background information
To be able to enter the Chinese market, internet giant Google launched a censored version of their search engine, namely google.cn, in 2006. They did this to be able to sustain competition, even though they were met with heavy opposition, stating that a censored search engine would be in conflict with Google’s motto: “don’t be evil’. On the 12th of January 2010, Google has said it may end its operations in China, following a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack on Chinese human rights activists’ Gmail-accounts, attacks originating from the country. Google’s announcement has lead to a tremendous decrease in its stock price. It is clear that Google is facing a moral hard case.
Was it an ethical thing for Google to enter the Chinese market? Is it morally ethical for Google or any company to continue operating in China with the censorship? Should they exit and lose a lot of revenues? Is internet censorship justifiable? What if it is used to protect people against harmful information?
Entering the Chinese market could be justified with the rationale of being able to help China engaging with the world and modernize. However, staying there and continuing violating freedom of information and giving in to government bullying is according to me unethical, or as Hillary Clinton states: “censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere.” I believe that censorship denies the people their right to decide for themselves. Those who value freedom must act to protect this freedom of knowledge or it could be impaired or lost. Justifying censorship by saying that it is in the interest and for the protection of the people, is to me a narrow view, because banning or controlling information is not the only way to fight incorrect or harmful information. The best way to fight misinformation is with correct information. By using common sense and properly teaching our children how to use the Internet there should be no need for censorship.
s645374
6 comments:
In my opinion, google has a good moral reason not to do business in China, because that would aid the communist government establisch censorship and deny freedom of speech, which is a moral value. Google has basically a non moral reason to establish itself in china, mainly for the mainainance of market share, but perhaps also the thought: 'censored internet is better than no internet at all' is given as a reason. I agree that the last reason is narrow and cannot be justified to do business in China. I believe this view would make this case not a moral hard case, but a problem of moral motivation (PMM). This leads to only one conclusion: For Google doing business in China is morally wrong.
Niek Stadhouders
312510
U1237582
From business discourse perspective, Google could not take into account its self-interest and public interest at the same time in this case. Here the public interest is the Chinese government. The overlap of morality, law and business discurses is a fact, however, this is discussible in European society. The moral categories are different in other countries (e.g.moral issues in Asia and Europe).When it comes to this case, it is a political issue instead of a moral issue I think.
ANR:138561
Name:L.Zhang
In my opinion, from business disclosure google it is not amoral to do business in china. As it is mentioned in the lecture, "freedom is therefore highly disciplined on the market". Because we are now talking about market in china. It is also know that every market is a set of rules and principles, as W.Dubbink said market is as any other human system it stands in need of law to constitute, support and maintain these rules and principles. In the china's market, they have other rules and laws as we do in western. Because china have another rules and laws, operting in china's market will make google evil? in principal article.
In the principal article is also said "a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack on Chinese human rights activists’ Gmail-accounts," I have also read some article on the internet, it is not only about the human rights activists, also other accounts and system of google have been attacked. But it was never clear wether the chinese goverment has done it. As we all know on the cyber world, there are alot attacks, e.g even Nasa headquater had been attacked in USA.
So I think the reason google quit china is not because of any moral reason.
In my opinion I think the case of Google is indeed as Niek said a problem of moral motivation with on the one hand the preservation of freedom of choice and speech as reason to stay out of China and on the other the interest of shareholders to gain revenue from the Chinese market.
In this case reason why the PMM has surfaced is because of the lack of overlap between the moral and legal discourse in China. I do not agree with the opinion that Google is not acting morally wrong if it agrees to censorship in order to continue to operate in the Chinese market. Claiming that it is acting morally right by simply saying that because it is legally permissible is not a good moral argument as we have seen in class. I think the reason for this discrepancy between the discourses originates from the fact that China is not a well-ordered society because as we have seen a well-ordered society is defined as a liberal society.
S341421
Different countries have different sets of rules and principles. To deal with this case we cannot use the view of western culture. Western Society is a well ordered, and there is an overlap of law, morality and business discourse. However this overlap will not completely apply to Chinese market because of the different principles. And Chinese society is not well ordered. Google has self-interest; the reason that quit the Chinese market is not morally reasonable.
S177575
According to the literature morality is not just culture related, but universal. Just like that it is universally immoral to kill another human being, it is immoral to take away peoples freedom to access information that is relevant for their self education.
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