You keep making these arguments using hyperbolic examples that have little or nothing to do with what Google might (depending on how the internal politics work out) end up launching.
Predicting the future is tricky, particularly when it involves the decisions of complicated political processes where the decision-makers (most likely) disagree. Plans often change. We can't possibly know what they're going to do. Maybe nothing; plenty of large corporate projects never launch.
It's not hyperbole when this literally happened to Shi Tao, right down to the torture and imprisonment facilitated by Yahoo. This isn't some conspiracy theory: it's well-documented.
I certainly hope that Google doesn't follow the same path! But US tech companies have been complicit in human rights abuses in the past, so the public has every reason to remain vigilant.
Yes. Of course terrible things do happen in China. But the assumption that Google's product will cause this to happen is currently just someone's imagination.
The product hasn't launched yet, might not ever launch, and we don't know how the product will work if it did launch. I'd hope they're thinking about how to make sure nobody gets in trouble, but we currently don't know what precautions they came up with.
There are lots of companies working in China. We know of one incident involving Yahoo. Do we assume without evidence that any other companies working there have caused dissidents to be tortured?
