Exactly. It's the same tactic employed with various authoritarian measures such as the DMCA, TPP, SOPA, etc. Unpalatable to the public is a temporary condition. They overplayed their hand this time, but corporations are slaves to the inexorable demands of "shareholder value", and those who stand to profit will ratchet up the pressure, notch by notch. This will be back in a year, and then a year hence, and by the Nth exposure the public will have been sufficiently desensitized to it.
How would that work? A secret search engine? Or Google pretending to give in under pressure from employees, then turn around and tell them (and everyone else) "haha, we lied" and launching it? How would that not create far larger harm than just not giving in in the first place?
> Or Google pretending to give in under pressure from employees, then turn around and tell them (and everyone else) "haha, we lied" and launching it? How would that not create far larger harm than just not giving in in the first place?
Google hasn't pretended to give in to pressure from employees. Project Dragonfly is still being worked on:
> In recent weeks, teams working on Dragonfly have been told to use different datasets for their work. They are no longer gathering search queries from mainland China and are instead now studying “global Chinese” queries that are entered into Google from people living in countries such as the United States and Malaysia
...and Google has made no promises that they won't launch it in the future:
> Pichai stated that “right now” there were no plans to launch the search engine, though refused to rule it out in the future. Google had originally aimed to launch Dragonfly between January and April 2019. Leaks about the plan and the extraordinary backlash that ensued both internally and externally appear to have forced company executives to shelve it at least in the short term...
I think the title overstates the situation. This doesn't seem so much like an end to the project than an internal political squabble. It seems like 265.com was purchased to do exactly what the Google Privacy Team has forbidden. I don't know Google's internal politics, but I'd be surprised if its privacy team has enough power to hobble one of the CEO's priorities enough to actually kill it.
Indeed, every part of this story really happened because of Ryan's coverage. His reveal is what brought it to the attention of other Google employees, members of Congress, and human rights groups. And eventually, it appears key information he released is what also led to it's effective closure.
It's a true testament to the power of quality investigative journalism.
You mean, it really happened because a brave Google employee leaked it. If this employee had leaked the same memo to Wikileaks, or the Washington Post, or any other mechanism of widespread dissemination would have been the same.
This is like giving credit to Glenn Greenwald instead of Edward Snowden, or Reality Winner, or Chelsea Manning. The real people who take the risks end up in the back, while the reporters end up with all the prestige on the stage.
If the whistle blowers wanted the prestige there's a way they could have done that: go on-the-record. They chose not to, perhaps fearing retaliation, which is fine. I don't see how that takes away at all from Ryan Gallagher. His stories had multiple sources so it's not like the Edward Snowden situation at all. He got the original scoop, and as far as I can tell, all the follow-up stories as well.
And it's not like the story has concluded anyway. Google's management still seems inclined to launching in China, they just want the heat to go away right now.
No one's saying he didn't do any work, but when a whistleblower's memo lands in your lap, it's mana from heaven. Had the memo landed at the Guardian, or WashPo, we'd be complimenting the brilliant work of a reporter there. There are reporters who sift through enormous historical records, conduct undercover investigative interviews, and uncover information that was hard fought, and hard won. That's quite a bit different than following up on a golden goose.
Also, 'going on the record' isn't always an option. In the case of someone like Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning, or Edward Snowden, it would mean life in prison -- or worse if they were in a non-Western democracy.
I would agree with you in general but this is probably not the best example of it. Sergey Brin and Larry Page own a majority of the voting shares at Google. So even though it's technically a public company, it's still for all intents and purposes their company. It's the same story with Zuckerberg and Facebook which is why things like 'shareholders calling for Zuckerberg to be replaced' don't really mean anything directly. If every single shareholder except Zuckerberg voted to replace him, he stays. Consequently the actions and behaviors of these companies strongly reflect the views and desires of these individuals.
Please don't break the site guidelines by introducing extraneous flamebait into threads. Especially not of the most-repeated variety. Those are the antibiotic-resistant bacteria of HN threads.
Yeah Pichai came across as sneakily dishonest in in the recent congressional hearing. He implied they weren't currently planning to enter Chinese search with a filtered search tool but then admitted they had 100 engineers working on dragonfly. Okay sleazebag so you're not currently planning to enter but you are building the systems that will allow a future plan to happen. Him saying they have no plans to enter prior to that admission indicates that he has flexible morals. Why wouldn't a sleazebag like that continue 'not planning' until the time is right for him to reap his profits?
The fact that Pichai refused to say they wouldn't re-enter China shows this is probably just a pause until things die down.