The articles, that about China and censorship, we learned about how the Chinese government pressures powerful companies to censor web content.
Reading through these articles, I thought about the irony of how companies like Google, Apple, and more will sometimes stand up to the US government publicly and advocate for privacy and other rights.
A year ago, for example, Apple refused to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone for the FBI and fought the US government publicly about that. It initially began as a private dispute between the FBI and Apple. The FBI made it public and Apple successfully avoided unlocking the iPhone for the FBI. Of course, it later came out that the FBI found another way to unlock the iPhone without Apple.
In August, Apple caved and complied with Chinese laws mandating that VPN apps on the app store be removed so that the government could better track its citizens’ web usage.
With that in mind, one must wonder if Apple has secretly unlocked iPhones for the Chinese government without any pushback. In the US, they want to portray themselves as a progressive champion that promotes human rights. But the reality is that at the end of the day, they really care about making profits. If the US government threatened to ban them from the US until they complied with government requests and there was no way of gaining public support, Apple would probably cave very quickly like they appear to do in China.
This is true for all big corporations. They love to play a big PR game in which they pretend to be the champion for individual rights. But when push comes to shove, they really care more about making profits than defending those rights.
These articles provide a lot of evidence to support that. While it is unclear, how much of a fight Google put up against they Chinese government, it seems clear that they were not willing to give up competing in the Chinese economy in order to stand up for certain principles.
This creates a big problem for indies in particular. The Fox News article about Matthew Lee explained how an independent reporter that aggressively reported on the UN was taken off Google.
The article quoted an email that Google sent Lee informing him that he was de-listed from Google.
"We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users," it said. "When we reviewed your site we've found that we can no longer include it in Google News."
Google later tried to say that there was a misunderstanding, but that was a questionable explanation at best, especially after the email he received.
When something like that happens and big tech corporations cave to governing pressures and engage in censorship, there isn’t a lot that indies can do. These organizations have a tremendous amount of power and
Luckily, web censorship in the US by big tech companies is often limited and not coordinated. So if an indy gets de-listed from Google, for example, they can use social media or reach out to other indies to garner public support and fight back against these companies.
But the problem is that the potential still exists for big corporations and governments to silence those who ask them important questions.
At one point in class, I referenced a segment on Tucker Carlson in which Tucker said he felt companies like Google and Twitter function like public utilities and should be regulated (I can’t find that link).
I think Congress should pass laws protecting users from unfair web censorship in the US from prominent tech companies.
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