google has agreed to china-wide censorship of access to sites that discuss things govt doesn't want citizens to know.
google accepted the condition because it wouldn't have been allowed into china otherwise.
i can understand that. restricted web searches are better than none at all. the agreement also keeps google safe from the ethical bind yahoo found itself in when beijing demanded the identity of a user who then got imprisoned.
but i still find it troubling.
people have a right to know what's going on in the world. if they don't, how can they make informed decisions? if any govt keeps its people ignorant, the country will be backward, no matter how strong the economy. eventually no one will have sufficient knowledge of the suppressed information, and well-informed citizens will become so rare they'll have too few qualified individuals to lead later generations.
it doesn't bode well for china's future.
is that really what they want?
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