S18: Nailing Jelly

Misinformation and China

February 16, 2026

Key Questions

Great Firewall of China
  • What is the Great Fire Wall? How does censorship (not) work?
  • How is China reshaping the global information environment? How should the US respond?
  • Advancing Technology for Democracy: Should the Internet be aligned with principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms? If so, how?

Bill Clinton on China

Discuss: Nailing Jelly

In 1998, US President Bill Clinton visited China and went to a private internet cafe in Shanghai to take a look at new developments in China. At that time, there were only 30 internet cafes in Shanghai, and the software was imported from the US, with no local internet technology companies.
  • Was Bill Clinton wrong? If so, why?
  • How did China change the Internet? How did the Internet change China?
  • From empowering citizenship to echo chamber: What’s the future of the web?

Google in China

Google China Website 2010
  • Founded in 1998 in Menlo Park, CA
  • Unofficial motto: “Don’t be evil”
  • 2000: partnership with Yahoo helped Google become the leading search engine.
  • 2006: Launched Chinese site Google.cn

Google’s position in 2010

Globally:

  • Google’s peak worldwide market share for online search reached nearly 85% in early 2004.
  • By 2009, Google offered search options in more than 110 languages and had offices in dozens of countries.
  • Google’s IPO in August 2004 raised $1.6 billion.
  • By 2008, Google’s revenues reached $21.8 billion, mainly from AdWords and AdSense.
  • Google focused on mobile computing, introducing Android in 2005, and its first smartphone, Nexus One, in 2010.

In China:

  • Google launched Google.cn in 2006, with local workforce of 700 employees by 2009.
  • Revenue-sharing agreement with China Mobile starting in 2007.
  • Revenues in 2009 were approximately $300 million (1% of Google’s corporate revenue).
  • Google’s search market share in China was 31% in Q3 2009, compared to Baidu’s 64%.
  • Internet users in China: 105 million in 2005; 338 in 2009, with about 24% using Google.
  • China was the second-largest retail market globally.

Google’s dilemma

Anybody who does business in China compromises some of their core values. The question that I struggle with is are we better off giving Chinese citizens a decent search engine, even if it is restricted and censored in some cases than a search engine that’s not very good? I don’t know the answer to that.

John Hennessy, Chinaman Alphabet Inc.

Discuss: Google’s dilemma

Google headquarter
  • Should Google stay or leave China?
  • Does it matter if Google self-censors or China does the censoring, if the result is the same?
  • Google gets asked to remove contents in many markets. What’s so different about China?

Eric Schmidt on China

Google in 2018: Project Dragonfly

People left bouquets of flowers on the Google logo outside the company’s China office in Beijing to mourn its closing in 2010. Li Xin/AFP/Getty Images
  • Since its exit from search engine market in 2010, Google had been rebuilding its presence in China.
  • In 2017, Google established the Google AI China Center in Shanghai.
  • They have an estimated 700 employees working on advertising and other development.
  • In 2018, it was reported that Google created Project Dragonfly, a search engine that would comply with Beijing’s censorship requirements.
  • 1,400 Google employees signed a letter of protest against it.

Discuss: Project Dragonfly

  • Should Google build Project Dragonfly?
  • Should a Google employee voice concerns about Dragonfly internally, go public, or resign in case of disagreement with the project?

Eric Schmitt: A Change of Mind?

Mark Zuckerberg: “They will never let us in”

Zuckerberg in China

President Xi Jinping, center, meets Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, as Lu Wei, China’s top Internet regulator looks on. Photo by Ted S. Warren

Mark Zuckerberg with Alibaba Founder, Ma Yun

Mark Zuckerberg in Beijing

Bing: The One That Stayed

Bill Gates with Xi Jinping

Results from a search for “Uyghurs” in Chinese on Microsoft Bing

Results from a search for “Uyghurs” on Microsoft Bing US

A Darker View: Total Trust

Poster: Total trust
  • How does surveillance work in China? What role does technology play?
  • Discuss the main characters of the film: Who are they?
  • How did the director make the documentary, without being able to travel to China? How does it change the way you view the film?
  • “If this is the present, what does our future look like?”
  • What are we not seeing?

Total Trust: Characters

Wenzu Li, whose husband Quanzhang Wang, was one of more than 300 lawyers and tivists arrested in 2015

Zijuan Chen, whose husband Weiping Chang, also a civil-rights lawyer, was rested in 2020

Sophia Xueqin Huang, is a journalist who befriends and supports Chen in her quest.

The “Censor’s” View

Discussion: Censored (2018)

Great Firewall of China
  • What is “porous censorship”?
  • How should we think about censorship in the Chinese context?
  • Explain the three Fs: fear, friction, flooding
  • How did Roberts study Chinese censorship?

Paradoxes of the Chinese Internet

Great Firewall of China
  • China is an authoritarian state exercising strict control and censorship.
  • At the same time, the country is a leader in digital technology, from 5G to AI to e-commerce.
  • Censorship in China is restrictive and repressive, but also porous and permissive at times.

Discuss: Advice to the CCP

Meme on “fifty-cent army” in China
  • How to balance political control with technological and economic developments?
  • Is censorship curbing or fueling innovation in China?
  • How to allow government criticism but repress collective action (and prevent regime collapse)?

Google: Don’t be evil… no more?

Google headquarter
  • Google’s initial motto was “don’t be evil”. It was downgraded to a “mantra” in 2009.
  • The motto was not included in Alphabet’s code of ethics when the parent company was created in 2015.
  • In February 2025, Google’s owner dropped the promise not to use AI for weapons.

The Race of Our Times