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Dissecting Localized Google Censorship
carpe_noctem writes "Linuxsecurity.com has a link to a rather interesting story regarding Google's use of localized censorship. While not much information is given from the political side of why Google might be censoring information likely to annoy certain governments, it certainly isn't the first time Google has come under fire for censoring results on account of external pressures. Makes one wonder how many pages get filtered out around the world."
I care, esp. if it affects my attempts to retrieve information. Corporate censorship can be harmful too, and the way to combat it is by exposing it, and letting it affect customer patronage.
I agree that Google's own filtering is OK - for one thing, almost by definition they do it to improve the search engine, rather than to achieve some nefarious goal. However, the exclusion of Stormfront's pages from the German view only? Given the nature of their site (a "White Nationalist Resource Page", for those too scared or monitored to look for yourselves), I suspect very strongly this is the result of German government censorship. I expect either Google did it themselves, to prevent attacks from the German government, or they were forced to do so by said government.
It's possible this is some sort of moral judgement by Google themselves - except then, why would they suppress the site only from the German view, not the main index?! No, this smells to me very much like government censorship; Germany's approach to free speech seems to be "Say what you want. As long as it doesn't promote political views we don't like, question our official version of history..."
Bull crap. If this free 'exchange of ideas' is so damn important to you, write your own search engine. Quit whining about how unfair the world is and do something about it.
/. rhetoric.
Typical worthless
I think that these issues are important. Google is probably the most significant reference work in the world. It's made very fundamental changes in the ways people do research. news.google.com is already one of my main news sites -- I use it all the time.
So I think that these issues are very important.
I'm a huge google fan, both of the site and the people who run it. I think they're doing their best to sort through these issues. Government rules are a reality that has to be dealt with.
The thing that I think that google could be criticized for, in all of this, is a lack of transparency. I think they should explain, in detail, what they're doing and why, and make some effort to listen to people who disagree with their policies.
I'm not saying that they should open it up to a vote, or that they should do things that aren't in their company's best interests. Just that they should listen, and tell us what they're doing.
Google looms large in the world's conciousness, and it's getting bigger all the time. It would be an overstatement to say that leaving something out of google erases the fact from the world in an orwellian sense. But it does seem to me that leaving stuff out does take a step down that road.
I just wish that goggle indicated they were censoring the results with someting like "230 results removed due to government contols". People should know about censorship it shouldn't be hidden. Perhaps even display the match with a black line through the link (i.e. you can't read the link nor click on it but you are aware of what happened).
I understand that google thinks it has to do this. The US government can be pretty nasty regarding things like facilitating child porn. European governments can be nasty about political / religious viewpoints they don't agree with (though not as bad as the US regarding child porn). Non western governments can be far worse. Frankly I wish google had the guts to fight because I think they would win but the very least they can do is not cover up for the government.
Well, see, I see a problem here. What if Google decided to make only Google.com the result for any search on Search Engines?
Or what if (since I am in the US), I did a Search for Democratic Presidential Candidates, and only got George W Bush as a result?
Corporate censorship is oftentimes more insidious in that Government, because the Government has very clear lines on what should be censored and for whom (Not that I agree with it, but generally, saying no porn for the kiddies is a good idea)
Corporations have no such compunctions, thier censorship is based on thier own bottom line. Nothing more, nothing less.
You say you want a revolution....
The real problem is that they don't inform the users about the censoring. I've taken a look around Google, and so far without luck in finding the information - mayby they censor what they censor..
If Google openly tells the users what they censor, then the users have a choice - and like in China get more and more aware of the conditions they are living under (ok that was a wee bit idealistic).
I just wonder, why _Google_ thinks what they censor should be kept a secret.
I would say that given the fact that the sites are only censored in certain regions, google must want to post them. After all if they didn't want to post them, these wouldn't appear anywhere in the world.
Oh wait, we're making the mistake of attributing "wanting" of something that wasn't a liquid asset. After all, companies in the US are expected to be money grubbing, coldhearted, amoral (or is that "immoral" in the light of Enron?) bastards who don't give a shit about anything but money, Money, MONEY $$$.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
No one has proposed "forcing" anything. What these people are doing is merely to inform. All they are saying is that Google does not behave in a way that they believe or may be led to believe. This is a tremendously important thing to do, whether or not it results in any changes, because of the role Google has in the internet community.
We should never blindly support any entity, corporate, religious, or governmental. These people are merely providing a view to what might otherwise go unseen.
You know, if it only blocks results to certain regions, what's to keep someone from making a 'region-free' Google proxy and piping results to anyone who wants it?
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
Germany's approach to free speech seems to be "Say what you want. As long as it doesn't promote political views we don't like, question our official version of history..."
Germany forbids denying the holocaust. Exceptions to free speech are allowed by the German constitution. The USA for example don't tolerate hate speech either, and due to Germany's not-so-distant history, denying the holocaust could be seen as scoffing surviving jews. Publishing the content of the Stormfront website would indeed be illegal in Germany. The problem is: The German constitution does not limit the recipient's freedom to get information in the same way in which it limits the publisher. The publisher is not in reach of German law and the recipient is allowed to use publically available sources of information, without limitation. There is no legal basis for forcing Google to remove the site from its index and neither is there a legal basis for making internet providers block the servers. The partially successful attempts of the local government in NRW to achieve the latter have been mentioned on Slashdot before. Google seems to try and avoid this kind of pressure by anticipatory obedience.
Any more or less nefarious than the thousands of madrasas (schools, such as what bin Laden built)in the middle east who's materials do NOT vary from state to state (they all have one book - the Koran), mostly due to religious belief that if you're not a Muslim and you're an American, you're worthy of dying as a infidel?
Or any more or less nefarious that the thousands of schools in North Korea... oh wait.. they don't have schools, they just put all the children to work with dangerous chemicals and in dangerous conditions, never mind...
Or any more or less nefarious than the thousands of Chinese children brought up to believe that its okay for your government to mow you down with tanks and artillery in a public square if you have a difference of political belief? I'm sure the classrooms there are *full* of people just waiting to argue the other side of "government-student relations".
The level of "censorship" across the world is flabbergasting...
and for you, to bitch about a local school system's CHOICE (you know, 'choice', like abortion choice) in its curriculum and call it censorship borders on mental instability....
or an extrmeme left-wing bias.
that you got modded up scares me even more - cause there's someone out there agreeing with you that "choice" = "censorship".
Fsck, so what do you call a woman going to Planned Parenthood? "Censoring her future child"?
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
An analogy that I think is useful:
The phone company provides a free servide - the PHONE BOOK, which lists 'all' of the phone numbers. However, some phone numbers are not included because those people have unpopular views. Therefore, you can't call them because you don't know the number, even if they would welcome your call.
(NOTE: this analogy ignores people who have unlisted numbers out of choice).
Wow - that sounds a lot more subversive than the way some are spinning it, huh?
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
That's the beauty of capitalism, especially on the (relatively) level playing field of the net. Google is a business, and they are free to pursue strategy X in their quest for money so long as they do not violate the law in doing so. In the same way, customers are free to reward or punish Google for choosing strategy X by patronizing or not patronizing their services. And, should you desire to do so, you are free to start a competing search service which applies strategy Y instead, at which point the free market will inform you very quickly whether you or Google are closer to having it "right" -- where the measure of "right" is "making more money while not being thrown in jail".
It sucks at times, but it sure is a hell of a lot better than having to talk to some 12th-level bureaucrat at the Ministry of Information to request a search engine feature improvement.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
An easy tell-tale sign that a search engine is dying, is the "commercialization" of the site. Simple test - enter something in the search bar. Press Search. Look over the first ~3-5 results. 90% likely they have something to do with either byuing or selling. Look over to your right - More buy/sell adverts... If you are an avid Google user, you quickly realize that the number of these adverts has grown over the months. Oh and by the way - a private company does not benefit from censoring. On the other hand, if it is threatened and coerced by shady "patriotic" gov't types.... well...
Than use a different search engine. You are not entitled to use Google. Google is not around to serve you.
Actually, as one of their many target customers they ARE in business to serve me (and they usually do a great job of it too). I'm sure anyone at Google would agree.
The people who think that we shouldn't complain because Google is a private business need to get a bit of a clue about free market capitalism.
In a free market based society the best alternative is usually not to go out and start your own competitive business or even to simply stop using an otherwise good service whenever you disagree with one of their policies or have a bad experience (although you're certainly free to do either or both of these but its usually to your own disadvantage if the service/product is otherwise fine).
An equally valid alternative is to voice your concerns to the company as an individual or a community like we're doing here. At the very least, a responsible company should listen to your concerns and a surprisingly large number actually will make changes based on user suggestions or outcries. If you're a fan of Google and you don't like whatever policy they seem to have - I'm sure they would be happy to hear that feedback through forums like Slashdot, direct communications, and the media.
Whether they do anything about it is up to them, and you can decide what to do based on how they handle the issue, but its pretty weak to suggest that stories, complaints, and suggestions are not a valid way of participating in a free market. Part of the reason why Google has such a great product is that they HAVE responded (and anticipated) to criticisms in the past (and I expect them to continue or they will risk losing their customers).
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!