• ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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    1 year ago

    Google abandoned the search market in China in 2010. They moved some portion to Hong Kong but stopped censoring search results. They provided narrow services like Translate but as far as I know *never *reversed their position against that censorship and reentered China.

    Project Dragonfly was an internal project that was dropped (“prototype” is the ninth word in the Wikipedia article you linked). Google has nibbled around the edges of reentering China since 2010 but hasn’t actually done so.

    • ArbiterXero@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Google left China because they couldn’t comply with the government’s expectations.

      When they started building that prototype, they knew EXACTLY what the censorship requirements were and they didn’t give the slightest fuck. Why? Because money.

      Why build the prototype if they were taking a moral stand?

      • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
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        1 year ago

        I’m so confused by your logic. They didn’t release it. Sure, every company develops things, I’m sure because some VP thought they’d make money and get promoted. But you’re saying an internal prototype which has no business impact (because it was never released) outweighs them leaving the market and remaining out for 13 years which has a substantial business impact (because they forewent billions in opportunities) while giving no weight to the fact that their ultimate choice was to not release that prototype (again, foregoing billions in opportunities).

        It’s a chain of reasoning that is only possible if you’ve tautologically assumed they’re operating in bad faith, so that can’t be probative of if they’re operating in bad faith.

        I mean, I’m not even saying Google is good, I’m comparing them to Apple who is now agreeing to actively refuse to post apps that are not registered with the government. If you’re debating me to argue they’re equivalent, yikes.