谷歌曾試圖改變中國，卻可能最終被中國改變

Ever since its founding 20 years ago in a Silicon Valley garage, Google has proudly and often ostentatiously held itself up as the architect of a new model for corporate virtue.

自20年前在硅谷的一個車庫里創(chuàng)立以來，谷歌(Google)一直自豪地——并且往往是高調(diào)地——標(biāo)榜自己是一種新型企業(yè)美德的構(gòu)建者。

“Google is not a conventional company,” the search engine’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, told investors as part of the initial public offering in 2004. Google, they said, would always put long-term values over short-term financial gain. “Making the world a better place” would be a primary business goal, and Google’s ethical compass could be summed up in a simple and celebrated motto: “Don’t be evil.”

“谷歌不是一家傳統(tǒng)公司，”這個搜索引擎的創(chuàng)始人拉里·佩奇(Larry Page)和謝爾蓋·布林(Sergey Brin)在2004年首次公開募股時告訴投資者。他們表示，谷歌總是把長期價值置于短期財務(wù)收益之上。“讓世界變得更美好”將是其首要的商業(yè)目標(biāo)，而且谷歌的道德準(zhǔn)則可以用一個簡潔的名言來概括，就是“不作惡”。

In the years since, Google’s once-revolutionary sensibility has been adopted and watered down by much of the rest of the tech industry, becoming the stuff of parody and skepticism. Google itself has played down its former zealousness; Alphabet, its parent company, recently dropped some references to “don’t be evil” from its code of conduct.

在那之后的幾年里，谷歌曾經(jīng)具有革命性的情懷已經(jīng)被科技行業(yè)的相當(dāng)一部分人利用和稀釋，并成為戲仿和質(zhì)疑的對象。谷歌自己也降低了昔日的熱情;最近，其母公司“字母表”(Alphabet)從行為準(zhǔn)則中刪除了“不作惡”的提法。

Still, if you work at Google or have bought into its missionary brand, you can point to moments when its ethos did rise to something more than marketing puffery. The most obvious example: In 2010, after four years of attempting to operate a censored search engine in China under a regime there that was becoming increasingly hostile to online freedoms, Google did something that a more conventional company would not have done. It said that it had had enough, and pulled its search engine out of the massive market.

盡管如此，如果你在谷歌工作，或者相信這個充滿使命感的品牌，你可以指出，在某些時刻，它的文化氣質(zhì)的確不只是市場營銷噱頭。最明顯的例子是：2010年，在中國運營受到審查的搜索引擎四年后，面對一個對網(wǎng)絡(luò)自由越來越充滿敵意的政權(quán)，谷歌做了一件更為傳統(tǒng)的企業(yè)不會去做的事情。它表示受夠了，然后把它的搜索引擎從這個巨大的市場撤出。

Now, Google appears to be changing its mind. Under a plan called Dragonfly, the company has been testing a censored version of its search engine for the Chinese market. In a meeting with employees last week, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said that “we are not close to launching” a search engine in China, but he defended the company’s exploration of the market.

現(xiàn)在，谷歌似乎在改變主意。公司通過一個名為蜻蜓(Dragonfly)的計劃，一直在為中國市場測試一款經(jīng)過審查的搜索引擎。上周的員工會議上，公司的首席執(zhí)行官桑達(dá)爾·皮查伊(Sundar Pichai)表示，在那里“我們并不會馬上推出”搜索引擎，但他為公司開拓中國市場的努力進(jìn)行了辯護(hù)。

The defenses are not unsound. Under any rational business sense, it would be insane to expect one of the world’s largest internet companies to stay out of the world’s largest internet market, especially when many of Google’s American rivals happily operate under that government’s intrusive rules. China is Apple’s third-largest market, and Microsoft and Amazon both offer a host of services there.

這種辯護(hù)并不是沒有道理的。在任何理性的商業(yè)意識下，指望世界上最大的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司之一遠(yuǎn)離這個世界最大的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)市場，簡直是瘋狂，尤其是谷歌的許多競爭對手在中國政府的侵?jǐn)_規(guī)則之下，正快活地做著生意。中國是蘋果的第三大市場，微軟和亞馬遜都在那里有大量業(yè)務(wù)。

But wasn’t standing apart supposed to be the hallmark of Google’s Googliness? Leaving China was the kind of unorthodox decision the search company once reveled in — a move that sacrificed financial prosperity for the moral high ground, that showed employees and customers that Google, with its planet-swallowing mission to organize all of life’s information, was motivated by something deeper than financial ambition.

但是，拒絕同流合污不應(yīng)該是谷歌之所以為谷歌的標(biāo)志嗎?這家搜索引擎曾經(jīng)醉心于離開中國這樣離經(jīng)叛道的決定——為了道德制高點而犧牲財務(wù)成功的舉動向員工和客戶表明，肩負(fù)將所有生命信息組織起來這一宏大使命的谷歌，有比財務(wù)野心更重要的動機。

Activists for online freedoms worry that Google’s return would have dangerous real-world consequences, perhaps accelerating a great new wave of online restrictions in China and elsewhere. But the most lasting impact might be in how we would have to reimagine what kind of company Google was and what it stood for.

網(wǎng)絡(luò)自由的倡導(dǎo)人士擔(dān)心，谷歌的回歸會給現(xiàn)實世界帶來危險的后果，這或許會加速中國和其他地方新一波的網(wǎng)絡(luò)限制。但最持久的影響可能是，我們不得不重新設(shè)想谷歌究竟是什么樣的企業(yè)，以及它的立場是什么。

It is hard not to see how going back to China would be anything other than a terrific comedown — the most telling act of a company that, day by day, has come to resemble the utterly conventional corporation it once vowed never to become.

很難不把回歸中國看作是一次可怕的墮落——這是最能說明問題的舉動，表明一個公司漸漸變成了它曾發(fā)誓永遠(yuǎn)不會成為的那種循規(guī)蹈矩的公司。

“If Google wants to be judged like any other global company, that’s fine,” said Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. “They should just say so — that their principal obligation is to their shareholders and their bottom line. But that has not been the rhetoric coming out of Google, and I think it’s fair to judge them by the standards they have set for themselves.”

“如果谷歌想像任何其他全球公司一樣受到評判，那也沒問題。”美國公民自由聯(lián)盟(American Civil Liberties Union)的言論、隱私和科技項目主任本·威茲納(Ben Wizner)說：“他們應(yīng)該直接說出來——他們主要是要對股東和他們的盈虧負(fù)責(zé)。但這并不是谷歌所用的措辭，我認(rèn)為根據(jù)他們?yōu)樽约核贫ǖ臉?biāo)準(zhǔn)去評判他們，這是公平的。”

In a statement, a Google spokesman said that “we don’t comment on speculation about future plans.” But the company’s leaders have disputed the idea that returning to China would be a moral reversal. At last week’s staff meeting, Mr. Pichai suggested that returning to China would be in accord with the vision the company had in 2006, when it first agreed to censor results to accommodate Beijing.

谷歌發(fā)言人在一份聲明中表示，“我們不會評論對未來計劃的猜測。”但該公司的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層一直在討論，回歸中國是否會是一種道德上的反轉(zhuǎn)。在上周的員工會議上，皮查伊表示，回到中國符合公司在2006年做出的構(gòu)想，當(dāng)時他們首次同意對其搜索結(jié)果進(jìn)行審查以遷就北京。

At the time, the company said in a blog post that “filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission” but added, “Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely.”

公司在一篇博文中表示，“過濾我們的搜索結(jié)果顯然會影響我們的使命，”但文章還說，“不能向世界五分之一的人群提供谷歌搜索，影響將更為嚴(yán)重。”

Mr. Pichai underlined this argument — that providing some access to the outside world is better than none — by citing his experience growing up in India.

皮查伊強調(diào)了這個論點，他引用自己在印度長大的經(jīng)歷，表明提供一些接觸外部世界的機會總比沒有好。

“My dad worked for a U.K. company, and they went through whether they should be in India or should they pull out,” he told Google’s staff, according to a transcript obtained by The New York Times. “And they stayed, and that made a difference for my dad. And in all likelihood, I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for that.”

“我父親曾在一家英國公司工作，他們討論公司是應(yīng)該留在印度還是退出，”根據(jù)《紐約時報》獲得的一份講稿，他這樣告訴谷歌的工作人員，“他們留了下來，這對我爸爸來說很有意義。而且如果不是這樣，我今天很可能就不會在這里。”

There are other factors behind Google’s potential reversal. The internet has changed a great deal since 2010, and the company’s executives have increasingly come to see their decision to leave China as rash, naïve and ultimately counterproductive.

谷歌的潛在轉(zhuǎn)變背后還有其他因素?；ヂ?lián)網(wǎng)自2010年以來發(fā)生了很大變化，該公司的高管越來越認(rèn)為他們當(dāng)初離開中國的決定過于輕率、天真，最終適得其反。

Google’s decision was set in motion by a Chinese hack into its services that was meant to uncover dissidents and spies. The attack shocked and angered Google’s founders. In interviews, Mr. Brin, who was born in the Soviet Union, compared the Chinese government to the “totalitarian forces” that had shaped his youth. He and other executives suggested that taking a stand in China might set a kind of red line for repressive regimes elsewhere.

谷歌當(dāng)初的決定是由于中國黑客入侵其服務(wù)器，意圖發(fā)現(xiàn)持不同政見者和間諜。那次攻擊震驚并激怒了谷歌的創(chuàng)始人。在采訪中，出生在蘇聯(lián)的布林將中國政府與影響他年輕時代的“極權(quán)勢力”相提并論。他和其他高管表示，在中國采取一個堅定立場，可能會為其他地方的專制政權(quán)設(shè)置某種紅線。

“I think that in the long term, they are going to have to open,” Mr. Brin told The Times.

“我認(rèn)為從長遠(yuǎn)來看，他們將不得不開放，”布林對《紐約時報》說。

Since then, China’s rules have only hardened, while a host of other governments have stepped up efforts to police speech online.

當(dāng)時，中國的規(guī)則才剛剛開始變得強硬，而其他一些政府也加大了在線言論監(jiān)管的力度。

Now even many democratic governments are adopting stringent curbs on online speech. For instance, in Europe, a “right to be forgotten” rule has forced Google and other search engines to remove results that are judged to invade people’s privacy, and more rules governing hate speech and propaganda are in the works. Meanwhile, Edward Snowden’s leaks showed that the American and British governments have also hacked large internet companies, including Google.

現(xiàn)在，甚至許多民主政府也嚴(yán)格限制在線言論。例如，在歐洲，“遺忘權(quán)”規(guī)則迫使谷歌和其他搜索引擎刪除被認(rèn)為侵犯他人隱私的結(jié)果，并制定更多管理仇恨言論和宣傳的規(guī)則。與此同時，愛德華·斯諾登(Edward Snowden)的泄露事件表明，美國和英國政府也對包括谷歌在內(nèi)的大型互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司進(jìn)行了黑客攻擊。

“This argument makes me very sad: The world is becoming more like China, so therefore we might as well be in China,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, an internet freedom advocate at New America, a think tank.

“這場爭論讓我非常難過：世界變得越來越像中國，所以我們可能也像是在中國一樣，”智庫新美國(New America)的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)自由倡導(dǎo)者麗貝卡·麥金農(nóng)(Rebecca MacKinnon)說。

She said that advocates of free speech and human rights had long found Google to be an ally in their efforts, and that a reversal in China would be regarded as a major defeat.

她說，言論自由和人權(quán)的倡導(dǎo)者長期以來一直認(rèn)為谷歌是他們的盟友，而在中國問題上的反轉(zhuǎn)將被視為重大挫折。

“I wrote a book where I warned that China is Exhibit A for how authoritarian governments adapt to the internet and then begin to change the internet,” Ms. MacKinnon said. “And if companies like Google are now throwing in the towel and saying, ‘Well, that’s where the internet is going’ and ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ — well, that’s deeply troubling.”

“我寫了一本書警告說，專制政府如何適應(yīng)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)然后開始改變互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，中國就是證據(jù)，”麥金農(nóng)說。“如果像谷歌這樣的公司現(xiàn)在放棄，并且說，‘好吧，這就是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的發(fā)展方向'，以及‘不能打敗他們，就加入他們’——那是非常令人不安的。”

If Google does go back to China, it will likely have to agree to an even more restrictive censorship regime than what it tolerated previously. Mr. Pichai has vowed to be transparent about how such a plan might roll out. But advocates said transparency alone would not mitigate their worries about Google’s shift.

如果谷歌確實回到中國，它可能不得不同意新的審查制度，這比它以前曾經(jīng)容忍的審查制度更為嚴(yán)格。皮查伊誓言，這個計劃的推出會是透明的。但支持者表示，透明度并不會減輕他們對谷歌轉(zhuǎn)變的擔(dān)憂。

“If Google is trying to promote openness and free societies, then transparency is going to be an insufficient way to make this better,” said Mr. Wizner of the A.C.L.U. “The transparency would be aimed at the rest of the world. Google wouldn’t be telling Chinese people, ‘Here’s what you can’t see.’”

“如果谷歌試圖促進(jìn)社會的開放和自由，透明度也不足以使其得到改善，”美國公民自由聯(lián)盟的威茲納說。“透明度是針對世界其他地區(qū)的。谷歌不會告訴中國人，‘這是你看不到的東西。’”

Sure, it’s early, and Google’s plans are not clear. There remains the possibility that Google will think of some completely nontraditional way to satisfy China’s censors without losing its soul.

當(dāng)然，現(xiàn)在為時尚早，谷歌的計劃尚不清楚。它仍有可能想到一些完全非傳統(tǒng)的方式來滿足中國的審查，而不會失去靈魂。

But that seems unlikely. The more plausible conclusion is the more obvious one: Google took on China, and Google lost.

但這似乎不太可能。更合理的結(jié)論也是更明顯的結(jié)論：谷歌挑戰(zhàn)中國，谷歌輸了。

“Make no mistake,” said Michael Posner, a professor of ethics and finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “This will be a huge victory for the Chinese government and anyone else who wants to severely restrict the internet.”

“毫無疑問，”紐約大學(xué)斯特恩商學(xué)院(New York University’s Stern School of Business)道德與金融學(xué)教授邁克爾·波斯納(Michael Posner)說。“對于中國政府和任何想要嚴(yán)格限制互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的人來說，這將是一次重大勝利。”