Other people will have a lot more insight into this than I do, but since everyone is talking about Google’s announcement [excerpted]…
We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
I don’t buy the cynical suggestions that this move is merely matter of bailing out of a market they’ve already “lost.” Scoble’s post on the push and pull of China makes good points.
From the academic side, Jonathan Zittrain proposed that Google might create its own opportunities to circumvent China’s constraints, with or without government approval:
My hope, and expectation, is that Google engineers who might have been a bit halfhearted about implementing censorship mandates in google.cn could be full-throttle in coming up with ways for Google to be viewed despite any network interruptions between site and user. There are lots of unexplored options here. They’re unexplored not because they’re infeasible, but because most sites would rather not provoke a government that filters. So they don’t undertake to get information out in ways that might evade blockages. Here, Google would have nothing more to lose, so could pioneer some new approaches.
[Update: via Jay Rosen here's a blog post by Rebecca MacKinnon covering reactions in China. One person on Twitter suggested in the same spirit that Google "can enter the anti-censorship market."]
(The filters in China are more of an inconvenience than a total block, but Zittrain knows that as well as anyone, through his academic work as well user-submitted data via HerdictWeb.)
Nothing to lose and much to gain in terms of publicity here, as Zittrain went on:
It helps realign Google’s business with its ethos, and masterfully recasts the firm in a place it will feel more comfortable: supporting the free and open dissemination of information…
It seems like almost too-perfect timing in a push that includes starting dataliberation.org, hiring Joseph Smarr, writing “The Meaning of Open” in December, hiring Chris Messina last week…
Either way, getting back to China, has there ever been a more appropriate time for a more appropriate company (or anybody, for that matter) to put more pressure on that government?
[Update: another post via Jay Rosen, explaining colourfully that "Google has taken the China corporate communications playbook, wrapped it in oily rags, doused it in gasoline and dropped a lit match on it."]
It isn’t just corporations. China doesn’t seem to give the UN or many other governments too much respect, as they demonstrated in Copenhagen (by sending a second-tier official to negotiate — if “negotiate” is even an accurate description — with Obama and a room full of heads-of-state).
It’s like they’re turning into the US.
James Fallows suggested (provisionally) that we might be seeing the start of a “Bush-Cheney” phase for China, i.e. “the government is on a path that courts resistance around the world.”
I shouldn’t have to say this: it’s going to be fascinating to watch as it goes on.
There are other aspects (e.g. continuing this thread and this one and this one too — trying to weave them together) that I’m turning over in my head but can’t quite get a solid feel for.
Can’t wait to see what people who actually know something about this stuff have to say.
