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February 01, 2006

IN DEFENSE OF GOOGLE

Thoughts on the recent flap over Google's recent censorship of search results on its Chinese-orientated search engine:

In an ideal world, what would happen is this: Google would refuse to censor its search results. The Chinese, being wonderful, benevolent, and willing to compromise when needs be, would shrug their shoulders, offer a resigned sigh and not block Google anymore.

But the ideal world is not what we live in. The one we do live in, is the one that we have to deal with. It is by the real world consequences of actions that we decide whether an action is good or evil, relative to the options that are on the table.

And the options on the table were this: Either the Chinese government would block access to Google, or Google would have to censor their search results. There's little room for compromise there. And so Google had the choice between denying Chinese users access to the most comprehensive search engine in the world or allowing them access to most of it.

Those are the options which Google had to choose from, and it is in that light that their actions should be assessed. And on that basis, I think it is clear that what Google did was the least evil thing in their situation, even if it was not the right thing.

Posted by Lewis at February 1, 2006 09:58 PM