[Forgone Conclusion]

yeah, but you can't compare the two, and stealing a shipment of fones or whatever is differnt to a chocolate bar in principle, as is murder or mass genocide. Filtration of child porn is morally justifiable, while censorship of tibet, etc isn't. Think about the internet as a newspaper. They aren't allowed to put child pornography, or extremely racist m,aterial in it, and people are happy with that. However, Imagine the reaction you would get in this country if you found out our news was being censored to make the government look good

There is a problem with what google are doing. Of course there is. Does that problem override the business they would receive, etc? Who knows, that's down to your own personal judgement. It is definately morally wrong what the chinese government, which was what this was meant to be about

[where_i'm_calling_from]

well if its "definitely morally wrong" why start a thread asking people if it is?

[Forgone Conclusion]

The thread was asking people's opinions on the situation as a whole, not on whether that specifically was morally wrong or not, although i had assumed that would be the main focus of the discussion

[The Phlegmy One!111]

Forgone Conclusion, on Jan 27 2006, 09:12 PM, said:

yeah, but you can't compare the two, and stealing a shipment of fones or whatever is differnt to a chocolate bar in principle, as is murder or mass genocide. Filtration of child porn is morally justifiable, while censorship of tibet, etc isn't. Think about the internet as a newspaper. They aren't allowed to put child pornography, or extremely racist m,aterial in it, and people are happy with that. However, Imagine the reaction you would get in this country if you found out our news was being censored to make the government look good

There is a problem with what google are doing. Of course there is. Does that problem override the business they would receive, etc? Who knows, that's down to your own personal judgement. It is definately morally wrong what the chinese government, which was what this was meant to be about

Whether people are happy with what is ceonsored is besides the point of censorship. The idea of freedom of speech / expression doesn't have any boundries. And my point is even if what google are doing is 'morally' wrong, you can't expect a company in this era to do anything but that. ESPECIALLY as Tommy, etc have said if they didn't, alta-vista or someone else would.

[Forgone Conclusion]

Actually, freedom of speech, and all other human rights DO have boundaries. You tend to lose them if you break the law and in other situations - the right to live can be taken away if you murder someone for example. Similarly, if what you say cites racial hatred, then you lose your right to say these things

Also, just because everybody else is doing something, doesn't mean you have to. Just because all your other firends are taking drugs, doesn't mean you have to, etc

[The Phlegmy One!111]

Forgone Conclusion, on Jan 28 2006, 11:23 PM, said:

Actually, freedom of speech, and all other human rights DO have boundaries. You tend to lose them if you break the law and in other situations - the right to live can be taken away if you murder someone for example. Similarly, if what you say cites racial hatred, then you lose your right to say these things

Also, just because everybody else is doing something, doesn't mean you have to. Just because all your other firends are taking drugs, doesn't mean you have to, etc

Bananas are slippery. That was about as relevant as your drugs-taking example. There is almost no comparison between taking drugs because all your friends are, and taking control of a ginormous market, because if you don't, someone else will.

[Gabriel Synthesis]

Jizzmoper, on Jan 29 2006, 12:18 AM, said:

Bananas are slippery.

nicely put

this thread is ridiculously boring

[Droogie]

just for simplicity, lets assume that what google.com shows is everything it finds, and therefore what is shown in google.com but not in google.cn must be what it "hid".

when i searched "tibet", google.cn only had 81% of the number of hits in google.com. so it must have hid 19%.

but when i searched "rice", they hid 26% of the results, and hid 33% of the results when i searched "chairs". they must have decided that information on rice (which you'd think those chinks would love) and chairs is much more dangerous than on tibet.

oh but when i searched "curtis is gay", google.cn had 89% of the results in google.com. so they must have been pretty keen to communicate that.