Google puts its foot down.

This is a picture of people laying flowers and making a traditional bow of mourning in front of the Google sign outside Google's Beijing headquarters.

Google's announcement that it will "review" its business operations in China and is no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine, Google.cn, is generating a range of reaction in China. Conversation over at the #googlecn hashtag on Twitter - created shortly after the announcement - has been raging fast and furious. The Chinese Twittersphere - comprised exclusively of people who are tech savvy enough to know how to get around censorship or they wouldn't be there - is generally cheering the news. Some need no translation, like this one which says: "Google's Do No Evil vs. CPC's Do No.1 Evil"(CPC means "Communist Party of China"). There's a report that the Tsinghua University security department has announced that students can't take flowers to Google without permission. Another person reports that all the Chinese Internet portals have been told by authorities that they're only allowed to use Xinhua News Agency and People's Daily reports on the subject - they're not allowed to use reports from other sources, and they should not feature today's news about Google on the front pages of their sites. Here is a report on how somebody posted a translation of Google's announcement on the Chinese web portal, Netease, and it was censored. One person suggests that leaving China frees up Google to focus on building the anti-censorship business instead of the censorship business. (UPDATE: China Digital Times is doing a running twitter translation here.)

On the other hand, a short Chinese-language report in Sina.com's tech section is generating a long thread of comments from people who are unhappy about Google's announcement because they don't want to lose access to Google. Somebody has set up a website, http://www.googlebacktochina.com/ with a Chinese header that translates approximately as "Give me back my Google." Famous tech blogger Keso mourns that Google's retreat brings the Chinese Internet one step closer to being an Intranet. Sichuan-based dissident Ran Yunfei is also unhappy, likening Google's retreat to a dissident who leaves China compared to one who stays in China and toughs it out.

Another flag-waving constituency is thumbing its nose and saying good riddance.

Google's decision is clearly controversial even among those in China who spend a lot of time fighting censorship, and is devastating to many more who aren't in the habit of using circumvention tools or don't know how.

Google's decision was tough and is going to have a great deal of of difficult fallout. Still, based on what I know, I think Google has done the right thing. They are sending a very public message - which people in China are hearing - that the Chinese government's approach to Internet regulation is unacceptable and poisonous. They are living up to their "don't be evil" motto - much mocked of late - and living up to their commitments to free speech and privacy as a member of the Global Network Initiative. 

I will be writing more on this topic soon - but first I must write the two articles I promised to write this evening, which are due in a few hours and not yet started...

Comments

[john nyc]

Fantastic journalism regarding this righteous and ballsy move by Big G. I bet the timing of this decision had a lttle to do with the release of the Nexus 1 smartphone. Young Chinese are certainly slavering for it, lol.

[K. Xu]

How foolish, Google will lose a ton of money by leaving China, and dragging the American economy even deeper into the hole.

[N]

Rebecca, do you not think this action represents a turning point for US foreign policy towards China.

First of all, that press release (blog post whatever), coming a day after Baidu hack, starting with "we get hacked too," entitled "A New Approach to China"... and asking for unfiltered search? Is Google stupid or thinks we are? Well, I mean, they know we are not stupid, but this press release was obviously not written for us.

Six months ago or whatever, we all hailed the success of pushing back "Green Dam." And how did we do this? Coordinated, carefully worded, AmCham rubber stamped action. And we said, what are the lessons? Carefully worded, AmCham coordinated action.

This is not carefully worded, AmCham coordinated action. Either Google is stupid, think we are stupid, or this is a bit bigger than pushing back "Green Dam."

[Light]

well, no doubt this is a very great move but there is something that should be addressed

i mean all the people specially USA people an NGO’s are against china for watching and monitoring results and there private info to detect any thing that goes against there policy, what ever it is,
But no body talks bout USA government and FBI doing the very same thing :)
They are monitoring every single piece of information on internet and who knows what they are doing of it and cause of it :)
There are enough restriction on media in USA ‘that we all knows …those who argue bout it either deceiving themselves or others..

So don’t criticize others on something that you are doping too :)
THINK…PEACE…..SPREAD

[Celeb]

--> K. Xu,

Google has got tons of money already. As for the U.S., it will do alright too as long as you chumps keep on lending them your money which you've earned in the first place by trading with them. I know you don't like to but you don't have any other viable alternatives, have you?

[Wenliang Li]

As far as I know, the reason why google is planning on all these things is not only about human rights or free speech. In China there is another very strong searching engine called Baidu and it takes almost 70% of the market which is 4-5 times more than google, so google is not actually going on a pleasant journey in China. Also, during the past several years, Google China has been accused of infringements of copyrights. In a word, google might have decided to quit China because of the failure in Chinese market, hijacking the name of advocating human rights.

[jia]

google is doing fine if not super in china, with 30% of the chinese search market. any company going after profit and not trying to build on that would be nuts. in this case, google is setting its sights a bit beyond sheer profit. people who understand profit and profit only and nothing else may of course fail to see this.

[Prolorn]

If I were more cynical, I'd be impressed by how quickly and subtly the CCP has spun this as a business failure...

[desbest]

Google will not lose money as Google China is just 1% of their profits and they have 16% of the chinese market share.

[Dan E. Bloom]

Rebecca, This is Danny Bloom in Taiwan watching the Chicoms from here, and this Google "I can't quit you" thing is going to be interesting to watch. I made a little blogpost for fun and games at the link, taking off from Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain movie where one of the characters says to his mate: "I just can't quit you." Made me think of this Google vs the CCP - PRC - Chicoms issue. Will they go or will they stay. This story has legs, as they used to say in the snailpapers of yesterday which had real newsrooms and real people in them.