Questions:
1. What is the reason for the strict implementation of censorship in china?
- According to the article, censorship is defined as a prohibition or restriction to access to
information that is believed to threaten the political, social or moral order. China wants to censor
the objectionable content that can be found in internet without saying the reason for it. This
censorship contradicts the Google’s corporate ethical standards. At first, Google allowed China to
censored its engine but it is said in the article that Google will no longer censoring the results of
the search engine in china and by doing so, if China will still want to censor some contents that
they considered objectionable, Google will lose its one-third share of 340 million Chinese web
users. It is a conflict between upholding the company’s ethical standards and losing its users.
2. If you were Google, will you give in to what is acceptable in China and continue to operate in
the country, or pull out operations to uphold your own ethical standard?
- If I were to choose between these two choices, of course I will uphold our own ethical standard.
The reason is that these standards is what makes the Google today. These standards have been with
the company since its foundation and failure to uphold this will make your company’s a joke to
the users. The users are important for the reason that they are the one who brings profit to the
company but the ethical standards are needed for the company to continue to operate for a long
time.
3. Identify two to five key problems.
- First is the conflict between upholding the company’s ethical standard and losing its users.
Second is the company’s shareholders. The company should consider what the shareholders think
about the situation and as much as possible, resolve it quickly.
4. What do you think is the best solution? Is this solution realistic?
- In my judgement, I would like the Google and China to meet in the middle, to compromise about
the terms they want to fulfill. Of course it would be better if China will comply to the policy of
Google but if they will not give in, in my perspective, I think it would be better to uphold the
ethical standard and lose Chinese users. This solution is realistic. Google stopped censoring the
results of its search engine in China and I think they should continue to do that. It will be hard to
replace the Chinese users but I think this is what the company should do for a reason that if they
keep going back on their word, the shareholders will lose their trust in them.