Over the past few days, the stakes have been raised in the conflict between the Internet giant Google, and the economic giant China. In January, Google announced that it was considering ending its conciliatory practice of censoring search results in China (Google stops censoring, 2010; Searching questions, 2010). This was seen as a threat by the dictatorial Chinese government, which responded with the expected threatening language.
Google has now made good its promise of providing Chinese citizens with uncensored search results, as reported both on the BBC News (Google stops censoring, 2010; Shiels, 2010) and The Economist (Searching questions, 2010). Although continuing to threaten, China has not as yet blocked its citizens from accessing the uncensored information. The world awaits the next move by China. Will it block mainland access to Google's Hong Kong servers, which are supplying the uncensored search results? Will it take legal action against Google? In his interview with Steve Lohr of The New York Times on Monday, Sergey Brin, one of Google's founders, sounds fairly optimistic that the plug will not be pulled, that perhaps China sees the move to Hong Kong as a face saving solution for itself in the face of ever mounting demands from Chinese citizens for the legal right to seek, find and share knowledge on matters that concern them, such as their own recent history (2010).
And as Brin makes clear in the interview, the decisive question for him personally was censorship and the right to free speech. This reminds us of John Stuart Mill's insistence in On Liberty of the requirement to allow free speech (Introductory & Of the liberty of thought and discussion), which he defines very broadly to cover not only the right to peacefully express an honestly held opinion, but also the right to seek other opinions and knowledge, to hold any belief and to make share those ideas with others, always, but only, provided that doing so does not harm any other person or infringe on any of their rights, of which that they not be offended is not a right. Having grown up in Soviet Russia, Brin realizes the evil of political censorship and he is clear that his personal experience there, and the harm that oppressive government policy inflicts on citizens, was at least a significant factor in Google's decision to no longer cooperate with China's unjust laws designed to keep Chinese citizens in a state of ignorance and to prevent them from sharing ideas with one another.
What I didn't get around to noting yesterday is that apart from any moral questions, it is foolish and harmful to censor the internet and to prevent citizens from discussing topics that really are important to them and the political and social structure of a society.
And as Brin makes clear in the interview, the decisive question for him personally was censorship and the right to free speech. This reminds us of John Stuart Mill's insistence in On Liberty of the requirement to allow free speech (Introductory & Of the liberty of thought and discussion), which he defines very broadly to cover not only the right to peacefully express an honestly held opinion, but also the right to seek other opinions and knowledge, to hold any belief and to make share those ideas with others, always, but only, provided that doing so does not harm any other person or infringe on any of their rights, of which that they not be offended is not a right. Having grown up in Soviet Russia, Brin realizes the evil of political censorship and he is clear that his personal experience there, and the harm that oppressive government policy inflicts on citizens, was at least a significant factor in Google's decision to no longer cooperate with China's unjust laws designed to keep Chinese citizens in a state of ignorance and to prevent them from sharing ideas with one another.
What I didn't get around to noting yesterday is that apart from any moral questions, it is foolish and harmful to censor the internet and to prevent citizens from discussing topics that really are important to them and the political and social structure of a society.
I would finally add that Earth's post today, "Should Egypt bans VoIP services from operators such as Skype?", seems to address a closely related issue.
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References
Google stops censoring search results in China. (2010, March 23). BBC News. Retrieved March 24 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8581393.stm
Lohr, S. (2010, March 22). Interview: Sergey Brin on Google’s China Move [Blog post]. Bits, on The New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2010 from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/interview-sergey-brin-on-googles-china-gambit/?src=tptw
Lohr, S. (2010, March 22). Interview: Sergey Brin on Google’s China Move [Blog post]. Bits, on The New York Times. Retrieved March 24, 2010 from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/interview-sergey-brin-on-googles-china-gambit/?src=tptw
Searching questions. (2010, March 22). The Economist. Retrieved March 24 from http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15760510
Shiels, M. (2010, March 23). Google and China's chess game [Blog post]. dot.Maggie on BBC News. Retrieved March 24 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2010/03/google_china_chess_game.html
In The New York Times and on the BBC News, there are several other articles on the same issue, discussing it from different perspectives.
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