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YouTube Blocks Access to Protest Anthem in Hong Kong
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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Technology
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I don't get the premise of posts like that. We scold Google and other corps for not following the laws they are supposed to follow (data protection for example).and then we scold them for daring to follow lawmakers, when we don't like the laws they follow. Which is it?
I think the point is to scold Google for the harm they cause or fail to prevent. When the law is written so as to genuinely prevent harm (data protection, for ex) then I will scold those who don't follow it. When the law is written so as to be ineffective at best and harmful at worst, I will scold those who do follow it.
The point isn't to be consistent with regards to the law, as the law itself is not always either consistent nor "good".
... unless it is me that isn't understanding your own comment?
So we want Google and such to ignore laws when we think they should be ignored? Who decides which is which then?
Human Rights are higher than any law. Just because its law in China, does not mean it is correct to follow the law. It is not we decide which laws to follow, but it is universally in entire world the right thing to support Human Rights, regardless of any law.
The people? Democracy really isn't that hard.
Maybe we need a law to know which laws to follow.
If the nazis are in power and the law says you have to obey the nazis, is it morally right to obey the nazis?
It is literally either follow this law or cease operations here. Both would end in the song being blocked anyway.
Mind you, I wish we were that level of strict when it came to our data privacy laws.
Which does not change the fact that Google does it. So the reason why Google supports China and their anti Human Rights laws is, because of money. That's what we criticize.
As it is now, only people who read about it or live there and try to find the song will ever even know about the block. If Google refused and was kicked out of Hong Kong, just about every single citizen would notice and the government would have to explain precisely why they decided to ban all Google services over a song about freedom. I don't think the people in charge would last long if that happened, considering how integral Google's services are to many people's lives.
They wouldn't explain shit. This is an authoritarian government we're talking about; they have near total control of what information gets to their populace.
More likely they'd just accuse Google of supporting terrorism, and make a show of raiding their offices and jailing their local executives.
This is China we're talking about. Chinese equivalents to nearly every big tech service are more than present and accounted for, even often preferred by the local populace. Hong Kong is a little different, but the CCP still exerts near total control there.
It would accelerate the ongoing brain drain in Hong Kong at least, and encourage the stragglers to finally leave for more democratic countries. Banning Google in Hong Kong would be a shitshow for the CCP, but Google doesn't have any sort of spine or ethics.
Oh ok :(
Or Trump up some wild charges about tax fraud or something
This would probably make the entire world talk about it and it would be worse in China, because this would only anger people and fighting against the country. We won't see that, because Google wouldn't dare. The money is more precious than any Human Right, regardless of law.
They had a choice between complying to censorship, or refusing to play along and if necessary stop doing business in Hong Kong.
In the past, Google Search got out of China for the same reason.
It doesn't make sense to expect any kind of morality from an evil system. Google is just a mindless legal entity seeking rents/profits while the profiteers try to avoid state violence. It's like getting mad at a leech for being a leech.
I think the reason people are mad is less about "google please follow the law" and more about "google please do the right thing"
The post title and teaser text make a neutral statement.