am commenting from a national interests/geostrategic angle.

It is amoral almost by definition.

~~~
toss1
National and Geostrategic interests are amoral by definition?

Only if you are an amoral actor that cares not a bit about human rights or
ability to self-determination.

It is very much in the interests of the US and every democracy to uphold human
rights and self-determination at every turn and every possible location in the
world.

Failure to do so enables dictators, authoritarians, and criminals. The fact
that we've often failed to do so, or do it well, does not mitigate the
benefits when we it is done well, or the damage when we fail.

And make no mistake, failure is what you are pushing.

The only question is whether you are doing it right now as a shill for the
CCP, or only because you are amoral?

------
hguhghuff
Whether or not a company / person actually has values is completely different
from what they say about having values.

If you truly have values, then your actions are aligned with, consistent with,
and demonstrate your stated values.

It’s easy to talk about having values. Usually the pretense is dropped when
the chance to advance self interest like money comes up.

~~~
jimmy1
> Usually the pretense is dropped when the chance to advance self interest
> like money comes up

When money is also the means to survival, it warrants a little more nuance
than to wholly dismiss someone compromising in some way in order to live to
fight another day.

From my perspective, most people who "stand up for whats right" have enough
money to do so.

~~~
miles
> _From my perspective, most people who "stand up for whats right" have enough
> money to do so._

Those with significant assets may be _less_ inclined to upset the current
order; war resisters, peace activists, and protesters of all stripes are often
not from the moneyed classes.

~~~
ams6110
Right, they often have very little or nothing. Which puts them in the other
category of people who will stand up: those who have nothing to lose.

------
cletus
Honestly I just don't understand the short-term thinking by the West in
general and companies in particular when it comes to China.

It is 100% abundantly clear that the Chinese government has no interest in
"surrendering" industries to foreign competitors. If any foreign company gets
reasonably successful I guarantee you the Chinese government will do something
to hobble it in favour of a local competitor.

So by doing business in China Google is undermining its own values and
alienating a not-insignificant number of employees who feel pretty strongly
about censorship and human rights to chase a buck that they will never get
because the Chinese government will make sure that they don't.

The lure of a market of a billion people is an illusion. The game is very much
rigged. I don't necessarily blame China for this either. But perhaps its well
past due that the West restrict access to its markets to Chinese companies in
some sort of reciprocal fashion.

If the Chinese government wants you to store data in China to do business
there then require Chinese companies to store their data in the US to do
business there. And so on.

This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens (the Great Leap
Forward), annexed Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) and killed
thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests (Tiannemen
Square), the last only ~30 years ago. How quickly we forget. And now Xi
Jinping (aka "Winnie the Pooh") has abolished term limits and seems set to
install himself as dictator for life in the model of Vladimir Putin.

I can't hope for much more than enough people take such a stance to wake up
the leadership of these companies but I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
coldtea
> _This is the country that starved millions of its own citizens (the Great
> Leap Forward), annexed Tibet (and now pretends Tibet never existed) and
> killed thousands of its own citizens in peaceful pro-democracy protests
> (Tiannemen Square), the last only ~30 years ago._

Well, glass houses and stones and all that. There's a country that eliminated
millions of its native citizens and restricted the little left to
reservations, abducted and kept in slavery millions of black citizens for
nearly four centuries, stole several huge areas from its southern neighbor,
has the largest prison population in the world (25% of the world's prisoners
for merely 4% the people in the world), had segregation for blacks until the
late 60s, dropped two nuclear bombs (on civilians), has gone at war and/or
occupied several countries all around the world that have no borders with it
and had done nothing to it, has toppled foreign governments, has widespread
surveillance that covers the whole world, meddles with worldwide politics,
secret no-due-process prisons, regularly murders people in sovereign
countries, they still have the death penalty, while the rest of the western
world has abandoned, and their cops routinely kill thousands of people every
year (especially black). Heck, they also bombed/invaded 4 different countries
just in the last 20 years.

And they're pretending to have the moral high ground, and even point fingers
to other countries! And if you point those things out, they go "but
whataboutism", to restrict the conversation to some other party, which they
present as uniquely bad.

~~~
on_and_off
Thanks for this comment.

It feels surreal to see Americans pretend they have any moral high ground.

~~~
cirgue
The difference is that we don't lionize the actions of our ancestors. We
acknowledge that the wholesale destruction of first peoples was a horrific act
of violence, and the US does not cover up the ugly parts of its history. We
talk about it openly.

~~~
meiraleal
Some of the ugliest parts is happening now and "you" are not openly talking
about it (Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Africa, military bases all over Europe,
Asia, Latin America, etc).

American government is killing thousands more people yearly then Chinese for a
long, long time.

~~~
cirgue
Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria are all debated vociferously in this
country, and though they have taken a back seat to the shitshow of our current
presidency, they are absolutely contentious issues in academia, foreign policy
circles, and in public. To say that the American people somehow don’t have
these discussions is absurd. Furthermore, your implication seems to be that
because the US government does things that are morally wrong, Americans who
believe in human rights are somehow not credible when they criticize other
governments in addition to their own. That is absolutely nonsense.

~~~
coldtea
>* Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria are all debated vociferously in this
country,*

"Vociferously" as in "some pundits talk about them but nobody really cares
about those things, no politician resigned because of them, no mass
demonstrations anywhere, and even when people talk it's the usual hypocrisy
show (when it's not just about the costs and the toll on our own soldiers),
meanwhile things get on as usual..."

> _Americans who believe in human rights are somehow not credible when they
> criticize other governments in addition to their own. That is absolutely
> nonsense._

Actually sounds very valid.

Makes sense, to get one's house in order before they can talk about others. In
fact that's where they should have more impact (and more moral responsibility
to get right).

But it's also the case that such "criticizing other governments" is used by
their own government as justification for all kinds of interventions.

It's this "criticizing of other governments" that was used to justify the wars
and interventions that made Iraq and Libya from stable if autarchic regimes
into today's hell on earth, for example.

~~~
cirgue
1) autarchic and autocratic mean two different things. The word you’re looking
for is autocratic.

2) The US is a democracy, is pretty diverse in terms of opinions, and the US
government does things that the people don’t like (just like in China). I
don’t hold the individuals of China accountable for egregious and unacceptable
human rights violations of the Chinese government. It is a fundamental
misunderstanding of US society to say that the people of the US are
inseparable from their government’s decisions.

3) You still have yet to seriously engage the notion that the Chinese
government is perpetrating wholesale oppression of a class of people simply
for having a different identity. Whatever the US does doesn’t change how
morally reprehensible that is. What-about-ism doesn’t change the moral
calculus here one iota.

~~~
meiraleal
> You still have yet to seriously engage the notion that the Chinese
> government is perpetrating wholesale oppression of a class of people simply
> for having a different identity. Whatever the US does doesn’t change how
> morally reprehensible that is.

The US systematically does the same to its black portion of the population
since always, sometimes in extreme ways, other times in soft ways.

------
halukakin
World needs more people like Jack Poulson. We all need to stand up against
governments which treat their citizens like the Chinese govenment does.

------
Dan_JiuJitsu
irrespective of any of that. Respect to the guy for standing on principle and
removing himself from a technology project he found ethically inexcusable. I'm
also a bit surprised more Googlers haven't followed suit.

~~~
Apes
I feel Google has become a company you go to work at for the fat paycheck, and
no one actually works there because the work is interesting or because they
have any belief the company is going to change the world for the better.

~~~
jonny_eh
Maybe people like to work on things that have a big impact?

~~~
ionised
While ignoring whether it's a positive or negative impact?

------
modzu
nobody can stress enough how fundamentally antithetical china's censorship is
to the very concept of the Internet.

that google, who's mission is to make the world's information "universally
accessible" would participate in it is a travesty.

i applaud mr paulson for standing up for his virtues and for the human race

------
nostrademons
Most likely this is a "Senior Research Scientist at Google" rather than a
"Senior Google Research Scientist", i.e. "Senior Research Scientist" is his
title (the equivalent of Senior Software Engineer on the research ladder) and
he works for Google, rather than he is a high-up at the company. He's only 32,
has been with the company for 2 years, and his previous job was an assistant
professor, all of which are credentials that would be roughly Senior SWE level
rather than an executive or department head.

~~~
frogperson
I don't think his age or tenure should affect the message he is sending.

~~~
oihoaihsfoiahsf
It is a much bigger deal if a VP or a CEO resigns over something than if a
janitor does, even if they do so for the same reason.

~~~
exrook
I don't think this makes sense, while the C-level exec may have a lot more to
lose measured on an absolute scale, the quality of their life will not change
significantly following their resignation. However, the janitor potentially
has his or her entire livelihood at stake and will likely struggle to support
themselves until they manage to find another job.

For this reason, I think if the lower-level staff at your company are quitting
over moral/ethical issues, you probably have much worse problems than if your
highly-valued employees are leaving.

However, I'd imagine this particular employee has a lot more in common with
the VP than the janitor and I don't imagine he will have any trouble finding
new employment following this.

~~~
oihoaihsfoiahsf
My claim is not about what makes sense. My claim is about actual reality.
People in general care more when powerful employees resign. It would be a huge
deal if Sundar resigned over this, or Page. It is not a big deal that this
rank and file research scientist resigned. I could propose a few hypotheses as
to why, but I'm guessing you're capable of coming up with your own.

------
supernova87a
If I were to take a contrarian view of this, I would ask: "What is the
difference between Google censoring search results based on the public
security laws of China, versus Google censoring search results based on the
copyright laws of the USA and EU?"

Why didn't this researcher resign over the 2nd instance?

~~~
394549
> If I were to take a contrarian view of this, I would ask: "What is the
> difference between Google censoring search results based on the public
> security laws of China, versus Google censoring search results based on the
> copyright laws of the USA and EU?"

> Why didn't this researcher resign over the 2nd instance?

Because they're obviously qualitatively different to a _significant_ degree.
Only one is viewpoint-based political censorship.

~~~
chillacy
I'd argue that both are political in nature. They're both cultural ideas
(copyright and censorship have no physical manifestation) and cultural ideas
are nothing but agreed upon ideas that unite us.

Copyright is a restriction upon sharing in order to prop up content creators,
and censorship is a restriction on speech in order to prop up social harmony.

“Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my
servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about
his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo
sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no
natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at
night.” - Sapiens

~~~
394549
>> Because they're obviously qualitatively different to a significant degree.
Only one is viewpoint-based political censorship.

> I'd argue that both are political in nature. They're both cultural ideas
> (copyright and censorship have no physical manifestation) and cultural ideas
> are nothing but agreed upon ideas that unite us.

You're wandering off into the weeds. The key point is that Chinese censorship
is _viewpoint-based_ , while copyright is not.

Under a copyright regime, you can express _anything_ as long as you're
original and don't do it by _duplicating_ someone's recent work _verbatim_ in
ways that aren't fair use. Under a censorship regime, you can't express a
censored idea, concept, or fact _in any form at all_.

~~~
chillacy
There are only weeds if you think about anything long enough. Arguing from an
existing moral or cultural framework is like fish debating the nature of
water.

For example flipping the argument above: under a censorship regime, you can
express _anything_ as long as it doesn't _threaten_ social stability such that
the greater good is harmed by your words. Under a copyright regime you can't
express a copyrighted idea, concept, or fact _in any form at all_.

To me the latter "can't express a copyrighted idea at all" seems a bit weak,
but so does "can't express a censored idea at all", since in both cases you
can express those ideas, you just pay the consequences.

Stepping back my original argument (maybe you consider it too far off into the
weeds) is that it's not possible to bootstrap an argument for moral or
cultural superiority without appealing to yet another framework like
utilitarianism or divine right.

------
drderidder
> “There is an all-too-real possibility that other nations will attempt to
> leverage our actions in China in order to demand our compliance with their
> security demands.”

.,.. And the country to make the most demands for private user data, according
to Google's transparency report is ...

~~~
mmt
.. subject to sample bias, due to including only countries where they operate.

Also, "the most demands" is, at best, misleading. To be meaningful, number of
demands would be a numerator, requiring a denominator, such as total number of
users, or, better yet, users multiplied by data.

------
ur-whale
And he's the one you hear about because of this article. My bet is a lot of
folks are quietly leaving Google because the moral compass of the company is
just _gone_.

~~~
ascendantlogic
extended exposure to public investment markets tends to do that over time. As
investor power grows over a company, all concerns aside from increasing
shareholder value slowly die.

------
gasull
Google Search is already censored worldwide: torrents, EU's "right to be
forgotten", DMCA, copyright filters, etc. It's matter of degree, not of
substance.

I find much more concerning whether the Chinese Government will use Google
Search for surveillance.

------
meowface
I think any of us as executives would have trouble making this decision. The
Chinese government's human rights record remains undeniably reprehensible, but
staying out of China means cutting your company off from ~20% of the world.

------
pentae
“There is an all-too-real possibility that other nations will attempt to
leverage our actions in China in order to demand our compliance with their
security demands.”

He's absolutely spot on.

------
educationdata
What Google really should be doing is improving the uncensored Chinese version
of Google, also funding projects which help Chinese people break the
censorship.

~~~
zaro
How is Google going to profit from that ? Or maybe you believe that Google not
is not solely driven by profit?

------
coldtea
> _Honestly I just don 't understand the short-term thinking by the West in
> general and companies in particular when it comes to China._

Let's make some money if we can?

~~~
contingencies
Google in particular created the general outline of the modern mobile market
by disempowering handset manufacturers from cost-effectively creating lockin
and platform-style ownership of consumers by (1) giving away Android and then
(2) holding the reins in a bizarre contortion of open source.

Unfortunately, as smartphones become globally distributed, 'free' market-
driven growth is slowing. To maintain growth, Google needs to get access to
the largest mobile market in the world, which incidentally is also one of the
most diverse and the least Google controlled (as Google Play is banned):
China.

Secondly, Google is under pressure from the market for the potential for
political or regulatory backlash. Management is therefore pressing for a
solution. [https://www.pymnts.com/mobile/2018/google-growth-mobile-
sear...](https://www.pymnts.com/mobile/2018/google-growth-mobile-search/)

In my mind Google is still a dichotomous organization with evil sociopath
capitalist leadership and weird little hubs of naive engineering who think
their experience and quinoa represent company values. (Only half sarcasm; not
sure if this is accurate but suspect it holds some truths) Applause to this
guy who popped the bubble and quit.

------
1290cc
There is a beautiful irony in an employee at a company which makes its revenue
from advertising, deciding his values are now at risk.

------
SZJX
Don't Google censor tons of results already according to the US law? Dare they
show any pro-ISIS website to the American audience? Dare they stop performing
all those DMCA takedowns? What's the fundamental difference between these two?
Each country has its own laws regulating the online space and neither China
nor the US is an exception to this. I really don't think any of them can offer
any sort of convincing response to such questions. Just another display of
typical arrogance and double standards.

It's exactly like how people would clamor to censor all sorts of alt-right
websites with glee, but defend all Trump-bashing websites to death. It's not
that I approve of any alt-right ideology at all, but if they are serious about
real "free speech", one would need to recognize this sort of double standards
asap. Otherwise it's just another laughable exercise in hypocrisy and only
labeling what helps your own interests as "just", exactly what the US
government has been doing overseas in all these decades which is roundly
criticized.

------
claydavisss
This is the dark side of demanding that tech companies implement feel-good
censorship here in the US (removing "hate")...we've opened the door to
relative standards and the filtering to back them up.

Sorry but you were all told you would hit this slippery slope...its fine when
the SPLC is having tech companies filter out "undesirable" content but now you
have PRC turning the same levers. You all demanded this door be opened when
you freaked out about "hate"....now it can't be closed.

What will be left of Google and the other techs when everyone has taken their
turn filtering out the content that "offends" them?

------
mankash666
Watch how his quitting impacts Google (especially bottom line) in no way what
so ever!

"All in all he's just another brick in the wall"

------
goblekitepe
Censorship is no longer anathema to the values of Google and other tech
companies, indeed neither to the values of the ideological Left in general.

The Communist Party sets its censorship standard at anything that would
denigrate the Party. Google, Twitter, etc. and ideological sympathizers set
their censorship standard at "Hate Speech", which is an impossible term to
rigorously define leading to political judgements in enforcement by necessity.

The modern political and ideological Left have far more in common with the
Chinese Communist Party than I think even they themselves realize.

The arbitrary whims of the powerful can never define what political thought
can and cannot be said in the public square if we wish to preserve freedom and
justice.

------
oh_sigh
0.00125% of the company that will never return.

