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YouTube Blocks Access to Protest Anthem in Hong Kong
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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It is literally either follow this law or cease operations here. Both would end in the song being blocked anyway.
Mind you, I wish we were that level of strict when it came to our data privacy laws.
Which does not change the fact that Google does it. So the reason why Google supports China and their anti Human Rights laws is, because of money. That's what we criticize.
As it is now, only people who read about it or live there and try to find the song will ever even know about the block. If Google refused and was kicked out of Hong Kong, just about every single citizen would notice and the government would have to explain precisely why they decided to ban all Google services over a song about freedom. I don't think the people in charge would last long if that happened, considering how integral Google's services are to many people's lives.
They wouldn't explain shit. This is an authoritarian government we're talking about; they have near total control of what information gets to their populace.
More likely they'd just accuse Google of supporting terrorism, and make a show of raiding their offices and jailing their local executives.
This is China we're talking about. Chinese equivalents to nearly every big tech service are more than present and accounted for, even often preferred by the local populace. Hong Kong is a little different, but the CCP still exerts near total control there.
It would accelerate the ongoing brain drain in Hong Kong at least, and encourage the stragglers to finally leave for more democratic countries. Banning Google in Hong Kong would be a shitshow for the CCP, but Google doesn't have any sort of spine or ethics.
Oh ok :(
Or Trump up some wild charges about tax fraud or something
This would probably make the entire world talk about it and it would be worse in China, because this would only anger people and fighting against the country. We won't see that, because Google wouldn't dare. The money is more precious than any Human Right, regardless of law.