My response to Jeff Jarvis' comments on the Google-China showdown:
This is not Google standing up for free speech. It could have done that years ago. It's about Google standing up against attacks. This is a much more serious issue.
I think we would all get a better grasp of what is going on to recognize that the censorship aspect of this conflict is a side show.
Google.cn censorship has never mattered -- not because of market share. Anyone who cared could reach Google.com by using proxy servers or VPN. Millions do. Besides, Google had a choice: censor Google.cn or break the law and get out of the largest market in the world.
Criticisms of Google for its China policies never made sense to me. They only make sense if you think companies should not be trying to make money.
So backing off of the old model will make no difference either. China will just kick Google out of the country if the showdown fails.
So Google should be applauded for taking a big risk here. But it's not egalitarian at all. It's about exposing China's nasty cyber attacks, general corporate insecurity (threatening the Cloud move, among many other things), and Google's lack of patience with China's habit of blocking YouTube and Blogger.
Google deserves credit for standing up against China's anti-Internet and anti-business policies. It has nothing to do with censorship and human rights.
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Comments (2)
As usual, we don't fully disagree. Here's what I said in response on my blog:
There's a chicken v. egg debate about what's leading this: the attacks or the censorship. I agree that the censorship is a tool in this power struggle; it clearly was not the catalyst or it could have been four years ago. But I think it's also evident --see Sergey Brin four years ago -- that Google, despite its public pronouncements about a crippled internet being better than no internet, struggled internally with its China policy. Slapping China over censorship is now a way to bring make the fight about attacks about China. Pick your sin -- attacks, censorship (or the death penalty or repression of dissent or dangerous and fatal products) -- somebody -- Google -- finally had the balls to make China the issue. I've sat in WEF meeting where some have shushed me and others for daring to criticize China: it's a Chinese thing; you wouldn't understand. Well, bullshit, it's a human thing; it's about rights (pick yours).
I think the belief that censoring the .cn version didn't matter because people are adept at using proxies, etc. is mistaken, in part.
Defaults matter. And principles matter, even if they come form profit-seekers.
(My thoughts from more than a year ago: http://www.scribd.com/doc/12599470/Freedom-Fighters-The-Role-of-Internet-Corporations-in-Promoting-Digital-Freedoms-by-Kevin-Donovan-Updated)