Why is Google a hypocrite? Because it ought to…
Follwing up on his smart Weekly Standard article , Andrew Keen posts on this blog, The Great Seduction, a very thoughtful comment on the Google-China debacle. The lack of guilt (doubled by an excess of guile) associated with how the cybergiant treated the public outcry at its cooperation with the Chinese government censors can be explained by cultural cecity born out of solipsism. Being yourself, which is the mantra of the Googlecracy, also means making moral laws for yourself. The Kantian moral imperative is thus turned on its head. “Act as if what you do is a universal law,” takes the “as if” quite literally… Being good (or, in Googlespeak “not being evil”), is what you think you are, not what you do….
It also relates to the message they are sending Chinese officials which treads very closely to work with us, we’ll work with you, and we need each other. Should they be held to a higher standard than Cisco or Yahoo? The hardware people are actually working hand-in-glove with security forces to create a surveillance infrastructure that is controlled by the state. Sidewalk and traffic cameras? IP-based using current technology that is sold around legal restrictions — http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/prod_101203c.html
Rebecca MacKinnon , who was bureau chief and correspondent for CNN in China and Japan until 2003, has a blog where she and others are leveling accusations at Cisco about it support of the police state in China and elsewhere.
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2005/07/ my_conversation.html