Question: What would billionaire Mark Zuckerberg lose by refusing Chinese demands that he censor Facebook? What would he and his company gain from being more principled?
This came up after reading Christopher Luna's analysis of Google Plus as an alternative to Facebook, Zuckerberg's social networking colossus that boasts more than 600 million users globally.
Google Plus, which launched in beta last week, has been Topic One among the "digerati," who've spent much of the week kicking the tires of Facebook's new competitor and reporting back to followers and friends.
But Luna, a masters student at Harvard Divinity School, looked at the competing services through a different lens.
He wrote that he's come to trust Google more because of its refusal to buckle to Chinese censors:
Google is currently in a power war with China, and Google has made the correct choice in its difficult decision between compromising with a totalitarian government that would exert every pressure possible, legal and illegal, to use the information that we trust to Google to continue its campaign against freedom and dissidence.
Facebook, Cisco and Microsoft have shown themselves to be much more willing to comply with Chinese gatekeepers in order to gain access to the nation's vast marketplace of users.
For Luna, Google's stance on behalf of free speech and human rights should be the deciding factor for social media users.
"The choice here isn't just about business. It's about whether a capitalist economy can show that the bottom line is not the only thing in the world that matters," he writes. "It's about whether a corporation can exist and thrive while standing by principles that support the value of human beings."
In 2011, networked technology has become a megaphone for freedom movements from Tunisia and Yemen to Burma and Vietnam. Yet at the same time new media companies have provided repressive regimes with the means to turn technology against their citizenry -- to spy on communications, censor content and, even, track down dissidents for arrest.
And while I agree with Luna that Google has a better record than Facebook on several open Internet and human rights issues, both are in the business of selling us, their users, to advertisers. For some people, that basic fact -- including their need to gather as much data as possible about us whether we are aware of it or not -- compromises their products too much. (Wouldn't it be great if those 600 million people used Disapora's open social network instead?)
In a more perfect world tech companies that stand up for freedom and justice should naturally be more successful economically. This isn't the way our globalized markets have functioned over the centuries, but perhaps we've reached a point in our newly connected world where principles can lead to profits.
For this to succeed, though, consumers will need to become more engaged in corporate behavior both at home and abroad, and to vote with their wallets (and clicks) for the company that takes the high road.
For Luna, the choice is obvious: "I'd like to see Google win this war [with Facebook], and I know who's side I'm on here. I kind of think that leaving Facebook is one way that we can participate..."
Follow Timothy Karr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKarr
Matt Schlicht: Google+ Should Add Public Circles
Google Plus One Publisher Button Launches
Can Google's Plus One Take On The Facebook Like?
Google's social network Google plus takes aim at Facebook, but ...
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is No. 1 page on Google(PLUS)
Weekly Window -On top of the Google Plus tree
Why Google Plus Is The Best Thing to Happen to Facebook
International pressure was instrumentÂal in the abolition of slavery in the U.S. and Brazil. In 1815, Great Britain, Austria, France, Portugal, Prussia, Spain and Sweden signed a Declaration denouncing the slave trade at the Congress of Vienna.
Our media is broken, more so than even pre-revolution Egypt. There is a reason that HP was bought. There is a reason that FB became MSM's new darling. There is a reason that Google was slapped with an anti-trust lawsuit.
http://my.firedoglake.com/members/blueskybigstar/activity/245279
In general, I'd argue that the values of ownership, as they are inevitably expressed in corporate policy, should always be factored into your choice of who you do business with.
Failure to do so disenfranchises the many and favors the fortunate few. So, if you want an egalitarian country, buy from egalitarian firms. If you want a green country, buy from those who do business in a green way. Love concentration of wealth? Then invest in companies who love that.
Eventually, government will not be able to contain greed and concentration of wealth, so all that is left is the people's willingness to work for themselves, rather than those with all the marbles.
Begun the "Social" wars has.
I've got my eye on the long term, though, and I think Google does too.
You best be trollin'!
I agree that an exodus from Facebook is in the make for good reason, but leaving Babylon for the Brave New World does not do much for real freedom in the cloud.