Great Firewall of China
In order for the search engine company Google to be able to have access to China, they had to agree to censor their website. Since China is communist they censor the world wide web from their people. Supposedly, the company said that censoring their search results conlficts with their mission statement. Because of "selling out" to China, Googles stocks are falling. This goes to show that companies will do anything if it means making money for them as the article says; "It became a little clearer last week that there can be only one kind of company: the kind that makes money." In my opinion I dont think it is right that China censors their internet in the first place, but, I dont live in a communist country where you can't express your opinion. Google basically just sold out to censorship for money. Everything in the whole world revolves around money, whether you want to admit it or not. I think it was best said, when talking about the world and money, by Kanye West: "The people highest up got the lowest self esteem. The prettiest people do the ugliest things. For the road to riches and diamond rings."
1 comment:
I think you're being a little harsh on google for "violating their principles." One should note that China's watch dogs are not perfect and simply having access to any form of search engine, even if censored, provides the Chinese people with an amazing tool that they have never had before. Furthermore, the censoring is hardly perfect and can be reportedly bypassed by intentionally mispelling the words. If google was truely hellbent on "selling out to the evil communists", don't you think they'd be capable of disabling such an obvious oversight?
From an economic standpoint, one should consider what they have to gain from this move. Certainly, in the short term, bad publicity about this decision will result in market losses and public backlash. However, google has just gained 1.3 billion potential surfers, which spells big money for their advertisments. From an ECONOMICS stand point, it seems to be a sound decision. Morality is a matter of opinion and perspective.
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