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http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=Tiananme n+Square&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2%E5%9B%BE%E7%89%87 and in US http://images.google.com/images?q=Tiananmen+Square &ndsp=18&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&start=0&sa=N Imagine that, China censors things. File this under "Duh, I like pie"

When searching for Tiananmen in Chinese in Google, or other censored keywords, the following additional remark is shown at the bottom of the page:
> According to local laws, regulations, and policies, some search results are not shown

You'll be the judge, whether you deem it sufficient or not.

http://images.google.cn/images?q=tank+man&btnG=%E6 %90%9C%E7%B4%A2&svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&lr=&nojs=1

That explanation is a load of malarky. Try searching for Tianamen Square (note poor spelling): you find the picture. Try searching on proper spelling: whoops, no picture. Try searching for "six four" in Chinese, which (I'm told) is as unambiguous if you're Chinese as the spoken words "nine eleven" are to an American, and you'll get... actually, I'm not sure what you'll get, because after about ten minutes of searching politically sensitive terms on Google China I now get my connection reset every time I try to connect to them. Cute, guys. OK, we'll try an anonymous proxy, here we go, that works.

Yep, as I expected, *no image search results whatsoever*. Sounds strange, given that "64" should be showing up in all sorts of documents, right? After all, its a freaking number. Search for a random two digit number and you'd expect to get scads of documents, right? 63 gets hundreds of results. 65 gets hundreds of results. 64 gets consigned to the memory hole. Don't believe me? http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&l r=&nojs=1&q=%E5%85%AD%E5%9B%9B to do it on Google China and http://images.google.co.jp/images?svnum=10&hl=ja&l r=&q=%E5%85%AD%E5%9B%9B to do the exact same search on Google Japan . (You'll note the image results you see are from Chinese-language sources. Japanese people don't refer to the event as 6-4 any more than they refer to 9-11 as 9-11: off the top of my head, 9-11 is the "American simultaneous terror attacks" or /bei doujihatsu tero kougeki/, don't know what they call the Tiananmen Square incident. Probably "Tiananmen Square incident".)

It requires first-order willful ignorance of the facts to conclude this behavior is the result of anything but censorship.

OK, here you go:

http://images.google.cn/images?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%8 9%E9%97%A8

You can always search for "tank guy", and there's your picture. Try it.

go to http://images.google.cn/
and try "tanks beijing"

you get the supposedly censored pictures.

Oddly enough, you get no less than 3 images when you search for "tankman" in google images: http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&l r=&q=tankman&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2 While they censor information, if you search hard enough, you'll find what your looking for.

Compare this to http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&l r=&nojs=0&q=washington+protests&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7% B4%A2/

Yup, looks like censorship. Okay to show people protesting the US, but not China...

I'll be heading to China for a month in January (from Chengdu/Hunan to Honk Kong overland) to get a first hand impression.

I just wanted to point out that the search is "Tiananmen Square tank" on google images. Put that in regular google images, you get a screens full of the famous one man stand off.

Put that in google.cn images and you get "no results were found for your search".

http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=Tiananme n+Square+tank&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2%E5%9B%BE%E7% 89%87

I agree with a previous poster, it's probably less about censorhsip then controlling the information flow to the 1.4B undereducated people. Their economic policies are very very smart. The communist party chairman (they rotate the chair position) in China is not some dimbulb general, they are very well organized. One step at a time.

JON

American version:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en-US&q=2%2B2&ie=U TF-8&oe=UTF-8

Chinese version:
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=2%2B2&ie=UT F-8&oe=UTF-8

They forgot to censor 'tank man'... US Image Search for Tank Man China Image Search for Tank Man

I'm inclined to believe that they are censoring, and the examples given are good ones. However, I'm curious about this (posted by an anonymous poster elsewhere in this thread): http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&l r=&q=tank+man&btnG= Maybe it just takes a different search to get "the other side" of Falun Gong on google.cn as well. Any thoughts?

Yes, that particular search finds pleasant pics, but if you get a bit creative you can still find Images of Tiananmen Massacre. Simply search for "China Massacre" instead.

[google.com] http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&l r=&q=china+massacre&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2

Perhaps the Chinese language itself causes people to search in a different pattern from us English Speaking folk?

http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&l r=&q=tank+man&btnG=??

a better demonstration is to use other google image search result from other country in addition (example : iran, japan, germany...). Why ? Because it could be that .com image search people are interrested into tiananmen square image whereas china is not. In other word it could be not a censure but just incidental.

I tried:

http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&l r=&nojs=0&q=tiananmen+square+protest&btnG=%E6%90%9 C%E7%B4%A2

1 picture. The organizers. At a home somewhere... Nicely done!

Even better: http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen+square+ protests&nojs=1

1. go to http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen
2. look at the bottom left of the page, there's a string of chinese characters
3. use google language tools to translate that string.
4. it says: "According to local laws, regulations, and policies, some search results are not shown."
5. indeed, search for "tiananmen" in http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen and compare

no censorship! just local laws, regulations, and policies. some results are not shown, big deal.

I think just using the CN in a google search must not be returning the same results, but there's no way for me to test this.

For instance - plug in the term censorship in the same link that the AC used -

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=censorship& btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2%E5%9B%BE%E7%89%87&ie=UTF-8 &oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw

I saw links to Wiki with full articles on censorship in the ROC. Would this work if searched while located in Bejing or anywhere else in the ROC? My guess is no. Other hardware filters are in place.

Try changing the chinese query to "tankman"
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=tankman& btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2%E5%9B%BE%E7%89%87

Apparently they don't sensor the internets.

Exactly.

(One is Tiananmen Square from google.com, the other is Tiananmen Square from google.cn.)

Slashdot calls BS.

US Image Search for Tiananmen Square

China Image Search for the same

Who doesn't censor the internet, now?

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hs=B4b&hl =en&q=tiananmen+square&btnG=Search

VS:

http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananme n+square&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2%E5%9B%BE%E7%89%87

Tiananmen Square? I still haven't forgotten that, dispite the best efforts of the new, cuddly, friendly Party.
How many years did those dissidents that Yahoo turned in get?
Are those things propaganda?

How about these comparative Google search results for "Tiananmen massacre"?
Chinese version: http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=Tiananmen%2 0massacre&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw (451 matches)
US version: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Tiananmen+mas sacre&btnG=Google+Search (~731,000 matches)

It's not like it was under Chairman Mao, of course, but let's not forget who we're dealing with, just because they've been playing nice recently.

A better comparison is the image search done in Chinese itself: China, US.

In the article, he says he doesn't know why China would block Wikipedia, given their position on neutrality.

I'm not if he's being intentionally dense, or if he honestly belives that the Chinese government is interested in neutrality.

If so, I'd ask Mr. Wales to compare the following three links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_prot ests_of_1989
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&ie=UTF-8&inla ng=zh-CN&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=T iananmen+Square&spell=1
http://www.google.com/search?q=Tiananmen+Square&ie =UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Just a thought...

Your sig spells tianamen wrong:

http://images.google.cn/images?q=tianamen

same results as US

As opposed to the inaccessible search one gets on http://www.google.cn/ ?

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=falun+gong+ is+good&meta=

As opposed to the inaccessible search one gets on http://www.google.cn/ ?

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=falun+gong+ is+good&meta=

http://www.google.cn/search?q=Falun

Falun Gong Is a Cult
www.china-embassy.org

Research Society of Falun Dafa and the Falun Gong organization under its control are held to be illegal
english.people.com.cn

Fifteen Falun Gong Cult followers attempted to sabotage cable TV network equipment
app1.chinadaily.com.cn

southcn:Falun Gong Cult OUTLAWED
www.newsgd.com

Here we should point out that the banning of "Falun Gong" by the Chinese government is also part of
www.chinaembassycanada.org

Falun Gong Practitioner Not Sorry for Killing Father, Wife
news.xinhuanet.com

Now compare all that to
http://www.google.com/search?q=Falun

Now, if the Chinese Gov't is making Google filter based on English keywords, you think they're not going to do the same with their uber-firewall?

Many Chinese schools teach english. It isn't like they only speak various Chinese dialects over there.

No, people were pretty much crushed by tanks. You see, GP was basically repeating (and I assume satirizing) the party line. For instance, if you are in the United States and do a google image search for Tiananmen Square you mostly find pictures of tanks. Do a China google images search for the same term and you get a much more patriotic view of things. Hmm... the ratio used to be a lot more unbalanced... I wonder if Google is intentionally letting the filtering slide, or if reporters have simply found ways around the google.cn filtering rules.

Well, duh, what do you think "censorship" means? It is in the nature of censorship to conceal that it has happened. But, as a relatively poorly censored case of censorship, go to http://www.google.com/search?q=xenu and scroll to the bottom.

For an even more striking effect, do the same search on Google.cn and scroll to the bottom. Interesting, no?

Actually, that is not what is really happening. The offending pictures are being actively removed. The single image about the incident you see on page 3 was probably indexed by accident. You will also notice the page is no longer accessible.

The rest of the pages do not have one single picture of the massacre.
Two links worth two million words: http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen&hl=zh-C N and http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen&hl=zh- CN

That's not cultural bias. It's blatant censorship.

FWIW, mainland Chinese people don't use the word "Tianenmen Square" to refer to the massacre. They call it "6-4", which stands for June 4, 1989. Here is what a search for 6-4 looks like in Chinese.

I think it's wrong that the Chinese government censors these searches, but I also believe that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

What are you talking about? Google.cn censors without notifying users that content is being removed. For example... . . . Here's a Google.cn search for "tiananmen" http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen

""

Nice try though. Plus, it could be argued that the wording in your linked page was on their American website, while the censoring occurs on their Chinese webpage. Then, as a previous poster stated, right on the Google.cn results page, it lets you know if there are any results that have been censored.

What are you talking about? Google.cn censors without notifying users that content is being removed. For example...

Here's a Google.com search for "tiananmen"
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen

Here's a Google.cn search for "tiananmen"
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen

creepy huh?

Frontline did a piece about this a few months ago. It was called "The Tank Man" and it's viewable online.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/vi ew/

Watch part 6, "The struggle to control information." A journalist hands a picture of the tank man to several Chinese university students, and they have -no- idea what the picture is about. That's crazy.

First, with a market like China, so much money is involved that if they were not trying to leverage the Chinese search morket, they would be held liable to the people that are *truly* important, their shareholders. They are a public company, therefore their first priority (moraly) is to return investments to their investors.

Second, let's look at their actions in China. They DO NOT host blogs, e-mail accounts, or any other (albeit in their opinion) information that could be used to imprison or otherwise harm their users. With censorship, we first need to look at whose ideas we are censoring. To Americans, Tiananmen Square is a symbol of an oppressive goverment crushing opposition. To the Chinese people, Tiananmen Square is the spiritual center of the Empire. A slight difference of opinion. Is it any surprise that you don't find pictures of the 1989 riots until page 4?

Finally, let's look at the alternatives. Microsoft offers an unusable interface (Live Beta) that has so turned me off I won't consider another Microsoft Live product, based on substantial, not intellectual, grounds. Yahoo offers poor search results, and their advertising is obnoxious to the point of making their interface as unusable as Live's. In grounds that are slightly more relevent to this disscusion, both have been implicated in assisting in the arrest of multiple Chinese citizens.

At the end of the day, Google comes out on top in every area against Yahoo, and every area against Microsoft Live, and I will continue to pledge my support and money (disclaimer: I own Google stock and have both an adSense and adWords account) to, very pessimistically, the least of the evils.

Interestingly enough see the third result down...
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=censor&btnG =Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&meta=

It is titled "Internet censorship in mainland China - Wikipedia, the free ..."

You mean like this? (Which is not the same thing as this.)

You can check out the scale of the censorship for yourself (unless you're chinese ;)

Rest of world: http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen+square
China: http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen+square

I'd rather see google pull out than participate in such a blatant and upsetting removal of knowledge.

It is horrible that google actual tells people when their search results have been censored. How is what they are doing worse than doing nothing and just letting China wontonly censor the data with none the wiser as to what was censored.

Difference is the US doesn't deny this to its citizens. A chinese person doesn't know anything other than what the Chinese government tells them.

You guys even re-elected Dubya knowing full well all of the BS that he's pulled.

And in the US, articles this one are available for you to read and form your own opinion.

Chinese don't have that option. Take a look at what Google Images host from:
google.cn

vs:
google.ca

My point is this:
It's not The Google Democratic Party search engine.
It's The Google search engine.
I'm not Republican or Democrat. Nor do I want to see Google's results based on my or any political party.

It's not The Google Democratic Party search engine.
It's The Google search engine.
I'm not Republican or Democrat. Nor do I want to see Google's results based on my or any political party.
And you're right, I can use another search engine and they totally are free to do whatever they want as long as they're not breaking any laws. This freedom also comes with responsibility of dealing with repercussions of their choices. Repercussions like me using my freedom of speech to speak out against their heinous policies.

There is some deep, hidden irony on that page.

If the Chinese people wanted to enjoy the same democracy and human rights that we have in the West, then the Chinese people could get democracy and human rights tomorrow.

This is where it got them.

Seriously, you need to read up a little more on just how extensive the demonstrations around Tiananmen Square really were. That wasn't one guy and a bunch of tanks. It was thousands and thousands of people, getting shot in the back by troops armed with assault rifles as they fled. I recommend a recent Frontline special, called "The Tank Man," for more information.

I was able to get to Google China without difficulty, in Firefox. It may be that you don't have the appropriate language pack for your browser. However, AFAIK the censorship only works if Google detects that you are indeed in China, so you can't test it from outside.

yeah but spell it wrong and you get closer results... Not really a big conspiracy, (probably just misspellings in the page or pic) but still interesting..
 

Do two quick searches to see for yourself, the difference between google.com and google.cn. These links refer to the image search on the U.S. and Chinese Google pages, respectively.

http://images.google.com/

http://www.google.cn/imghp?hl=zh-CN&tab=wi&q=

Search for "Tiananmen" on both sites and notice the *significant* difference in content returned by each.