China is nucking futs!

what happens if a company invests a bunch of internet technology and all of sudden wants to shut it down with no reason, etc. Does that company just lose out?

What if a competitor wanted to shut down a site, all they have to do is post objectional material and the site would be down. Interesting discussion

Kelsey

http://www.helpuu.com - the google-powered search engine that helps

just like any good capitalist pig
make money biatch!
we live in free capitalist society
as long as play by the rules

damn China - and all the other controlling communists countries

but cheap production there, good for business - woohoo

Do the right thing. Take a stand, refuse to censor … and if they block you, so be it. The groundswell of support from the free world will be so huge, there could be an upside on the business side. And frankly, China needs to see unified resistance from all major players (governments included), or they’ll be emboldened to do whatever, whenever, they want.

It’s good business to do the right thing. Short term, might be painful. But works really well in the long term.

If history is anything to go by, the resolution process followed by google will look something like this:

1. Find out what bugged China
2. Use all those whiz python programmers in Mountain View to build smart algorithms to filter out similar content in the future
3. Negotiate with the Chinese to unblock the services

Or, more succinctly, “kowtow”.

This is an area relevant to international law both because the tibetan wants independence and because Google commercial activity might be adversely affected by the actions of the chinese government (assuming it didn’t volutarily participated in it). Google can seek compensation if it can show that it suffered loss as a result of the actions of the Chinese Government or agents of the state.

But business reality says that Google will not risk going down this route. So nothing is gonna happen other than continued violence on the streets of tibet.

What if Google did participate in the censorship ? Well, at the very best you can criticize them but it will end up just like the yahoo case. ….i.e talks,talks,talks….but no sanction

http://www.techsted.com

I agree with Jess above. At some point, you have to do what is right, I know Google has invested heavily in China but i guareentee you that China does not give a shit about Google or Youtube or anyone else. Thier were reports that they were redirecting traffic from Google to Baidu anyway.

Google, PLEASE do not make the mistake that Yahoo! made, dont be a snake because of the dollar. I know, Business is Business but thier is always a human side we must also think about, without TRUST and feeling that you will stand up for humanity, you will eventually lose.

This will not stop until companies/governments start to stand up to the chinese government. Stop thinking about the dollar, what ever happened to the “old america” where we use to do what is right.

Sammie, what would be ‘right’ here? They’re banned– so now they say “China stinks we won’t participate until they change their legal environment.” China says, “Zzzz.” Nobody in China will know or care. So what good gets done doing that?

I personally think you go do business where it’s allowed, in the way it’s allowed, and that’s the best thing for the Chinese. To keep them expeosed to at least some of the 21st century. Blacking them out completely and feeling righteous about it is just dumb.

BTW whatever flak Yahoo gets about their work in China, they brought more attention to the real problems with censorship than any business prior.

This goes down to a bigger issue of news ethics.

YouTube is not a dedicated news site, you have to ask the question, should important stories be told for the greater good of the public? Or, should business get in the way of those important stories?

That is a question Google will have to answer.

I don’t mean they should do anything, I just dont think that Google should not remove the content or give the chinese government any additional information.

I don’t think they should leave china, that would be obvious!

Wow interesting article. As others stated, financially it may not be in YouTube’s best interest but in every other way, do not succumb to China’s controlling Communist government! If YouTube refuses to censor those videos, it will set a precedent (hopefully).

I really hope that Google and other companies have the courage to stand up and do what is morally correct. This will effect more than just the residents of China in the long run.

This is not unique to China. Censorship is everywhere. Don’t be naive.

Actually, if I’m Google I threaten to pull the plug now, and not wait. It would be a helluva statement to make as the Olympics approach. There are thousands of mini-insurrections in China every year. This just happens to be the worst of them.

More than three years ago then Vice-President Zeng Qinghong wrote in the People’s Daily:

“The Soviet Union used to be the world’s number one socialist country, but overnight the country broke up and political power collapsed. One important reason was that in their long time in power, their system of governing became rigid, their ability to govern declined, people were dissatisfied with what the officials accomplished, and the officials became seriously isolated from the masses.”

This was written in a year when, according to the Washington Post, there were 58,000 incidents of civil unrest in China.

So, yeah, now is a good time for Google to do no evil and threaten to pull the plug. It probably won’t matter — the Chinese government is one of the most obstinate organizations on earth, aside from the Bush administration, but sometimes you just gotta do the right thing.

Don’t sell China short, just that simple. There are a lot of misunderstandings. Come to China and take a look for yourself.

113,

I doubt anyone is cutting china short, they just want people to have some kind of freedom, Let us not forget that China, without trade, is nothing. They export everything to make things go, we import, I believe that it is easier to replace an the importation of goods (find someone else or do it yourself) than be able to replace an exporter (who else will they sell to, if USA stops, the country will fall). The US just needs a government which can somewhat stand up to the chinese, its that simple.

Beijing 2008 = Berlin 1936

James Fallows’ piece in last month’s Atlantic on China’s internet censorship machinations should be required reading. The bottom line for Google, despite all our nice moral objections, is that having somewhat censored media outlets is a more progressive option for China than a completely censored media outlet. Comparisons with the USSR are foolish; China is not a teetering regime, despite the near constant state of political disquiet (which, by the way, is mainly relegated to the rural areas with little or no internt access who have seen little of China’s tremendous economic surge).

Sammie, was true re import and export, meaning, no longer true. (eg., ask nokia, or motorola, or samsung, or well, you name it)…

Apparently, YouTube is only partially blocked in China, as many Chinese are still active there. See the most discussed video below:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=x9QNKB34cJo

Maybe we should reciprocate by banning the Olympics. If they are not doing anything wrong why do they ban the videos.

Better idea lets boycott China

Stop buying technology goods made in China and parts & labor from China

Like routers from cisco
iPods and Iphones from Apple
the HDTVs
etc

go even further refuse to use anything that works on China supported technology

and things that make us comfortable in the US lifestyle

we love our comfort zone

with our well deserved freedoms and laws

Go Domestic!

We dont need your stuff and your news !

we will teach them a lesson
vote with your dollars and even Euros & Yen is you can afford them

consumer bastards

They hate us and everything we stand for

Disclaimer I own equities in the some of tech companies mentioned
but I am short the overall market
and listen to Jim Rogers on Bloomberg

The argument always goes two ways.. like the US invasion of Country x, and y, and z, etc. Right? Wrong? Good? Evil? There’s no simple answer. It’s more of what you believe in.

What I was trying to make some westerners aware is don’t assume a privileged moral high stance and point fingers to what they actually have no knowledge. They do nothing worthy but cheap criticism that shows off their self-righteousness. You may read more about Mao Zedong then will probably not parrot such cliche any longer.

To correct: China does not only exist 50 years but 5000 years–you confused one government with one nation. It seems obvious you are ignorant of its history.

I acknowledge your care about others. Then do some concrete —otherwise, what is the value?

When your westerners invaded other nations, never heard you self-righteous people say, “peace, you third-class people.” You euro-centered whites slaughtered Indians, slaved Africans, atom bombed Japanese civilians. Peace? Is peace ever in the mind? What I can sense and see are hypocrisy, greed, and atrocity.

I agree with 113.com above, you can easily find censorship everywhere, don’t be deceived.

“What will Google do to restore access to YouTube and Google News inside China?”

Wow, People, open your eyes…. China is very heavily filtering and restraining access to the Internet ALL THE TIME. In this case, it’s just even more that the usual.

People in China are VERY isolated from the rest of the world information-wise. The Chinese government’s tactic is basically keeping its own people in the dark about pretty much everything so as to be able to move and act with impunity. That also helps create an extremely strong nationalistic feeling. It happens everywhere but in dictatorships, this goes up to many powers of ten.

>People in China are VERY isolated from the rest of the world information-wise.

Again, too much misunderstanding… come to China and take a look for yourself

@27 Socrates is right. If you have posted something anti-government in China, and then you receive a call from a stranger asking you out for a cup of tea, you are in trouble.

I am a good Chinese citizen and I never posted anything anti-government. Please don’t ask me out for tea!

@113.com. I live in China…

So is the little dip that you can see in the Alexa numbers for YouTube due to the blockage?

See http://attentionmeter.com/?d1=www.youtube.com

Why Alexa? Because it’s the only one that shows nearly real-time data. Compete and Quantcast are a month behind.

This happened in Pakistan recently too! I doubt that YouTube banned it’s website in China. Instead China must have blocked YouTube!

Google is going to lose 1.3 billion customers to censorship.

http://www.webepags.com

Well personally I feel they should take a stand. The longer that government blocks news sources for their people the more pissed off they are going to get, and the news will find its way their regardless of what that government tries to hide from its own people. Although it is hard to say, considering that most of China has been oppressed throughout a large portion of its history, whether it was from their own kingdoms or other from abroad. Although I have to say this, and that is most of the media we get here in the US is censored in some form or another, they just approach it a differant way, and spin it, and most buy into the who ha garbage. Chinese government is just more open about their oppression of their citizens, while Americans just do it to each other because they are raised to be that way.

>@113.com. I live in China…

That’s great–at least you’re reading from, and writing to, TechCrunch.. what else more do you want

Google won’t do shit.

@15 quoting chinese govt official:

“ …in their long time in power, their system of governing became rigid, their ability to govern declined, people were dissatisfied with what the officials accomplished, and the officials became seriously isolated from the masses.”

Sounds like America in 2008.

Google? Response? No. You do remember their motto: “Do no evil” (unless it will cost them money).

whatever is gonna happen there is one loser and that’s google.

if they cooperate with china people in the western world are gonna be mad and the good reputation and image google has (’google is my friend’) is gonna be seriously damaged.

on the other hand google believes in information and hence tries to connect the world with all the knowledge there is. so if they resist possible chinese demands for censorship and take a stand they lose the ground they believe in.

it must be nice to be larry page but not in this situation.

…

Since when do corporations dictate government policy?

How well is that working for the US (RIAA, MPAA, MSFT)?

Do you *really* want Google to issue demands to *any* government?

Sorry. This is *their* bag, not Google’s.

The governments of our respective countries can apply whatever pressures are seen fit to try and alter the perspective of the Chinese Gov’t, but asking our corporations to take up that boulder is not in anyone’s best interests.

That said, our values are *not* theirs. While our first reaction is obvious; The Poor people in China, so horribly affected by this… It is, to say the least, incorrect. Their values are not ours. Their desires are not ours.

Go there. Talk to them. the vast majority do not *want* to be westernized. They do not want our society and all of the bad (desensitization, lack of ethics, moral ambiguity, etc) that goes with it.

Bowing to china and censoring their content will only serve Google. Arguing that giving the Chinese people access to some of the information is better than none of it is simply justification for Google to make more money and will serve to misinform and placate the chinese people.

I would argue such action would make Google a co-conspirator with a clearly oppressive communist regime.

If they don’t want google, fine. The rest of the world is clamoring for it. Let them use altavista.

In China, they trade consumer / economic freedom for political freedom. “I don’t care about Tibet”, “I am free because I can make money”

In the west, they trade economic freedom for personal freedom. “You keep me safe to make money”.

What do you have to say about the USA curtailing the citizems rights, invading their privacy everyday, torturing innocents violating Geneva Convesntion, Raising the EPA limit (defying the Supereme Court), Killing millions of innocents in the nae of war on terror etc. etc.. America has a bigger dictator in disguise. Thats what worries me most than Youtube censored in China. btw they got no right to tell China (or any other country) what to do and what not to do when Western powers themself think themself above International law. Nope..None..Nah

Doesn’t the U.S censor our troops in Iraq from using YouTube?

The news is not correct. Youtube is blocked here but not google news which is what i used to get to your site. I hope google doesn’t abandon the chinese market. I would prefer to have a censored google instead of no google.

governments control the entire net, get used to it

Comments such as “governments control the entire net, get used to it” and “Censorship is everywhere” and “you can easily find censorship everywhere, don’t be deceived.” are wrong.

The above comments are ones of resignation and despair, and of believing the stories of how the world works based on TV shows and Hollywood movies. Telling people to “get used to it” reinforces this false belief.

This thinking is why most of the U.S. population were not surprised when they heard their government was spying on their telephone calls. They thought it was already normal!

The truth is that in the West, we are more politically free. We have a freer press. Anyone is able to speak out about stuff. If people believe they live in a totalitarian society, when they are not, then they will not be shocked when they wake up to find that they actually do.

This is bad, but my understanding is the YouTube is a bit player there anyway. FWIW CNN and BBC both get blacked out every time they run a Tibet story there too. James Fallows’ observations.

Erick and to TechCrunch, as a voracious reader of this blog and a Tibetan myself, I want to thank you for publishing this. Although it is more about media censorship, we’ll take any type of exposure. Tibetans in the community have new ways to expose the communist regime.

Technology is becoming something bigger than just creating business models or cool ’stuff’… it is becoming a weapon to defy those in power. So to all the geniuses, the coders and CEO’s — keep building and know that what you create may serve as something much more than ever imagined.

Keep on dreaming @open for business!! The U.S. needs China as much as they need the U.S. Just watch the results of them selling off a few hundred billion in treasuries in return for some stupid boycott of Chinese made goods and then see what it does to the prices at Wal-Mart and elsewhere across the U.S. economy.

We’re mutually dependent, the days when the U.S. could call the economic shots are gone. Watched the dollar lately?

Google needs to do the right thing and not cave in totally but pulling out is no option. Just play tough in return of being played tough. That’s the language the Chinese government understands especially in this Olympic year. It calls for smarts in international negotiations, not exactly a strong point for many U.S. companies or the government.