>To be honest, I'd feel more comfortable using Chinese Internet, because at least their censorship is predictable, relatively fair, and only concerned with preventing the spread of fake news.
If the Chinese internet isn't that bad, then Google isn't bad for collaboration, and then the indictment of the West doesn't work. Likewise if Google is bad for wanting to turn in people to the Chinese government, then China is bad for having people turned in to them.
Even then, there's a certain irony to saying, "they're stamping my boot into my face, but it's not so bad because they're not pretending they aren't." In the US the government had to pretend that the NSA wasn't really breaking the law, because the people still have some power and the law some meaning.
Now, if you want to say, "they're both evil," fine. Evil is a binary thing, so it naturally sidesteps the argument about who is stepping on your toes and who is sawing them off. Still, Chariman Xao sure is holding a sharp saw over there...
If you forget that there are degrees of the problem you will not be able to find your way towards improvement. It's like gradient descent in optimization.
> Now, if you want to say, "they're both evil," fine. Evil is a binary thing, so it naturally sidesteps the argument about who is stepping on your toes and who is sawing them off. Still, Chariman Xao sure is holding a sharp saw over there...
I should have used a sarcasm tag. YES, I am saying they're both evil. And I'm disgusted that American's are being just as bad as the Chinese government. And if I must choose, I'd rather have the Chinese style of honest authoritarianism than the smug and dishonest authoritarianism that is encroaching on the west.
I'm not a Chinese shill. I used to be proud of my country. I used to actually admire Google. And now they are licking the boots of the Chinese government.
There are almost certainly innocent people who are dying in prison camps because of indifference, if not outright assistance of our Silicon Valley robber barons. When American corporations assisted in other genocides during WWII, we didn't invite their executives to give freaking TED talks.
And the smugness. At least the oil executives and weapons dealers who funded both sides of bloody wars didn't preach to us about how woke they were while they were doing it.
And on top of everything else, a large part of the tech community celebrates censorship now.
So please forgive me for seeing hypocrisy. (that was sarcasm).
This comparison is just like comparing apple to orange to me.
When a company blocks you, you could just voice your opinion on another platform. It's an open internet afterall. But if it's the government, the center of all power, that blocks you, you just have no other way.
That is the difference of having and not having freedom of speech.
If the people are really concerned about Google's and Apple's business with Saudi Government, they have the freedom to go for the third option. It may seem difficult but it's totally possible and viable. But under an authoritarian regime like China, even the freedom choice is an illusion.
To be fair, there's a grain of truth in this downvoted comment. Western elites increasingly turning in favor of censorship using blurry definitions of "hate speech", "extremist materials", "terrorist propaganda", "fake news" to persuade societies to surrender free speech. It nevertheless doesn't make Chinese censorship less ugly.
I was afraid that my comment will turn into USA vs. China. or _____ vs. China. That is all we do here on HN. Every single time anyone criticizes China, there is a preposterous tendency to "soften" the criticism by showing examples of other countries doing one or two things - pick and choose your favorite thing.
I am honestly frustrated with openly criticizing a regime, doesn't matter who, without resorting to comparisons. I almost put a disclaimer on my comment to avoid rat-hole'ing into ____ vs China comments.
