Silicon Valley idealism at odds with China market

SAN FRANCISCO: Google workers’ outrage over the notion of censoring searches to appease Chinese officials highlights the dilemma US tech companies face in accessing the lucrative market.

Using technology to make the world better is a well-worn mantra in Silicon Valley, preached so strongly by internet companies such as Google and Facebook that it has become part of their identity.

That idealism has repeatedly run headlong into a wall of reality when it comes to internet fi rms needing to compromise with the interests of governments that have oppressive approaches to online activity.

“The tech industry had a utopian view of the world and of itself,” said Irina Raicu, director of the internet ethics program at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley.

“It’s running up against its own narrative of how it holds certain values.”

After portraying itself as a champion of making all the world’s information freely available, Google would be hard-pressed to explain taking part in online censorship in China, according to Raicu.

Hundreds of Google employees were said to have signed a protest letter after reports that the company is working on a censorfriendly search engine to get back into China.

The employees are demanding to know more about the supposed “Dragonfly” project so they can weigh the moral significance of their work at the company.

“We are seeing technologists start to flex their power,” Raicu said.

“They do want to change the world for the better, and this goes against that.”

Silicon Valley companies share global ethics challenges with other industries, but they face employee rebellion and user scrutiny because of having built images of being devoted to doing good, or at least ‘ no evil’.