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Comment by ctime | Hacker News Reader

Enabling censorship and oppression should not be a race to the bottom - which is what you are advocating for.

I don't understand how any search engine approved in China could be "surfacing better information in queries" - they are all effectively under the same authoritative control. Are you placing your believe in hopes and prayers that real information will be "accidentally" leaked to the oppressed masses in China? How cute.

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You can make your same point without being dismissive.

How am I advocating for race to the bottom?

If a condition is already bad, why bother trying to make it better? ie:

> Any claim that Google would have helped China censor Chinese citizens ignores the fact that Chinese search engines are already censored

"...so it isn't helping, it's just business as usual."

The counterpoint is that having choice is helpful, especially when the choices include user segments, even if you don't experience it. Also, participating in oppressive behavior is immoral, regardless of the outcome.

My claim is that Google entering China is making a bad situation better

While I understand the instinct to collaborate, I don't see it. No one is better than Google at correlating and extrapolating data about people. Any relatively minor improvements that Google provides would seem to be overwhelmed by handing these new data gathering and correlation capabilities to the Chinese government.

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