
Google Employees Protest Work on Censored Search Engine for China - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employees-protest-search-censored-china.html
======
shubhamjain
I am lost at what Google attempts to gain with this. Even if you abide by
their rules, I don't think the Chinese Government would be very willing to
lose control of a crucial communication medium to a foreign corporation. In
the end, they want their companies to win.

Then, there's the PR disaster that's bound to come up once it gets official.
In a single move, Google would be conveying how far it has moved from its
foundational values. I fail to see how this would be a net positive for the
company.

~~~
x2f10
>I am lost at what Google attempts to gain with this.

Revenue.

>Then, there's the PR disaster that's bound to come up once it gets official.

Does the public care about privacy? Does the public understand or care about
China's firewall? Does the public have an attention span long enough to ruin
Google's reputation?

~~~
hectorr1
No, but Google needs to worry about a much more important constituency. There
are not that many people who know how to build something like this.

Most are probably wealthy, to the point they don't really need to work. All of
them can figure out how to covertly contact journalists. And at least a few of
them are starting to have qualms about the negative consequences of industry
ignoring the social implications in pursuit of profit.

~~~
ben_jones
Sophisticated software can be written by anybody and is not solely in the
purview of Google's flawless hiring system. Operating systems, physics
engines, 3d graphics applications, have been created by many not-a-stanford-
degree-toting individual.

~~~
kodablah
> Sophisticated software can be written by anybody

Well that's just not true.

> is not solely in the purview of Google's flawless hiring system

Well that's not what was asserted at all.

> [...] have been created by many not-a-stanford-degree-toting individual

And neither was that.

~~~
Retric
It's less likely sure, but possible is a very low hurdle.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem)

~~~
Humdeee
The 'anything is possible' rebuttal only dampens conversation. We can roll a
bowling ball back and forth over a keyboard to the same effect. Truly
sophisticated software is written by developers very few and far between.

~~~
Retric
You might feel that way, but sophisticated software has been written by
average developers in the past and it will happen in the future. The odds are
not great but the industry is well into the 100’s of millions of man hour
territory and unusual things happen accidentally if nothing else more often
than you might think.

PS: However, when what you say is literally wrong I don’t think it deserves a
detailed response.

~~~
Humdeee
I wholeheartedly disagree, as do many others evidently. But thank you for
pointing out how I must feel and then passing off your opinion as fact.
Perhaps we have different definitions of sophisticated software, that's all.

"PS:" Since we're critiquing responses, your initial response should have
never existed. It provided nothing of value to the conversation. Odd that you
would provide assessment of other's comments... but thank you.

~~~
Retric
Prove it, or even try to provide support even highly indirect support for you
opinion.

Might != Must. I would happy let honest confusion slide, but you seem to be
having trouble using the English language ;0

PS: Now, if you want to elevate the conversion avoid saying dumb things that
get dumb responses. Sure, you can continue to whine, but don't expect to get
any respect that way.

~~~
Humdeee
I want you to go over your comment and say again who has trouble with the
English language, lmao. Go take your ridiculous sources elsewhere, grow some
skin, and stop being so defensive. It'll do you some good in this world. The
only person saying dumb things is the one sourcing a scenario of monkeys
banging on a computer. =)

Edit: oh, and here you go, bozo
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law)

~~~
Retric
Ahh, as I assumed you had nothing to support your argument, but a typing one
must go.

Truly, a glorious use of everyone's time.

~~~
Humdeee
Another senseless rebuttal. At least there's no mention of monkeys this time.
My argument stands: you offer no value here. Go elsewhere, and take your
family of like-minded monkeys with you. And in turn, save all of _us_ our time
instead lmao.

~~~
Retric
Their is nothing to rebut.

> Well that's just not true.

Is not an argument. When you say nothing of value their is nothing to respond
to.

~~~
dang
What a shameful, embarrasing flamewar. Please don't do this on HN again.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
Retric
Huh, ok. Never noticed the _Don 't be snarky._ line.

My bad, I was assuming this was reasonably civil just snarky. But, I guess
that’s not ok.

------
justinzollars
If you work at Google and you have participated in this protest: Thank you.

You are taking a personal risk but you are absolutely doing the right thing.

~~~
Leary
I would hope they can sign this letter without incurring "personal risk". Has
the environment at Google changed so much that writing letters could risk
people's chance at employment?

~~~
reaperducer
The _Times_ article indicates 1,000+ employees signed the letter.

In some places I've worked, there would be 1,000+ job openings the next day.

I've been fired twice for doing the right thing. Once the state got involved
and fined the employer, which was nice, but didn't pay the bills.

"Doing the right thing" is so very easy when it's a movie or a book or someone
else. In real life, it can take months or years to rebound financially and
socially, so I wish all of these people well.

~~~
skybrian
Ok but things are very different at Google. Little risk there. (Or at least
there wasn't when I was there.)

On the other hand, the person who leaked this to the NY Times will get fired
if they can find them.

------
pricees
Not to be snarky but aren't they censoring at home as well? Whatever you think
of Alex Jones or whatever you think you think about him and his ilk, censoring
speech is for the feeble minded and tyrannous. Let's leave thought policing to
the politicians and the government.

~~~
badrequest
What censorship? When I search for "Alex Jones" on Google, I get...Alex Jones.

~~~
passiveincomelg
AFAIK he was kicked off Youtube. Which I think is fine and not at odds with
supporting free speech.

~~~
yacn
Youtube doesn't need to support free speech. They're a private company, not
the govenrment.

~~~
pmoriarty
People are really confusing a free speech issue with a first amendment issue.

It's not a first amendment issue because the first amendment only forbids the
government from censoring speech, and private companies are not the
government.

However, it's still a free speech issue, and it's still a censorship issue.
Just not a first amendment issue.

Private companies can still censor and can stifle/forbid free speech.

~~~
dragonwriter
> People are really confusing a free speech issue with a first amendment
> issue.

No, people disagree on the meaning, scope, nature, and purpose of “free
speech”, despite agreeing that “free speech” is a good thing.

It's true that the First Amendment (especially when combined with
incorporation under the 14th) directly embodies a reasonably close
approximation of one of the viewpoints of what free speech is all about, while
simultaneously looking like a narrow special case of one of the other
viewpoints.

But the nature of the disagreement here is not confusion between a principle
and a legal embodiment of that principle, but a fundamental clash of beliefs
about the nature of the named principle.

------
394549
> The letter is circulating on Google’s internal communication systems and is
> signed by about 1,000 employees, according to two people familiar with the
> document, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

> ...

> The internal debate over Maven, viewed by both supporters and opponents as
> opening the door to much bigger defense contracts, generated a petition
> signed by about 4,000 employees who demanded “a clear policy stating that
> neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.”

Are signatures still being collected on the China letter? That count is quite
a bit less than letter protesting Project Maven.

In my mind, trying to enter the Chinese market is far more concerning than
Project Maven. The Chinese government has shown ample willingness to use its
economic leverage to force foreign companies to adopt its stances (for
instance [http://time.com/5348666/airlines-websites-taiwan-
china/](http://time.com/5348666/airlines-websites-taiwan-china/)), and
subjecting Google, _our main portal to the internet_ to that pressure is just
too risky.

~~~
xiii1408
It's gotten even worse than airlines: they pressured 85C, the Taiwanese
Bakery, into espousing a one China policy:
[https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/08/16/taiwans-85c-bakery-
caf...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/08/16/taiwans-85c-bakery-cafe-bows-
china-boycott-threat/).

It's remarkable to me that the "feelings of 1.3 billion people" are so fragile
that they're unable to enjoy their coffee cake if the company that made it
doesn't kowtow to Beijing.

~~~
gaius
Also see [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/15/gap-sorry-t-
sh...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/15/gap-sorry-t-shirt-map-
china)

------
iforgotpassword
I don't get why this is such a big thing. I'm not taking any sides here, but
what's surprising to me is that I never saw any mention of Microsoft in the
comments over the last couple days, when stories about google going into China
again hit HN. Nobody seems to care what kind of deals they have with the
chinese govt to offer bing, hotmail or plain old windows in China. Have we all
just accepted that Microsoft is pure evil and would do anything to make a buck
or two? This is in stark contrast with how whenever a google related story hit
HN before, everyone was giving them shit in the comments about invading
everyone's privacy, collecting data like crazy, closing down every service
they ever bought up, improperly implement protocols or create new standards
hurting the competition. It sounds like the full "old Microsoft" experience,
but now everyone is super surprised and disappointed how they could possibly
do this move. I don't get it.

~~~
nrb
Google, by their own admission, was supporting totalitarianism in censoring
search results before they decided to stop doing so several years ago. I don't
see what Microsoft has to do with holding Google to their own self-established
standard of ethics.

~~~
iforgotpassword
So you're buying into the story that they only pulled out of China because
they didn't want to support censorship anymore. That was merely a PR stunt
since they knew that's what would resonate well with Americans or the west in
general.* But even then, you're saying that you're totally fine with Microsoft
doing this just because they never made a statement saying they don't like
censorship? Imo one should judge companies by ones own convictions, at least
when it's about fundamental believes of what is right or wrong. I guess I
still don't get it.

* (primarily because cn gov requested extensive access to their infrastructure, claims of attempted or partially successful break-in attempts, etc. When they ceased all censorship in China the decision was already made to leave, it was just for show.)

~~~
nrb
I never commented on the behavior of Microsoft because they have nothing to do
with the topic at hand: Google being held to a standard that THEY established
when they said they were getting out of China (at least partially) because of
ongoing censorship.

~~~
iforgotpassword
Ok I get that part. Still, Microsoft is in the same business doing the same
things, so to me it would have been natural if it would have been brought up
in this context. Just like when there's a post about a new Chrome feature,
people start comparing it to Firefox, or when an article about a political
decision of country X is posted, people start comparing it to the situation in
countries Y and Z.

------
dqpb
1\. Google builds state of the art censored search engine for China

2\. China steals source code and gives to Baidu

3\. China kicks Google out of China

~~~
danimal88
This is the part I don't get. It is my understanding that if you offer an
internet service in China, you have to give your source code to the central
government. I'm not super well versed on this but would love to learn a bit
from someone on HN that understands these requirements in more detail and how
google might try and work around them if needed.

~~~
hatergonnahate
I always find it amusing, give all source code? Google's monorepo store
billions of code. Good luck Chinese officials.

------
Arubis
I think this is the third time in as many months I'm reading about Google
employees protesting their employer's behavior.

One the one hand, it's clearly a good sign that employees are comfortable
doing this, as it could guide an enormous company to do better things for the
world, and the lack of a contractual Sword of Damocles over their continued
employment encourages the free flow of information and conversation.

On the other...were the first two times that your employer was found to be
engaged in behavior you found to be morally bankrupt not enough? At some
point, it's the rule, not the exception.

------
drb91
Silicon Valley needs to get into labor agitation if these protests are gonna
go anywhere.

~~~
bargl
Wouldn't software engineers need to unionize to do that effectively? I'm
asking from knowledge 0 about unions etc. So how would that work?

~~~
reaperducer
Organized protest doesn't necessarily mean unionization.

Look at the school walkouts in the United States lately.

Helicopter video on the news of 1,000 Googlers marching out of their offices
would do a lot more to raise the nation's awareness of the issue, and put a
lot more pressure on the C-level, than an internally-circulated letter.

~~~
drb91
I agree with the sentiment here, but PR driven pressure is probably not the
best leverage to use in all cases. There’s real value to having internal say
in the direction of the company you’re building.

------
headmelted
I don't see how Google can afford _not_ to do this. I thought the same when
they pulled out of China over censorship years ago.

Morally, of course its wrong, but what's the alternative over the long term?

They would cede the market to a more accomodating competitor (e.g. Baidu), who
would then have a strategic advantage.

Google's potential market share is (world - China - whichever other country
wants to censor them)

Google is big. It's not invincible.

~~~
skybrian
The alternative is to still be a huge and very profitable company outside
China. Really, they'll be fine.

Where does this idea come from that no matter how big and secure you are, it's
not enough? Do people just like drama?

~~~
CommieBobDole
They're a publicly-traded corporation. If they don't grow by a certain amount
every quarter, their stock will drop. Also, if there's a market they could get
into and they choose not to, they could be sued by their shareholders.

~~~
skybrian
I know "everything is securities fraud" is one of Matt Levine's memes, but
it's my understanding this is not actually grounds for a lawsuit? The company
has to have misled investors in some way.

(Not a lawyer, not legal advice, etc.)

------
staunch
It's interesting that this free exchange of ideas, and group dissent, inside
of Google is exactly the power that the Chinese people lack over their own
government. It really shows why the Chinese government is so afraid of it. And
why it's so necessary as a tool for maintaining the ethics of a massive
organization.

~~~
drb91
We’ll see if the free exchange ideas results in an ethic that reflects the
people who built google.

------
mooman219
Many of their competitors operate in China to some degree: Yahoo, Bing, even
DuckDuckGo until 2014. There's no shifting from values here, Google operated
in China until 2010 when it was kicked out, and this is just a move to make it
back in.

I don't want to be relying on the broken windows fallacy here however. We
don't know the extent to which the Chinese government wants Google to comply.
Since there are already a bunch of comments speculating the negatives, we can
do the same with the positives.

Let's look at the potential benefits of existing in China. Results will be
censored, there's no getting around that, but unfavorable, yet uncensored,
results can be prioritized. Support for Chinese related tools might improve
due to the increase in data. Translation could see a quality improvement for
one of the most spoken languages in the world. Google may see an increase in
revenue, potentially creating more jobs. Ads in China may provide an easier
entry way for Americans to advertise there. I'm sure the list goes on.

~~~
goblin89
There seems to exist a belief that China kicked Google out of the country at
some point.

I can’t find a record of even just the Chinese side claiming they have
“evicted” Google. Perhaps the “Google doesn’t want to censor; kick Google out”
version of events makes more sense with each year just because it’s simpler.
It also distorts reality, though, so I think reminding everyone (including
myself) the more mainstream timeline is worth a moment.

Originally Google China was offering the censored version of search to users
within China, which was a controversy. At some point a massive hack targeted
Gmail accounts belonging to dissidents and activists of all kinds (from
cryptography to Falun Gong religion). Google supposedly could’ve chosen to
keep the breach to itself, but did made it public the next year and cited as a
reason to reconsider its Chinese operations[0][1].

It’s true that Google’s competitors in search have continued to operate within
Chinese market. They have been facing the same issues[2], and by the looks of
the history of it many of similar events may well not be publicly known.

As of now the only Google service available within mainland China that I know
of is Google Translate. I believe it’s made available via servers in China, as
the latency seems on par with other local apps.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Operation_Aurora_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Operation_Aurora_and_2010_withdrawal)

[2]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/nov/14/news.yaho...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/nov/14/news.yahoo)

------
mciak
Wanted to highlight coworker.org here -- worked well for the Maven issue
earlier this year

------
InfiniteBeing
They don't protest Google's manipulation and censoring of certain Americans
though...

------
matt_s
I honestly couldn't care less about search results in China.

Why aren't they protesting about their technology potentially being abused
during election cycles in US? That is something that hits closer to home for
me.

There is some element of YouTube (and maybe Google Search results) returning
things and suggesting things that are intended to lead people towards whomever
is paying for those things to float to the top.

------
SZJX
Absolute BS. 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 that they have long
shown, nothing new at all.

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", they need to drop this sort of double standards asap.
Otherwise it's just another laughable exercise in hypocrisy and only labeling
what helps their own interests as "just", exactly what the US government has
been doing overseas in all these decades. Nobody would buy into such nonsense.

------
swerveonem
Do they protest by not typing? If not, then this is no protest.

------
throw7
really? google censors content in the u.s. it's called porn.

~~~
dragonwriter
> google censors content in the u.s. it's called porn.

You can turn safe search off in the US.

~~~
hnaccy
They still seem to hide things if you compare to Bing results.

~~~
lozaning
Or you're not giving the Bing team enough credit for their work in porn
search, and they're just better at it!

------
knuththetruth
I hope that between this and the defeat of Project Maven, Google employees are
waking up to how much power they have when act collectively. Hopefully, more
formal labor organization follows, so there can be an ongoing check on the
poor, executive-level decision-making that keeps pushing the company into
these unethical pursuits.

~~~
prolikewh0a
Not sure why you're being downvoted. This seems like an extremely reasonable
statement to me. Ethics seem to not really be valued in many large tech
companies anymore, as long as employee's can make large sums of money.

~~~
plainOldText
I’ll tell you why: because the op suggested labor unions. They are considered
harmful because it’s switching to a centralized decision making process.
Perhaps unions were beneficial in the past for workers with little to no
education, but for the “highly educated” software engineers living in an age
where information is easily available, maybe not so much.

~~~
knuththetruth
How are unions a centralized decision-making process relative to companies
that are ran like dictatorships by unelected executives? If anything, labor
organization decentralizes decision-making and power within a company.

~~~
plainOldText
For one labor unions represent people across all companies, whereas without
it, one can deal/negotiate directly with companies individually.

Also, nothing is preventing one from founding a startup which elects its
leaders democratically.

~~~
prolikewh0a
>For one labor unions represent people across all companies.

Not true, you can have a labor union for one company.

>one can deal/negotiate directly with companies individually.

Also not true, I have zero ability to deal/negotiate with my company and I'd
say this is a period where workers actually have less rights and less ability
to negotiate other than simply quitting which isn't really sustainable for
many people since 80% of the country is living paycheck to paycheck [1]. As we
approach full employment workers should be gaining more ability to negotiate,
but it's not happening.

>Also, nothing is preventing one from founding a startup which elects its
leaders democratically.

Lack of funding, lack of credit. This is always the 'easy answer' for
capitalists 'just start your own company', but it's really not that easy.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/most-americans-live-
paycheck...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/most-americans-live-paycheck-to-
paycheck.html)

~~~
plainOldText
> Not true, you can have a labor union for one company.

Yes, you can, but for all practical purposes I believe this would never
happen, as it’s unsustainable. I mean, can you imagine every little startup or
small company having their own union? I think the whole point of a union is to
represent workers across the industry, unless you’re tied to a huge
corporation, in which case it would make sense to have its own.

> Lack of funding, ...

So if starting a company ‘is not that easy’, why do people complain about
companies being ran like dictatorships?

It seems that, despite the hardship, these “dictators” have managed to
successfully bring something into existence and ought to exert more control
over a company’s fate, don’t you think?

And for the sake of clarity, I’m not denying the huge contribution of early
employees, just to be clear. I think they’re instrumental to any successful
venture.

------
econ4all
Google's pullout of China in the first place was their biggest corporate
mistake and they should at least try to remedy that.

Their absence from China didn't liberate the Chinese people and their reentry
won't either, they need to ignore the hypocrites and do what's best for the
company and for the long term they should tweak company culture and make it
clear that rank and file employees won't have a say in big picture corporate
decisions and planning, they already cost the company dearly and it must not
become a habit.

~~~
justinzollars
Its either "Organizing the world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful." or its a propaganda machine to maintain its position
in the Chinese market (which will be the largest in the world soon).

I prefer google stick to its mission and serve the 6 billion of us that
require free information to do our jobs.

~~~
hmmm5
Being the propaganda machine is the better option because it's going to happen
regardless of whether it's Google. Another company will just take Google's
place.

~~~
tivert
> Being the propaganda machine is the better option because it's going to
> happen regardless of whether it's Google. Another company will just take
> Google's place.

That's a shit argument. In a different context it's "someone's gotta run the
gas chambers, so I might as well collect that paycheck."

"Just following revenue" is the new "just following orders."

------
h4b4n3r0
Such desperate moves on Google’s part do not bode well for the numbers in
their next quarterly report. They knew there would be strong blowback, yet
they chose to do it anyway. That could mean other ads markets are
decelerating, which would be a very bad news indeed for an advertising company
like Google which derives 90% of its income from ads. Hence the desperation.
Disclaimer: this is all just a conjecture, I do not have any positions in
GOOG.

------
vackosar
Maybe Google has some plan how to actually undermine the censorship long term,
but it seems that it must be quite a long shot.

~~~
privacypoller
It's seems highly unlikely that this is some long game by Google where they're
going to "bring down the man from the inside"

------
wemdyjreichert
Glad they're protesting something actually bad this time (unlike US military
tech)

~~~
prolikewh0a
>unlike US military tech

You realize that US Military Tech goes into killing innocent people literally
all the time, right?

~~~
drak0n1c
Improved US Military Tech (sensors, communications, precision) can translate
into less collateral damage in operations. These ops have been conducted under
every president and will continue happening under future presidents, unless we
go full isolationist. The issue isn't black and white.

