As businesses expand around the world there is always the consideration of responding to problems in the culture of the home market. This is particularly true in the case of Internet business because the foreign operation is accessible to study without travel.
I keep hearing local Americans whine about Google giving in to Chinese censorship.
There seems to be no sense of culture difference, no sense of hypocrisy in suggesting that American forms of censorship are OK, but Chinese censorship isn’t.
American censorship? Yes, a search engine couldn’t operate in the U.S. if it didn’t include the option to filter porn. Option yes, banned by law no. But we also have plenty banned by law.
Our laws make it illegal to have websites devoted to any form of sexual graphics related to our large population under 18, and it is certainly illegal for search engines to make it easy to find such graphics. The same applies to prostitution, recreational drugs, dog fights and many other subjects. But those are our censors who are righteous, not Chinese censors who are evil (aren't they?).
Many concepts are so far beyond our Puritan boundaries that nobody even
considers the idea of censoring search engines that could find blind
prostitutes, a phenomenon I once saw in Hong Kong. (It was a group of
10 blind Chinese women, holding hands, out for a morning stroll.)
Most Americans are certain that our censorship is based on some standard that exists outside our moral structure and the Chinese should abide by it. Can you see through that hypocrisy?
Businesses that operate in multiple cultures invariably have to accomodate to the local culture or not do business in that locale. Commerce doesn't have room for cultural universality.
(Yes I know the upper photo has Japanese writing on it.)
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