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Comment by yorwba | Hacker News Reader

For that reason, Googlers who oppose these kinds of projects should enthusiastically sign up to work on them, so they can have a chance at influencing the outcome. It may feel like the morally superior choice to avoid getting involved, but it just means that the dirty work is done by someone who doesn't care.

For the same reason, I don't think creating a censored search engine for the Chinese market is bad in itself. If you accept that the Chinese government isn't going to change its mind on censorship any time soon, you can still try to do your best within that constraint, e.g. by finding a site with the censored content that's not on the blacklist yet.

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This is blind optimism in the face of hard facts.

If Google wants to play in China, they will have to bend to the whims of the CCP. No amount of employee foot-dragging will change that fact.

> For the same reason, I don't think creating a censored search engine for the Chinese market is bad in itself.

This is one the arguments that got trotted out by Google employees last time Dragonfly made headlines. The CCP is putting people in concentration camps[1]. Dragonfly would help them do that better.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-...

They will have to bend, no doubt, but if they bend even slightly less than everyone else, that's still a win.

No, it's not. "Everyone else is doing it" is not an excuse to help put people in camps.

It is if you doing it puts fewer people in camps than the alternative.

The entire point of entering the Chinese market is to make money. Google will make more money doing what the CCP asks well and without question. Putting less people in camps and playing games with the CCP means less money or even losing the Chinese market.

Which will never be how it works.

You think the Chinese government will accept Google deliberately making it more difficult for them to surveill and imprison dissidents?

You're out of your mind if you believe they would allow this in any way. They would sooner turf Google out on its arse than tolerate any interference.

The Chinese government WANTS Google. Think about why that is.

You're right, it will be peace for our time if they bend slightly less: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time

That's a pretty pathetic and inconsequential win.

> Googlers who oppose these kinds of projects should enthusiastically sign up to work on them, so they can have a chance at influencing the outcome.

Incredibly naive in my opinion.

Google is not a democracy, its a pulicly traded company. It's no better than a dictatorship. Further more, a developer does not 'influence' the Chinese government in any way, which is what Google will be beholden to.

The good developers are better leaving to contribute elsewhere. At least when Google is nothing but amoral, unethical, grreedy developers with no social conscience then we can start treating the company as it deserves.

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