I.
Names:
Ala AbuTabanjeh
ACSG 575
Essay #1- Analyzing Google’s Censorship in China
II.
Introduction:
In 1996, Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin as their PhD dissertation at Stanford
University. Then the company went public on August 19, 2004. Larry Page and Sergey Brin originally
named their company "BackRub", because the algorithm that Google using to search is checked with
“backlinks” to estimate the importance of a site. Thereafter the name had been changed to Google,
coming from the word "googol" which represents a number one followed by 100 zeros. Moreover,
at the beginning Google ran under the Stanford University website, with the domain
google.stanford.edu.
The official company's slogan is "to organize the world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful”. The unofficial one is “Don't be evil”. Google’s fast growth in China’s market,
after they agreed to censor their results, caused Google to face many criticisms over issues including
privacy, copyright, and censorship.
The most notable problem is that Google agreed to censor their results in China so they could
open a business there. Chinese government policies enforced any search engine to filter the
research results for some terms such as “Falun gong”, "the June 4th incident", “Tiananmen Square
incident” or any other information that is harmful to China. This filter is known as "The Great
Firewall of China". Furthermore, Google said that they had to agree with the censorship to keep
China from entirely blocking Google. However, Google will notify China’s users that some
information has been removed according to Chinese Law. Therefore because Google was afraid of
losing their business with China, the company agreed on the censorship. Chinese government wants
to control information on the internet search and Google wants to have Chinese license; are they
right or wrong? In the following analysis, I examine the problem from two prospective: Utilitarian
analysis and Deontological Analysis.
From utilitarianism point of view, what makes a decision right or wrong depends on the
consequences of that decision. So in this view, the right behavior is the action that brings largest
amount of happiness to largest amount of people. On the other theory, Deontologist, what makes a
decision right or wrong depends on human beings principle inherent in the action. Also, it says that
each one has the right to make choices and to decide what kind of person he will become.
Additionally, we should respect this capacity on others.
III.
Stakeholders:
The stockholders in Google’s case are the companies or the people who were affected when
Google agreed to censor their results, these effects could be negative or positive.
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IV.
Chinese government - The most powerful one of the stockholders in Google’s case
because they have the capability to control the internet in their country. And Chinese
government wants to control online information.
China’s users - The people who are using the search engines, and they will have positive
and/or negative effects from the censorship which are the users that want to access to
information.
Google Company – The second-main-stockholder which is looking to make more profit
from China’s market and to make their search engine more reliable in China. And Google
wants profit from opening new business.
Baidu.com – The most popular search engine in China, which is one of the stockholders
that lost money once Google agreed to the censorship and Baidu.com wants to continue
their business.
The Technical Issues:
One of the most important technical issues is the privacy of internet users, because Chinese
government is now controlling Google. The Chinese government could ask Google to provide details
about who attempted to search for information that has been hidden, and this kind of request is a
violation of internet privacy.
V.
The Moral Issues:
Moral issues are actions that are been taken by individuals or groups in which they should decide
between fair and unfair situations. The moral values for each stake are discussed in the following
section:
Chinese government wants to control their people and control Google’s company, so:
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Has Chinese government the right to limit searching the internet contents for their
citizens?
However, Google wants to make money:
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Is Google’s decision to agree with the censorship ethical?
Is Google’s decision more about ethics or business?
Is Google helping Chinese government to control their people?
Is Google agreeing with China’s laws since they agreed to the censorship?
Also, If Google leaves China’s market, is it a good business decision?
If Google leaves China’s market, will it be a good decision for human rights?
For the China’s users:
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Is it fair to block specific political information by their own government?
Why Chinese government wants to hide the information about Taiwan's independence
and 1989's Tiananmen Square massacre?
Baidu.com wants to continue their business in China.
VI.
Utilitarian analysis:
The utilitarian philosophers say that what makes a behavior right depends on the consequences
of it. So, the consequences should bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of
people. In other words, when we have to choose between multiple choices we have to weigh the
good consequences and the bad consequences for each one of them. Then we have to consider netprofit analysis (happiness minus unhappiness) for each choice. The one with the highest amount of
happiness and the less amount of sadness is the right choice.
In the last few years, Google was providing their services in China with unfiltered results and
China’s users were complaining about the slowness of retrieving the results. The slow speed was
due to the “Great Firewall of China.” Every inquiry from Google was going through this firewall and
that took a lot of time compared to Google’s competitor “baidu.com” to retrieve results.
As a result of that, Google was losing money and business in China, and China’s users were
unhappy as well. Under those circumstances, Google had no option rather than agree to the Chinese
government demands which censor Google’s search results.
In these days, after Google agreed to Chinese government demands, users in China are very
satisfied for the services that Google provides. As a result, Google is now making a lot of profit
compared to before and is one of the highest competitors in China’s market. On the other hand,
once Google began making money from China’s market, the Chinese government began deducting
some taxes as well since Chinese government control’s their market.
Bottom line, Google Company, Chinese government, and China’s users are happy, which are the
stockholders, and that is the benefit side of the cost-benefit equation. However, for the cost side,
some users will want to see the censored information but that will not be too many. So the netprofit became very high once Google agreed to the censorship, and the overall happiness was a lot
greater than the overall sadness. Google’s censorship to their search engine results in China was the
right decision based on utilitarian prospective.
VII.
Deontologist:
The right behavior from deontologist prospective is the act that comes from a sense of duty and
if the action can be universalized. So this theory is totally against the utilitarian, it says that morality
is not about maximizing happiness or any other end. Furthermore, the theory states that each
human being has the capacity to decide what is good or bad for him and no one else should make
this decision instead of him. Additionally, we should respect this capacity in others.
When Google agreed to censor their results as Chinese government demanded they did so to
make their engine more available and easier to use in China. Since China is one of the world's most
populous countries, Google would make more money if people used it in China. Google’s behavior,
from a deontologist prospective, is clearly from their ends and for their happiness. Furthermore,
Google helped China to control the contents of the internet. On the other hand, they clearly ignored
Chinese citizens’ capacity to decide whether or not to look for the information that was censored by
Google.
Also, deontologist’s theory says humans can figure out what kind of life they want to live and
what kind of information they want to know and share. However, in Google’s case, Google and the
Chinese government both decided this for the users in China by hiding some information about
China’s history like massacre in Tiananmen Square, Dalai Lama and others. In other words, what
gives Google and the Chinese government the right to change the contents of the internet, no
matter how much “profit” they may make? China doesn’t want its citizens to read up that
information and Google collaborated with them. After this deep analysis of the Google case from a
deontologist prospective, Google made a wrong decision.
VIII.
Virtue:
The virtue’s motto is, “Act as a virtuous person would act in your situation.” A virtuous person is
someone who is considered to have ideal character traits. These traits derive from natural internal
tendencies but need to be nurtured; however, once established, they will become stable. Virtue is
somewhere between Deontologist and Utilitarian, it does not depend on the consequences of a
behavior or a profit of it as utilitarian says, nor does it depend on a sense of duty like deontologist
says. Virtue says if you are doing something because you feel that it is one of your character traits,
then you have to do it from that sense. You are not doing it because you want to maximize your
happiness or profit, or because you feel that it is one of your duties, so in dong this you are following
virtue philosophers.
When we look at the Google case from a virtue prospective, we can see that Google is
collaborative with Chinese government to censor the internet results and in this way they are
controlling the contents of the internet. To deeply study our case we have to consider what Google
debated on when they agreed to the censorship. When Google was providing unfiltered search in
China, Google lost a lot of money during that period. Then, Google decided to agree with the
censorship to raise their profit as much as possible, so the motivation for the censorship was the
money. On the other hand, Chinese government forced Google to censor their results because they
wanted to control the internet’s contents. So, both of the stockholders motivation is not one of the
possible virtue moral.
The list of possible virtues is “courage, benevolence, generosity, honesty, tolerance, and selfcontrol” and since none of the stockholders agreed for the censorship based on at least one of those
qualities, the censorship in virtue prospective is wrong.
IX.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the two theories come to two completely different conclusions. The Utilitarian
conclusion is that what Google did is ethically right, which was to censor search engine results in
China. This is because utilitarian philosophy is caring about the sum satisfactions and, based on the
analysis above, we see that Google gained a lot of profit after the censorship and the sum
satisfactions is the highest.
Kant, however, comes to a different conclusion which is the censorship by Google is ethically
wrong. Kant’s view is respect human rights, and the Google censorship in China clearly doesn’t
respect Chinese citizens’ rights to know their history and freedom of speech.
In my point of view, I understand that China has the right to make their own laws about
anything in the country. I also understand that no one gives the right to a company like Google to
flout China’s laws, as in this case China doesn’t want its citizens to read on Tiananmen Square and
other information. On other hand, I do believe that China’s citizens have to have the fundamental of
respect and the basic of human rights which clearly Chinese government and Google violate. So I am
strongly agreed with Kant’s theory. Google has to stop their censoring in China and that what
happened recently.