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posted by martyb on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the searching-for-an-answer dept.

iTWire:

Only a few of the search behemoth's 88,000 workers were briefed on the project before The Intercept reported on 1 August that Google had plans to launch a censored mobile search app for the Chinese market, with no access to sites about human rights, democracy, religion or peaceful protest.

The customised Android search app, with different versions known as Maotai and Longfei, was said to have been demonstrated to Chinese Government authorities.

In a related development, six US senators from both parties were reported to have sent a letter to Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, demanding an explanation over the company's move.

One source inside Google, who witnessed the backlash from employees after news of the plan was reported, told The Intercept: "Everyone's access to documents got turned off, and is being turned on [on a] document-by-document basis.

"There's been total radio silence from leadership, which is making a lot of people upset and scared. ... Our internal meme site and Google Plus are full of talk, and people are a.n.g.r.y."


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Inspired on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:21AM (11 children)

    by Inspired (6565) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:21AM (#718045)

    Just be Evil....

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    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:32AM (10 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:32AM (#718064) Journal

    Just be Evil....

    On the contrary! Google had worked very hard to develop a less harmful partnership--with the U.S. Government, with point of contact in the Pentagon, on a project to save American lives and decrease overall violence while simultaneously advancing cool things like A.I., and the complainers and naysayers lost their fool minds demanding it be stopped.

    So now that Google is going back to the China project instead, practically as the shrill squealers demanded, suddenly they are unhappy with *that* now? Make up your minds, oh mighty warriors of Google's would-be social justice conscience.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @03:59AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @03:59AM (#718096)

      > on a project to save American lives

      Because, as we all know, American lives are the only ones that matter. Bombing a few weddings and hospitals to avoid exposing the professional soldiers and thus maybe save two or three American lives? Worth it!

    • (Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:29AM (8 children)

      by shortscreen (2252) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @08:29AM (#718159) Journal

      not sure if serious...

      Does goog really have to choose either the US killing machine or the Chinese censorship machine? Bit of a false dichotomy isn't it? They'll probably choose both soon enough.

      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:00PM (7 children)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:00PM (#718192) Journal

        as we all know, American lives are the only ones that matter.

        At the Pentagon, I sometimes think that's what they believe. Human lives matter and we all share a planet in a vast emptiness, so you'd think that sort of attitude wouldn't take hold.

        not sure if serious...

        Sorry. Probably 15% serious, 85% sarcasm, I'd say. Yes, the complainers should be careful what they complain about, but...

        • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by khallow on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:33PM (5 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @12:33PM (#718201) Journal

          At the Pentagon, I sometimes think that's what they believe. Human lives matter and we all share a planet in a vast emptiness, so you'd think that sort of attitude wouldn't take hold.

          Sorry, there's no way a human life that I've never known about is going to matter as much to me as someone I've cared about for years. That relationship bias holds for everyone else on the planet too. Then you get into the fundamental institutional biases, like that the US military's purpose is to protect US interests not just anyone's interests (and that they wouldn't get funded, if that purpose were broadened).

          It's better to accept what we are and work with that, rather than fantasize about things that can't happen and fight against our fundamental nature.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by requerdanos on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:50PM (1 child)

            by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:50PM (#718234) Journal

            Sorry, there's no way a human life that I've never known about is going to matter as much to me as someone I've cared about for years.

            You are trying to set up a false equivalency, one problem with which is that I and many have cared about people for years from many different countries. Among my friends and neighbors are folks from Vietnam, Mexico, China, Honduras, Guatemala, England, Holland... People whose lives are "not American lives" but people who I personally value just the same, in contrary to your personal life-importance-scale.

            But when assigning value to human life--whose life is worth being saved, and who should just die rather than our lifting a finger to help--what strangers we should value as humans and what strangers we should just write off as pointless--that isn't how we do it if we value human life.

            If we value human life, then the determining factor is not "are the people to be killed personally known and valued to me individually, otherwise they don't matter", but "are they people".

            [People don't matter unless you know them personally, and] That relationship bias holds for everyone else on the planet too.

            I don't believe that position is as universal as you are saying here. I hope to God not.

            It's better to accept what we are and work with that

            Depends on what you are.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:30AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:30AM (#718535) Journal

              You are trying to set up a false equivalency, one problem with which is that I and many have cared about people for years from many different countries. Among my friends and neighbors are folks from Vietnam, Mexico, China, Honduras, Guatemala, England, Holland... People whose lives are "not American lives" but people who I personally value just the same, in contrary to your personal life-importance-scale.

              Except that your post indicates it's quite true. You speak of people you know and/or neighbors. You don't speak of the seven billion strangers you can't begin to know (unless, of course, you've watered down the definitions of "friend" and "neighbor" to mean any sentient being somewhere in the universe). Merely having a little variety in the people you happen to know doesn't change that you happen to know at most a few thousand people.

              But when assigning value to human life--whose life is worth being saved, and who should just die rather than our lifting a finger to help--what strangers we should value as humans and what strangers we should just write off as pointless--that isn't how we do it if we value human life.

              An obvious rebuttal to this is that if every human life is equally valuable, no matter the context, then more of those human lives is more valuable. I'll let you figure out what happens to the real world value of human life when extreme overpopulation meets extreme poverty (particularly, when society breaks down).

              Another obvious rebuttal is that this opens the door to all sorts of utilitarian arguments, some which support the role of the US military. For example, killing innocent strangers (as well as a bunch of guilty ones often enough) at weddings fulfills the will of 300+ million people of the US. Why is the value of those few strangers suddenly more valuable than the 300+ million people? If everyone is equally valuable, then they're orders of magnitude less valuable.

              If we value human life, then the determining factor is not "are the people to be killed personally known and valued to me individually, otherwise they don't matter", but "are they people".

              I don't agree that we, including you, value human life equally. Words do not imply value. Having some variation in your friends doesn't imply value. Whining that narrow focus organizations like the US military don't value humans like you claim to prefer doesn't imply value.

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @11:47PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 07 2018, @11:47PM (#718515)

            Sorry, there's no way a human life that I've never known about is going to matter as much to me as someone I've cared about for years.

            I've never met the vast, vast majority of US citizens, even though I am a US citizen. So, I care about them as much as I do some random foreigners. I don't care about someone less just because they happened to be born on a different patch of dirt than I was.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:51AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:51AM (#718548) Journal

              I've never met the vast, vast majority of US citizens, even though I am a US citizen. So, I care about them as much as I do some random foreigners.

              A lot of this is not that you care because someone shares a label, but because the shared label implies other shared things. For example, assuming that you have people you care about in the US, but not in Zimbabwe, then you'd care more when authorities jail people for their opinions in the US than in Zimbabwe because the shared label of US means that people you care about are at threat from those US authorities while they wouldn't be from Zimbabwe authorities (unless they happened to travel in Zimbabwe which is a danger that can be avoided if one so chooses).

            • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:53AM

              by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 08 2018, @12:53AM (#718549) Journal

              I don't care about someone less just because they happened to be born on a different patch of dirt than I was

              Very well put.

        • (Score: 1) by Type44Q on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:52PM

          by Type44Q (4347) on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:52PM (#718239)

          ...so you'd think that sort of attitude wouldn't take hold.

          Especially if you were autistic and/or had never read any history.