Google facilitated Russia and China's censorship requests (opens in new tab)

> Information can be taken down for a variety of reasons, such as copyright infringement, privacy breaches, defamation, or for violating the company’s policies.

And "hate", of course.

It's always weird to me how much more Google gets called out for its limited cooperation with China than the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Tesla which are doing full blown business as usual there, implying much better relations with the CCP than Google.

Why is this news? All businesses have to abide by the local laws of the country they serve in. Both Google and Apple took down the TikTok app from their app store on the orders of the US government / US courts (and are now in the process of restoring it again, as per news). All the social media networks were asked by the US and some EU countries to "censor" certain "news" on covid and covid vaccines.

I'm talking only about content that is considered legal in liberal democracies below.

Removing access for the residents of the country that makes the demand is standard and can't be avoided. Removing access to the same content in other countries should not be normal. Chinese or Russian demands in EU should not be followed and Gulf of America bullshit should not be visible in the EU.

currently:

Apple maps in EU: "Gulf of Mexico".

Google maps in EU: "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)".

Google is evil.