Google in China - The Big Disconnect

wile_e_wonka writes "The NY Times (registration required) has an article about Google's history in China (beginning way before this whole censorship thing). The article, among other things, talks about of Google's head of operations in China, and his goals for the company there. From the article: 'Lee can sound almost evangelical when he talks about the liberating power of technology. The Internet, he says, will level the playing field for China's enormous rural underclass; once the country's small villages are connected, he says, students thousands of miles from Shanghai or Beijing will be able to access online course materials from M.I.T. or Harvard and fully educate themselves.'"

How the Internet will REALLY be used in China

[skitheboat]

All lofty stuff in the article about getting "fully educated"... but in reality (as seen in the US and other places), I can envision one billion Chinese reading Slashdot, gambling online, surfing for porn, and watching paint dry [watching-paint-dry.com]

educate the peons

[dajobi]

"students thousands of miles from Shanghai or Beijing will be able to access online course materials from M.I.T. or Harvard and fully educate themselves."

Do MIT and Harvard distribute course materials in Chinese now?

Re:liberated

[Tackhead]

> I like the way he talks about the liberating power of technology... so long as you don't want to discuss anything that the government doesn't agree with... or want to find out what happened in Tianamen square, or if you want to have unrestricted access to other webpages. But apart from that it does makes people completely free, free as a (caged) bird

Well sure, but liberation.google.com is still just at the invite-only beta stage.

Re:liberated

[krewemaynard]

paranoia, cha cha cha

that's a ling distance . . .

[dweebzilla]

"students thousands of miles from Shanghai or Beijing will be able to access online course materials from M.I.T."

Will they also get other "ideas" from that coursework ... Shanghai is a long way to go to retrieve the Caltech Cannon.