Google's New Approach to China - Page 20

On March 26 2010 15:52 omninmo wrote:


good question despite your apathetic sarcasm.

as long Googs has been operating in china they were held to stricter search censor restrictions. google always assumed that these restrictions were the same across the board while it was in fact the case that only google and not the domestic search engines that were so heavily scrutinized. they were restricted, of course, to allow the domestic counterparts the opportunity to catch up. when google caught wind of this "bullying" is when all the controversy began.

google is understandably upset, they are losing money...lots of money now that their spiders' legs have been cut. they turn to the mouthpiece of big business known as "the media" who trumps it up as a "global free speech" issue.

now, on the surface it appears as though freedom hating red Chinese were bullying our beloved beneficent GoogtubeFace when, in fact, they were deftly killing two proverbial birds (i.e. western propaganda and foreign business competition) with the single censor stone.

On March 26 2010 18:01 endy wrote:


Yes you can. But when open the search results the website is blocked.
The funniest part is that if you click on the 百度快照 link (cached page) you can view the cached copy of the page saved by Baidu.

So Baidu is even the easiest way to read censored content lol.

On March 26 2010 18:11 endy wrote:


You are wrong, please refer to my post on previous page (which was posted while you were typing your post, no offence )

On March 26 2010 17:38 Klogon wrote:
I disagree. I believe corporations such as Google have enough influence that they really use their power to do good in the world. "Don't be evil" is Google's motto. Yeah for sure countries are going to hate it when these businessmen come in and try to "infringe" upon their sovereignty, but if they truly are blatantly breaking many of the agreements found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, perhaps its good that they are reminded of that fact every time they engage in lucrative deals with international corporations.

When they reject such proposals in such high-profile cases like this, it really damages China's image. And China's image is absolutely crucial to their foreign policy strategy. They've made huge steps in this regard recently, but it still has a long ways to go.

On March 26 2010 18:11 endy wrote:


You are wrong, please refer to my post on previous page (which was posted while you were typing your post, no offence )

On March 26 2010 18:51 mahnini wrote:
for some reason i'm unable to produce the same result. but clearly information is not being made freely available on that topic and if you search more specifically i think you would get even less hits. i get about 6 hits with tiananmen square protest.

On March 26 2010 00:38 omninmo wrote:


Cultural lesson:

China sees facetuboogle and thinks "what a great idea. i can make one of those"
Western folks see facetuboogle and think "why didn't i think of that... i coulda been rich."

the difference is in how we see intellectual property which, in china, is not property at all.
this is the core issue of this topic but since most people prefer to talk about particulars let us examine the google case:


The reason these sites are blocked is not to infringe on your human rights... Why are enlightened minds of the west so naive as to think that everything "blocked" or censored from without is because the rulers "hate freedom". The reason these sites are blocked is because there are chinese copies that have ties with money in china:


Sites and their Chinese counterparts
google.com - baidu.com both stocks trade for well above $500 a share with baidu usually fetching a higher price.
youtube - youku.com
facebook - kaixinwang.com, xiaonei.com
ebay - taobao.com
MSN messenger - QQ messenger
Twitter - i forgot the name but there is a link on the qq page

The list goes on.. It is not the technological capability or the "freedom of speech" that they block but rather the brand, packaging, and content from the western site . I can blog on wordpress here behind the "greatfirewall" even without my internet hax. Its not blocked because there is not yet a better chinese counterpart (a testament to WP's brilliance, indeed).

For every hip, cool new website with a service there is an exact and sometimes better chinese replica.. for instance QQ messenger and its features, speed, etc is better than all else. taobao does not have a symbiotic relationship with a bloodsucking paypal-esque equivalent, etc.

The market in china is at least double the rest of the world for websites, gaming, and internet stuff. Any idea how many hits QQ.com and baidu.com get everyday? Why should they let foreign companies rule the bandwidth and adspace in their country? There are still borders in this world... much to the chagrin the mainstream media's "progressive one-green-world world without border" poppycock.

Its not about your rights; its about money. Same as it ever was. China doesnt need google- that goes without saying. What is relevant is that she doesnt want it. I wish Tubeface Twittoogle was here (actually it is because thanks to haxx)...but it isnt because it is a foreign business that China would rather not allow to proliferate since the services that these operators provide also exists under Chinese names and brands.

Hispanic business.com says With Google Gone, Baidu Rules

The reason they censor these sites is to force chinese to use the national sites and um.. they can since GoogleFaceTube's services are not mandatory according to any sort of "global freedom of speech" (there is mention of such a notion in the OP). Sure they get to block unwanted content as well but that is only ancillary to the business of supporting the newer Chinese sites that do that same thing as western precursors anyway.

On March 26 2010 19:02 Caphe wrote:
Cultural lesson:

China sees facetuboogle and thinks "what a great idea. i can make one of those"
Western folks see facetuboogle and think "why didn't i think of that... i coulda been rich."

the difference is in how we see intellectual property which, in china, is not property at all.

On March 26 2010 20:16 Phrujbaz wrote:

Everything, without exception, that any genius mind comes up with is a small incremental improvement on already existing ideas. The western model of intellectual property is highly flawed, so much so that it is better not to have intellectual property at all than to have it in the way that we currently do.

The developments you describe are not because of intellectual property but because the Chinese are a nationalistic folk. The Chinese give extra points to a Chinese-run website just because it is Chinese. If it's also better than the western counterpart, great, but that is not the main issue. Since the Canadians don't really care if the website is American or Canadian, a Canadian start up won't have a lot of business since the American site has the first-mover advantage*.

It has got nothing to do with intellectual property. And the first-mover advantage doesn't exist in China, because the Chinese will prefer a Chinese start-up over the western site.

The government, by the way, is deliberately engineering this situation, helping feed the nationalistic tendencies with propaganda and censorship. They want to build a strong unified China.

* The first mover in any market has a significant advantage over newcomers. Facebook, having already existed for a while, will have a huge advantage over a new start-up even if the new website has way better features. Numerous face-book clones, with better features, have been tried, they just didn't work because they have nothing to offset the first-mover advantage.