Google && China
I’ve heard that Google agreed to self-censor its search results on Chinese Google (google.cn). Although I couldn’t repeat this behaviour in my own browser (google.cn immediately redirects to google.com), some of my friends in Google Talk confirmed that when you search Google Images for “Tiananmen” it only shows nice fountains and buildings on that square. And when you search for it on Google.com, it shows tanks, students protesting, being killed, etc… (screenshot #1, screenshot #2)
I can’t judge and attack Google because I benefit so much every day by using their amazing free products. And yet this is the first real sign of concern, in my opinion. Here’s a comment from Slashdot:
This is supposed to be the land of the free, home of the brave. The US is supposed to pride itself as being the beacon of light of democracy and the free world.
Instead, everything here has become so much driven by money that ethics and values become irrelevant when it comes to business. Oh, please don’t give me that relativistic bullshit.
The Chinese government has killed thousands of its own citizens in massacres and throws its people into jail without a trial for speaking out against the establishment. They’ve a record of human rights violations, which is definitely evil by any stretch. I mean, shooting dead protesters and imprisoning and torturing people for speaking out - this is what Google is abetting a government to hide and keep away from its own citizens.
Like the article said, the Internet was something new, something that was a new medium that might help bring about a change and bring to light these things. Companies like Google and Yahoo! had the power to do something about it, the power to stand up to it and say NO. To say that despite everything, we’ve values and we have a backbone.
Instead, they gave in. More than anything, I’m disappointed in Google. I’m saddened that a company that preached so much about “doing no evil” turned out to be a bloody hypocrite. You know, deep down you knew that it was a corporation and like most corporations, its driven by greedy ass executives who don’t care two hoots about anything - but you always had a hope that it would stand upto something and show some nerve.
Nope.
“All that is needed for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing” — Edmund Burke.
And someone else answered to that:
You are disappointed in Google? Are you sure that you understand what their situation/predicament is? They simply do NOT have the option of providing an uncensored search engine in Chine at this time, so it is either a censored Google or no google at all. I don’t know about you, but I will take whatever I can get. At least now they have a foot in the door.
January 28th, 2006 at 5:02 am
You know when I heard this news I got really pissed. China seems to be so close to transforming into a more or less democratic state. But such instances as Google self-censorship are a like a backheel or a stab in the back.
One of my instructors assumed that at any point China could change. Maybe during the Olympics or somewhat later, but transition from this quasi-communism to a more open society seems pretty unavoidable. But sure, China is a huge market. And some folks wanna make some buck no matter what.
Don’t they understand they slow down China’s democratization?
Offtop: thanks for inclusion of my sites to your blogroll.
But the English-language blog I’m planning to keep up is this one - http://belarus.blogsome.com/
I use my blogger registration just for posting to other blogs. Sorry for confusion.
January 28th, 2006 at 5:14 am
Money trumps all in America. Too bad Google, Yahoo, and MSN can’t get together and refuse Chinese censorship. Those are the top three search engines- it would make a huge difference.
January 28th, 2006 at 10:17 am
OK. Getting sick of this.
1. not news, not even new
2. MSN, AOL and Yahoo are already censoring in China
3. this is going on everywhere - Google ‘google geolocation’ and learn
January 28th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
P.S. Google’s official press release can be found here:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/google-in-china.html
January 28th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Endrus: No problem! I’ve changed it to http://belarus.blogsome.com/ . In my opinion though http://belandrus.blogspot.com/ is also nice. It appears that you have at least three different blogs on the same topic at blogsome, blogpost and livejournal (or even 5 or 6 if we count your blogs in Belarusan language). You have excellent content, but it seems to be spread all over the place. Wouldn’t it be better to put it all in one place and then to concentrate on its promotion and writing in one place? It’s like you are spreading yourself thin all over the blogosphere…
January 28th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Thanks, man!
Yeah, I thought about that from the very beginning. I just needed registration at different blogging community sites. Planning to write a small study on the usage of various CMS’s and blogging tools, so I had to get to know a few people in the sphere :).
But, yeah, I will limit my main contents to two blogsome sites.
January 28th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
endrus said:
One of my chinese students said China will certainly ’sort out the Taiwan problem’ — but after the Olympics :) Until then China has to pretend it’s mild and democracy-oriented.
I think ‘democratization’ isn’t on agenda at all. China’s main interest is gaining more power - economic or whatever. Open economy - OK. But not open society. Freedom for information-flows, ‘free-thinkers’ - it’s a dangerous factor for a state whose economic effectivity depends on strict discipline.
January 28th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Yea… from what I’ve read about China’s political and economic situation, I’d rather agree with Ambiont’s point of view.
January 28th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
God knows. But won’t you agree that democracy goes side by side with market economy? I think the latter will trigger the former. The only question is when. I have quite a few friends from China who are doing their PhDs or MAs here in North Carolina. They’d rather support the viewpoint I expressed.
You know, many Chinese universities had had pictures on Mao on their hallways. Now they took them away. That communist ideology is gradually becoming outdates. And any product that expires gets tossed, doesn’t it?
January 31st, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Indeed as Chromatius said and Administrator has shown in the past with examples is that Google has been altering / filtering search result based on geological location all this time. I doubt that Google is the only one doing so. This sort of practice has practical uses as in one country a word can mean something different than another however it does impose moral issues. The kind of filtering or rather substitution done for google.cn does fall into the category of censorship. However, one shouldn’t forget that Google is a company, not an idealistic association. As said in their press interview, they are merely expanding their business into the booming Chinese economy. And… a company has to respect law and regulations. It is the same all over the world. I wouldn’t slam Google for respecting law, rather I would slam the Chinese government whom created these laws in the first place. Ambiont is right, China is trying to become the world’s most powerful country by using strict regulation. Freedom and rights dont fit into this idealism. I should add… most Chinese people arent even aware of the negative elements… so I learned from talking to a Chinese friend. According to her, the main focus in China which is drilled into people is performance performance performance. Both physically and mentally (which was VERY clear to notice I might add).