When I was small the bright green walls in my bedroom had a certain yellow character painted on them. He wears a red top, but no pants. He looks really huggable and really likes to eat "Hunny". If you haven't guessed who that character was yet, let me spell it out to you. It was Winnie the pooh. The cute little bear watched over me (or at least I thought he did) as I slept, and I went and watched all of his movies and read all the books. So, I was definitely looking forward to the new live action movie coming out based upon the yellow bear and his friends, titled "Christopher Robin". But, sadly many children (and adults alike) will not be able to enjoy this movie, or anything related to Winnie the Pooh in China. Why? Well, because the government just announced that the new Winnie the Pooh movie will not be allowed to be released in China. But, that's not all. The Chinese government has also been cracking down on and has even banned the bear online. The only reason for that is an image. Actually, a few widely shared images. They compare and show how similar the President, Xi Jinping, looks to the honey loving bear. The government didn't give an actual reason, on their decisions to ban Winnie the Pooh. But, this definitely makes it clear that, no content is safe from China's Censorship. Not even the lovable, Winnie the Pooh.
Don't be evil?
This isn't the only example of censorship in China. While it isn't like North Korea, China is secluded in its own way. A recent example of Chinese censorship is with Google. Google has had a long history in China. It first took a step in China, in 2000. At the time, the Chinese version of Google was really slow, due to the extensive amount of filtering performed by the government. After that it had a rocky history in China. With the government giving Google a particularly hard time when it came to censorship. Google agreed to work under pressure for a while, until 2013. That is when Google gave homage to one of its main corporate mottos 'Don't be evil', and left China "for good". It said that it was not willing to bow down to the government and offer a censored search engine, that could lead to Human Rights abuse. Well, it seems as if Google couldn't help but just give in, to get access to the largest internet market in the whole world. Is Google evil now?
Mission Dragonfly-
It's not exactly clear what are the details of Google's operation are as of now. The only report that we have, is a confidential internal document. According to which the company is now working to create a search engine and a news aggregation app that would be complying with China's strict censorship laws. The project, codenamed "Dragonfly" has been highly protected and secretive. But, this wasn't a shocking news for many since Google had slowly been inching towards operating in China. With CEO, Sundar Pichai on the reins, Google opened an Artificial intelligence lab in Beijing, increased investments in Chinese companies and even met with the communist party officials.
Filling gaps and pockets-
A question that many have been asking is why did Google give in to the government? The most obvious answer is Money. But, while that does play a (rather large) role in this decision, there is another rather noble reason attached to it. Google has always been keen on providing its services worldwide. In fact, Google has been on a mission to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible,” since day one. What young people, see, experience, hear and view in China is starkly different from the rest of the world. Creating a huge gap, that can only be filled with information. Google is taking on a rather, noble (as some might put it) task. To bridge the gap, to fill in the divide with all the information. While simultaneously to fill in the pockets of the shareholders.
Responsibilities and controversy?
You must have heard of the popular saying which goes "With great power, comes great responsibility". However, you might not be as familiar with this one- "With great money, comes great controversy". The reason behind that is probably because Spiderman said the first saying, and I made the second one up. But, that doesn't make the second quote any less true. I take full credit of that quote. So, if you use it, you know who to pay the royalties (I'm joking obviously... No, I'm not. You can contact me on mail@thebhavika.com, for any info you wanna ask or royalties you wanna pay). My point was that while Google, is about to hit a goldmine not everybody is happy with its decisions. Human rights groups across China and the world have denounced Google for bowing down to the authorities. Even, Google's own employees are not happy with its decision. Many of them have allegedly quit or transferred projects, due to their unwillingness to contribute to something so... 'evil'.
Worth it?
Google must have realised by now that it can't please everybody. Happy shareholders and getting press, better than the one Trump receives, are good enough standards. As long as Google can really expand and become a global company, the censorship and the controversy should be worth it. Right? However, Google should have also realised by now that most teenagers in China grew up not knowing what Google, Facebook and Twitter are. For them Baidu, Weibo and WeChat are more household names. So, for many the idea of using a foreign service, sounds as stupid as us giving up tweeting for using Weibo. The reason for that is simple. When companies like Facebook and Google left China, they left a huge gap. But, where we saw a gap, the Chinese saw potential. Alibaba came instead of Amazon and Baidu took the place of Google. It won't be impossible to get people in China to use Google. But, it won't be easy either. However, is it really worth it? People in China can't search for Winnie the Pooh either way, on Google or on Baidu.