Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

No they didn't, both Facebook and Google decided to quit themselves. Remember Dragonfly? Google just tried to get back into China THIS YEAR and was blocked by the US government. It's the US that's closing access to China not the other way around.



Wrong, Facebook was blocked in China following the July 2009 Ürümqi riots because Facebook refused to release information about Xinjiang independence activists.

In March 2009, China blocked access to Google's YouTube due to footage showing Chinese security forces beating Tibetans. Access to other Google online services was denied to users arbitrarily.

The search engine remained operational under the condition that the government could filter the search results. In January 2010, Google announced that, in response to a Chinese-originated hacking attack on them and other US tech companies, they were no longer willing to censor searches in China and would pull out of the country completely.

Also, the government didn't "block" Dragonfly. Google terminated the project after its own employees protested it and politicians criticized it.

(All the above from Wikipedia either as direct quotes or paraphrased for brevity.)


[flagged]


The companies may have been unblocked if they'd handed over information potentially leading to death of the protestors AND allowed the Chinese state to continue hacking their systems.

If we're not being disingenuous, that's like telling your coworker: "If you come into work today, I'll kill this bystander and rob your house," and then saying: "Hmm, I guess they decided by themselves to not to come into work today."

(And apparently, Facebook has tried multiple times since to re-enter China in one form or another, and China has either refused or quickly re-banned them: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/25/17612162/facebook-technol...)


Luckily we don't live in a cyberpunk world where corporations are above the state. TikTok is obedient to the state and is still getting banned, the US has no excuses.


> Remember Dragonfly? Google just tried to get back into China THIS YEAR and was blocked by the US government.

Could you substantiate this claim? Regarding China and Dragonfly, I only remember there being employee and governmental criticism, but no outright ban from doing business in China: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/27/google-...


Oh please like we need a formal ban to shut things down, it's like America not banning tiktok right?

There were hearings and calls by US politicians to stop Dragonfly, after which it was stopped.


China bot




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: