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Google Confirms Chinese Censorship Claims
UnanimousCoward writes "A spokesperson has responded to the 'censorship' questions in this article: '"Google has decided that in order to create the best possible search experience for our mainland China users we will not include sites whose content is not accessible," company spokeswoman Debbie Frost said Friday.'" Our original article ran on Wednesday.
No use listing them if the users can't get there (that's if they're not using one of the proxy's)
Were people in China able use the google cache to circumvent the governmental censorship? If that's the case, it seems that leaving the service active would provide a "better experience" to me.
Would it be better if China took Google offline entirely?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
And there you have it, a completely logical explaination. Nothing to see here, move along.
Martin
...is such a relative word. :-/
Google, as much as we love it, is a priviate company, and they have to abide by the laws, regulations and codes of conduct in forign countries, whose markets they wish to enter.
Don't get upset with goodle over cencorship, get upset with the government who's laws they must abide.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
that it wouldn't exactly be "good service" if google provided them with links to news(among approved news) that would get the clients ass in jail(if he read the link).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
let the Chinese people see what their government is hiding from them? Probably because the government would then ban google. Silly communists, oppression of ideas is for fascist regimes!
So in other words, it isn't exactly censorship. It's "you're-not-going-to-be-able-to-view-this-site-any way, so-we're-going-to-save-you-the-trouble-and-not-lis t-it"-ship.
There's nothing I hate more than doing a search for something and getting a bunch of (useful-looking) results that then turn out to be 404 or inaccessible for some other reason. It gives my mind a case of intellectual blue balls.
Breaking out the "C" word on Google here doesn't seem exactly fair. Fix the broken communist Chinese dictatorship and Google won't be forced into silly positions like this.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
If Google were to display results from sites the Chinese government blocks, computer users would end up clicking on links that lead nowhere -- something the search engine has always tried to avoid.
ok, so couldn't google offer an option to NOT block out these sites? maybe the Chinese would use some sort of caching system to view this sites instead (coral?, google?), or maybe they just want to see what IS available
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
No, not really. However, how responsible should Google be in fighting oppression in other countries?
"Do no evil", but does that mean to fight against evil whenever possible? I don't think Google has any right, let alone responsibility, to make a stand against the Chinese government. If the socialists in that country see fit to regulate the media to the extent that massive nation-wide filters need to be erected to keep "bad" things out, then Google (an American company) has no business telling them they are wrong.
The internet is international and some nations prefer to keep some of the worst areas out of the hands of their publics. Is that such a wrong thing? Isn't it more wrong to hand over porn to the kiddies via a web search than it is to filter it out?
Dancin Santa
second!
So I'm just too blind to see the prominently displayed 'Some results are being censored according to your local law and/or our "France sucks" jokes'..
This article makes me wonder, do they not index any banned sites period or are they just not listed in the Chinese version?
If they don't index banned sites period hI think the best way would be to not list them in the chinese version, and in the general version, list them but not cache them. That way there are no broken links for chinese users, they abide by the laws (from my understanding), and we can still see those websites.
There is a use to listing censored sites - so that people in China can know what's being withheld from them. (In the dubious words of Rumsfeld - listing censored sites makes them known unknowns rather than unknown unknowns....) A precursor to any sort of political change that enhances liberty is knowing that your freedom is being curtailed - and to what degree. I would say that Google is, in a limited way, enhancing China's ability to present a false picture of the world to its people.
But we love Google... Google always good...
Feeling like a James T. Kirk versus Robot logic issue.. head will blow up soon! Cannot resolve conflicting Slashdot logic!
KHaaaaaaaaaaannnn (just for effect)
Agile Artisans
... is silent censorship. And that is the kind of censorship that I find the most frightening about the digital age.
When you censor a physical document, it has to go somewhere. You have to take it, you have to steal it, you have to burn it, etc. On the web, a page that is gone is just gone, quietly and painlessly, with only perhaps a few broken links to show that it was ever there. Google may think those broken links are just an annoyance, but in truth they are all that seperates the futile censorship that regimes have practiced since civilization began from 1984.
If the Chinese government wants to censor sites, then we cannot stop them. Since they claim that they are doing it for the good of their own people, then they can have that discussion with those people, and we should not be accomplices to sweeping it under the rug.
The sad thing is that Google already have a precedent here: the way they mark search results that have been censored due to the DMCA (cf this). If they truly believed in "not being evil" they would do the same thing with Chinese news: place a disclaimer that some results have been removed because the news sources are available in China. Leave it to CG to explain why.
I know that there's more to this issue than algorithmic accuracy, and it's easy to say that Google shouldn't be doing China's work for them, but given that Google's a good search engine, and its availabilty is accordingly boon to free speech, even if its coverage isn't comprehensive, it's better than it not being available at all. It's notable that they've not promised to create any new censorship, only to "respect" existing censorship.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the beginning of the end of Google's dominance. They've just opened the door for the competition because we can now question the integrity of the main function it serves.
The whole reason most of us began using Google ages ago was because we knew that what was entered into that lone input box on the front page would return results as accurate as could scientifically be obtained. If the search didn't result in the match you wanted, you knew it wasn't Google's fault but your own.
But now they've admitted to editing the returns. How do we know this is the only case? Perhaps another search engine would return something more accurate?
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
What I found particulary amusing about this article are the "related links" on the right, pointing to "Best deals: Censorship" on pricegrabber.
That's probably an accurate description of the situation....
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Seems like everytime I find what looks like a link that might answer some obscure question I have, the link is changed or gone ... and not everything is cached.
Mailing list digests seem to be the biggest offenders, and of course dynamic systems like forums.
Doing no evil doesn't necessarily mean Google has to be the progressive cause for change," Li said. "(In China), they are saying, 'This is the law of the land, and there is nothing we can do to change it.'"
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
vindicate companies that did business with the 3rd Reich too?
I find something to be very flawed with the reasoning that it is moral to enter into an market in which you know your company's actions are furthuring the immoral policies of the government. Trying to absolve one's self of blame just because you are "trying to make a profit" which is "what comapnies do" doesn't seem to be a very wholesome answer.
than censorship. Works for us.
"Good service" in this case would be to avoid dealing with China.
so instead of filtering news why not just put an open proxy for them so they can visit those news site.
This way people will not even know there are sites that their government sensors. Google is only afraid that they themselves will be sensored away and they'll loose the huge Chinese market. I am very disappointed in Google as this shows that their "Be not evil" only is a silly marketing line and will be cast aside if there is money to be made.
because of the companies integrity. The same is true of everything. You think that people buy Nike because of their kosher business practices? No, they buy Nike because it's a shoe they think is better than the rest.
Da Third!
Uh huh.
place a checkbox in the advanced search options:
[ ] display search results your government wont allow you to view.
-- john
Here we have a perfect example of the "Slashdot Linux Pass".
Google does not only do this in China. In Germany, national socialism is largely forbidden, so the well-known NS/WP site stormfront.org is blocked. Try this link from German google, and notice how it claims to find no matches on stormfront.org. The same search on American google.com returns 53,500 matches.
I remember a few years back when China was in process of building "The Great Fire Wall" and how Cisco was providing a significant portion of the equpiment.
./'s favorite poster child company does the same thing, and its "well they have to obey the laws!" Pick one. Either you're against censorship, or you're for Capitialism and following the laws of the land. Don't apply the rules differently to different companies.
Slashdot erupted with much weeping and gnashing of teeth of the evils of Cisco and how they sold out to the devil and censorship yadda yadda.
Now
2 years ago the chinese government was censoring alta-vista:
http://news.com.com/China+blocks+search+engine+Alt aVista/2100-1023_3-957154.html/
If this is the kind of choice that google is looking at, it is no wonder that Google is acting like a good chinese citizen.
Keep it there anyway accessible via Google cache.
... we can search for sites about Cuban Cigars, we can even read other peoples reviews of them. We just can't buy them. :(
As citizens of a free country we should be offering an uplifted middle finger to the thugs who run China [1], and I cannot feel good about any company rooted here supporting them.
[1] And Saudi Arabia, and Iran, and Pakistan, and the list goes on. But the response should always be the same, contempt and derision for the thugs, and support for those citizens who are attempting to overthrow the thugs who run those countries.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Granted that there isn't a whole lot of integrity to be found in the realm of publicly traded businesses, but part of the excitement around google was the hope that they, having seen the follies of the dot-com fiasco, would be different.
But, instead, at almost the first sign of controversy, google considers the loss of a market above the need to maintain the integrity of their search results.
"think different", "be not evil". "just do it".
"Would it be better if China took Google offline entirely?"
yes.
The people of China would really understand what their government is doing (wrt preventing them from getting certain information). If you think this is already the case, talk to Chinese who went back to China this summer. They say "Things are getting better. (But the air and water are still bad.)" They do not see (or do not admit) that the government is a serious problem (wrt human rights).
Google has made China's censorship easier because Chinese Google users are now less aware of their oppression. Can you be oppressed and not be award of it? In terms of information, yes. The bottom line is that Google is no longer a window on the world. It is the window on what the Chinese government wants its citizens to see. In my book, that's flaming red evil. If they'll bend to assist censors, they can stoop to anything.
... says Google's motto. But what exactly does the company mean by that? To quote Sergey Page in an interview he and Larry Brin did for Playboy.
So what exactly is the right, ethical thing to do in the situation Google is having to face when it comes to providing search services in China? Abide by Chinese censorship laws in the name of business, or not deploy a local version of their search engine in that country rather than having to provide access to a search engine with censored results?After all, is this the right, ethical thing to do as far as Google is concerned? ... If it truly is, then I believe we ought to be somewhat more cautious about the company than we actually are and stop considering it as one which can only do good to the extent of sacrificing business opportunities in the name of ethics. Otherwise, perhaps we should just content ourselves of reconsidering the said motto.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There are plenty ways and even underground web sites that offer proxy and redirection services to circumvents precisely this kind of thing.
You can even find some with Google. Those who want to know will eventually know.
Just remember that corporations have no souls. They are simply driven by profit. Google is just doing what 90% of the countries in the world do.
If anything, the only influence one can have is with the shareholders...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
government help the people?
i think its fine... just because WE think China's rules are harsh and wrong (because we've been fortunate enough to have so many freedoms), that doesn't mean that we should expect everyone else in the world to have them... I commend Google for obeying the laws of the country it works in... heck, the Chinese government could just say "No Google for you!" and then they'd lose 2 billion (?) customers. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing we just can't dabble with.
--- Caffeine is directly responsible for some of my greatest ideas, and some of my most embarrassing moments...
If Google indexed banned sites, then they would still be available via Google's cache.
Nope. China already blocks Google's cache, as well as most proxies they can find.
Would it be better if China took Google offline entirely?
Not from their point of view. It's a too obvious a form of censorship. They want to maintain the illusion of freedom as much as possible. That's why they don't want Google listing these banned pages to begin with; it makes the censorship more obvious.
If rumours that China is a major source of our Spam are correct, then shouldn't the Chinese use their censorship technology to censor outgoing traffic as well as incoming traffic and delete all of this spam?
Uh, no, Google is a publicly traded company. Which means they're now very much influenced by public perception. Investors are exactly the kind of people who would drive this decision, to varying degrees of directness.
Don't get upset with goodle over cencorship, get upset with the government who's laws they must abide.
Google doesn't have to abide to any Chinese law. They did it purely because they knew that if they didn't, the Chinese government would pick some other search engine to be The People's Search Engine, or simply block Google. They'd be kissing goodbye a huge advertising market. China's size makes it a perpetual goldmine for any foreign company- and is the primary reason we're willing to ignore the fact that they're communist (communism is worthy of a decades long blockade for Cuba!) and have massive human rights problems...and sign trade agreements with them.
Please help metamoderate.
Other then google itself being baned?
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
I'm not saying they are of equal weight, but they are two immoral policies by oppresive governments. That Germany was more immoral does not excuse countries that are less immoral. And it does not excuse companies that do business with them.
Well, better a crippled Google than no Google at all, wouldn't you say? A crippled Google would still find things that aren't censored, a blocked Google wouldn't find anything at all.
Of course Google is going to be censored if they dont comply and since they're a big site everyone knows about they're not exactly the best site to start a rebellion. You can do that on a warez site or something else the gov doesn't know about, but this is like going on the streets and shouting out "I'm starting a rebellion, who's with me?". You won't live long enough to change anything.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
The people of China would really understand what their government is doing"
What, the people of China would only understand that their government is censoring the Internet if they took Google offline?
By your logic, they could get away with more censorship if China left Google intact.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
China is a large part of the worlds population, but there are still billions of other poeple that can access Google. Google has a great opportunity to lead by example and take the moral high bround by telling China it is their problem to restrict sites. Giving in like this is sort of like giving in to terrorists demands. It leads to more demands.
If you can't get to the censored sites then how can you spider them to know that they are there?
There are lots of documents that aren't available because people move them to some where other than httpd/bin or where ever they cache their web pages.
If some one moves an old website is that censorship
or just cleaning up harddrives?
The Red Chinese have always been fascists.
Do we forget this just because the rich in the US decided that they would move all manufacturing there?
Anyone who is shocked that sites are censored should be overwealmed to know that there are people in China in chains and unable to ever use the internet (let alone create a website) because these people joined the outlawed Falon Gong!
And our leaders don't care because they have their hedge funds investing in China.
To any who are outraged by Chinese censorship please be more outraged by Red Chinese torture and murder.
Fortunately the Chinese have a strong moral society that even facists who pretend to be socialists can't destroy.
It's well possible that it's the "do not admit" part. You know, in places where the human rights situation is bad, it's generally also dangerous to say that.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I bet Google did this to avoid being blocked themselves. The obvious, non-cowardly solution, would be to present the "blocked" links in a way that identifies them as blocked. This would be doubly informative, for it would show the Chinese user what he or she could access once their oppressive, human-rights violating government is replaced (or, once they are able to emigrate); and, it would quantify the results more appropriately. How long before Google filters U.S. results for politically-appropriate content?
It's clear capitalists don't want freedom or democracy or human rights, they only care for profits. China succesfully transitioned from communism to outright fascism, and the corporations are happy whores for it. This is our future, too. Every CEO who sells out should be thrown in jail to rot.
Do you really think the people living in the PRC are really so dumb they don't realize what the government is doing?
I think they know, but feel powerless to change things overnight, or at all.
Their stand is to aid the Chinese government. No one is saying that they should instead strap on a cape and slip into some tights, fighting evil whereever they go. They should simply not do business with China.
Country != race.
File for an IPO but screw up the rules involved with an IPO (like talking beforehand).
Release an email service that scans emails and posts ads. Privacy advocates go nuts.
Gradual deteriation of search results (try searching for some topics without getting links to IMDB, Wikipedia or porn).
Not to mention possibly focusing on stuff they probably shouldn't (like creating a browser). I'm beginning to wonder if we'll be talking about Google the same we talked about Yahoo a few years back: great at first but lost sight of what made it good.
fact is, no one said "yahoo is free" or "google is free" or any one site could ever do that - the idea is "the internet is free." If someone in china wants news sites that are not censored, they are going to have to learn how to deal with proxies (just as someone in the US might if they want certain sites banned in the US for similar reasons). If you want to be informed it's your responsibility - not google's - to learn, and to devise the means to do so. All altruism would get google is banishment from china completely - which ultimately serves no one. Just be glad there even is a service like google, and a means to work around the localized defects.
"Google has chosen to side with the Chinese government. That's their choice, but I will not pretend to respect that choice, or offer any defense of that choice"
Google has chosen on the side of the stock holders. They have chosen to enter a closed market under the markets terms. Business decisions.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
+1 Smack in the forehead.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Try alternatives: Vivisimo which offers clustered searching (quite nice, actually), or or Lycos old, but still working, or any number of other search engines. I like Google's functionality, I like many of their extra features. I will be writing to Google, asking them to stop aiding the Chinese government in its abuse of the Chinese people. I will also be trying to avoid Google, because I *do* think that their integrity is gone, and I do not think that I can trust their results anymore.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
for crimes against humanity. There's no excuse for assisting an oppressive state with censorship, and the fact that an American company is doing it makes me ashamed to be an American citizen.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
What do 'we' agree on? You can't know.
China's rules are harsh and wrong!
They murder and torture to keep their citizens from practicing Falun Gong!
Some issues are not morally fuzzy.
Would you have kept slavery going in Europe and America because that was the laws of the country?
There are things that need to change in China, and they will. This will happen regardless of morally bankrupt people posting appologist nonsense on the Web.
What good if you gain 2 billion customers and loose your soul?
Certainly there were companies that were ignorant in the 30s. But then there were companies who even after their ignorance was shed continued to do business with the Reich.
Was Google ignorant of China's policies? I haven't heard anyone claim such. A "market of 1 billion" does negate the underlying moral problem. Shooting an innocent man is still immoral whether you do it for free or someone pays you $1,000,000.
IIII (not IV)
unless, of course, there's money in it. Welcome to the post-IPO Google, where the quest for profits yields to nothing.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
If they gave the ol' middle finger to China, they would be banned from China, which is the most populous country in the world. For this, Google would be held liable and John Q. Public could sue Google for negligence. The problem is really a problem with the institution of the corporation. I recommend watching The Corporation - an eye-opening documentary. My favorite line from this movie compares corporations to sharks - they are not necessarily evil, but are designed by their nature to do harm for their own benefit. The sad truth is, Google doesn't have the option to be a benevolent ubersite anymore.
So everything is OK as long as you're getting paid?
As long as someone else with political power signs off on it, no moral rules apply? That's just the cost of doing business?
Congratulations. According to you, the corproation's moral envelope is defined by the lowest, most base, inhuman foreign dictator's whim.
I almost hope you could live in a totatlitarian society for long enough to understand the magnitude of how wrong you are.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
'Please keep your posts on topic'
If a word can be said, written and understood it is a valid word.
You may not like it, and no one cares.
We all know that a spokeswoman is.
She's a girl who makes bicycle wheels.
Google, grow a set. They are already behaving like a real corporation. The mainland Chinese can still get to the cache, or maybe they are using a proxy.
I hate sigs.
Hey I understand your sentiments. But if Google took the moral high ground and refused to do business with any country that violates human rights then they need to close up shop. Every country in the whole freeking world violates somebody's rights. Slashdot picks on China but I'm sure much of Google is banned in Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, etc. Certain search subjects are banned in Germany. The list goes on an on.
At least in China the rules are well set down. Here in the USA the government can decide with out much proof or equality in judgment that you are a terrorist, declare you a hostile combatant and disappear your ass. Well Shit Google should be doing business in the USA either.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
To quote Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." They abdicated their duty (resulting from them having made their fortunes on the Internet) to be a beacon for freedom. Instead, they sold their souls to the PRC for their very own twenty pieces of silver.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Ask yourself honestly: would you be sporting this new attitude if it were some middle eastern countries I could name, rather than China?
We used to believe (a few years ago) that totalitarian communist regimes were so evil that just as a matter of course doing this sort of business with them was illegal.
Then we had an idea that freer trade would help liberalize these societies. Stories like this should make you carefully revisit that idea.
Google has no responsibility to fight evil wherever possible, just as I have no responsibility to rescue you if you were kidnapped by the North Koreans and used to train spies in our language. But isn't this a bit more like traveling to North Korea to sell dictionaries to the guards at your prison camp? Isn't that somewhere else on the moral envelope?
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
The question then becomes, "if Google created these 'known unknowns,' how long would it be before Google itself gets blocked?"
Why does that have to be the question? Why can't it be "Is it necessary to put aside our principles of Freedom of Information to get access to the Chinese Market?"
A person would have the moral censure of his community to risk if he were to do this. But a corporation evades it because it has a mandate against moral choices.
Because a corporation will not make the same choices as a person, and because a corporation isn't subject to moral censure in the same way an individual is, the community should have special controls over what the corporation is allowed. This should include restricting its activities in anti-democratic political domains.
This reveals Google's "be good" mantra as nothing more than marketing nonsense.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Folks seem to forget that Google is a business, not a charity or an open source project. The purpose of Google is profit, not making the world a better place.
Use alternatives. Don't be an accomplice to Chinese tyranny.
Flout 'em and scout 'em,
and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free. - Shakespeare [The Tempest]
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!!!!(V)
This would server two purposes:
1. Google would be more responsible and honest about the situation, which is probably the best option they have here.
2. Alert the rest of the world to the censorship in a delicate and interesting way - ala a "Banned Books" list.
Christianity might be a poor example, though. While one can argue Japan has "accepted US culture", there is less than one percent of the population who support that religion.
It's a frickin QUOTE in the frickin MOVIE. Try using GOOGLE to find out the real source (ah, irony).
It quite possibly could have gone done like this:
The chinese government approached google telling them that they must not show search results to blocked sites or that google will be themselves blocked.
Google asked themselves what's better, having no presence in China, or having some presence.
Perhaps they could even sneak in some things through the cache, give priority to sites that haven't yet been blocked by the government.
It's hard to make a decision about how evil Google is being here. If they just up and decided to censor results or if they're doing this to try to win some Chinese government contract then I would certainly agree that they have violated their own code of conduct.
It might not be that way though.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
The book IBM and the Holocaust details this for once such company. There was even a slashdot review of this book i believe. Here is a choice quote from the
website:
-- john
I thought she was a girl who was "on teh spoke."
Not from their point of view. It's a too obvious a form of censorship. They want to maintain the illusion of freedom as much as possible. That's why they don't want Google listing these banned pages to begin with; it makes the censorship more obvious.
Yes, now imagine google refusing to self-censor.
by doing so, they support china's actions..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Democracy? I don't think so. 1.6 billion people, despite an exceptional level of homogenity and subservience still encompass a significant risk to an orderly, safe, progressive society.
So split up China into a federal system giving regions at least some level of autonomy.
They want to maintain the illusion of freedom as much as possible. That's why they don't want Google listing these banned pages to begin with; it makes the censorship more obvious.
Thanks for clarifying. Can you point me to where you determined this?
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
And I for one welcome our new Communist overlords.
In all seriousness, the only difference between being a slave to our corporate overlords and the communist ones is that we get to bitch about how bad it is, produce as many children as we want, and read websites at work.
Poverty, the threat of being a social outcast, and the fear of loosing our material possessions can make us fall into line faster than any execution squad or torturer could.
Too bad... google is a publically traded corporation, which means its CEO is obligated under law to do whatever it can to maximize shareholder value.
If there is money to be made, then money comes before any principals the directors have.
From what I read after seeing the previous slashdot article about this, China is redirecting via falsifieng entries on DNSs to some web site in Canada about Fulan Gong. The website about Fulan Gong is filtered by The Great Firewall of China. So what is Fulan Gong? And why does China want it filtered? Well Fulan Gong seems to be some mystic art or some crap that seems to combine ideas from Budhism, Daoism, and Hinduism. The only thing that led me to beleive there was any truth to this was that the Chinese government was filtering it for some reason. I asked my wife who is from China about it. She got pissed off that I would even mention the words Fulan Gong. She says that some dude did a Chinese equivilant to Hilton Tilton. The guy basically made claims of superhuman powers and attributed them to his mastery of Fulan Gong. So people started following this and they started dying! These people don't go to the doctor because they think their qigong will allow them to heal themselves. Of course they die after being unable to cure themselves. More ways of dying that just self neglect, two factions of Fulan Gong are fighting like gang wars now. This was a report from my wife's mom who lives in China. I don't know why the Chinese government wouldn't just let these stupid people get Darwin awards. This is the same government that is looking for means of poplulation control.
- CrashCodes
Mods should stop drinking the kool aid for about 5 seconds and see that the Google of today is nothing at all like the Google we came to know and love a few years ago. All of us who are aware of the changes that have taken places are looking forward to the day that Google goes away so we can stop being fed their hypocrisy and lies.
Google is just as good/evil as any other random corporation you can name. IBM, Ford, GE, Halliburton, Google, Microsoft. All the same. The only real difference is that none of these other companies pretends and serves kool aid on a daily basis.
We miss you already, Google. Please come back!
I submit that assisting the Chinese government in masking their censorship just so you can remain in the market most certainly qualifies as "evil."
Would it be better to have the people of China banned from Google entirely? I think Google is doing the right thing by not just walking away and leaving them in the dark so to speak.
A spokesman for the park ranger service said "We have decided in order to create the best possible experience for our bears, we will not include sites whose bathrooms are not accessible and as such our bears will have to continue to defecate in the woods"
OTOH what Google is doing is very legitimate. They're doing whatever they can to prevent themselves from being firewalled-out while offering a decent service to Chinese users. It should be, anyway, the responsibility of the US government to at the very least condemn censorship in China if not impose penalties on companies that help China censor.
On a totally different note: do you think press is free (as in uncensored) in the States ? Read in parallel dailynews.yahoo.com and bbcnews.com for a month.
The Raven
use Yahoo :)
its pretty funny you mention Hague and censorship in the same sentence.
Our "free' press barely covers that farce.
We had Wesley "our goal is to make the life of the civilians as unbearable physcially and psychologically as possible" Clark testify behind closed doors. We had this US senate committee foreign policy analyst testify last week using 911 documents as proof that the same group that was involved in 911 was active in Bosnia (the head chopping maniacs were in full force there) and that the Clintonites fully supported Bin Laden when he was there (he didnt kill anyone I guess, just visiting like a tourist) as well as the last ditch attempt to have get a conviction by muzzling the defendant and not allowing him to represent himself (prolly because he was kicking their ass for two straight years).
Hell, we dont need no stinking Google to censor the news, our media do it very well on their own.
Double hell, half this country believes still that Saddam was responsible for 911. Our population is as well informed as the chinese.
derek
China != USA, they do not *try* to bullshit everyone into believing that they live in a free society.
The more you have, the better. And it is better to have some than none.
The problem here is not google, it is china's government policy. Google has no say in what the government there does. Imagine if google were a food distributor and the chinese government limited people to 2 cups of rice per day - if google offered more, they would not be allowed access to the country. People would have no cups of rice per day.
There is nothing google could possibly do, except perhaps do no business with china. I doubt the chinese government would care if they left.
But that surely would screw the chinese people out of an invaluable service - regardless of the rules placed upon it.
There sure are a whole lot of people on here who think in black and white, its good or its "evil". WIthout even thinking of the practical reality that there is. Google censored by the government is better than no google at all - and that isnt google's fault.
-
I knew of a student from mainland China who lived at the prime of communism in the 80s. Today he's a U.S citizen. If there is one thing for sure... he can't believe the difference in American TV and internet news.
On TV we censor so damn much, but everything's fair game on the internet. And that's great. Google is now playing axis of evil. The last place a student from China could find real content is now being censored.
nt.
(Although, My university has a work-term exchange program, where I may have a chance to get a job in china for a while, I'm hoping I don't get desperate enough to take it. I could really use cash right now (I am working for less than minnimum wage just barely scraping enough together to pay rent, with bills stacking up daily.) )
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
What's wrong with using a tag like this? Put a big {CENSORED} on the stuff that China doesn't want you to see and let the people decide how to deal with it.
I think that all this playing nice with the communist government there is going to get us all into serious trouble.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Ah, yes. You are one of the ultra-highminded ones. If there is someone making a buck on something, you come down with a butt-load of heavy bricks if it does not suit your mighty principles.
You would keep the Chinese people from having the faintest approach to the WWW because their government would forbid some portion of it?
How very benevolent of you.
You obviously don't understand China or Asia.
Yes, the Chinese want some fat consumerist Americans to come and save them from censorship by providing Sex in the City mpgs and Britney Spears!
The Chinese government has wide support in China.
Do you know how many people in the world think George Bush is a criminal thug and should be overthrown?
Stop thinking America has some special mission to "liberate" the world to it's judeo-christian-capitalist values.
Americas power is already on the decline, anyways. You can't even conquer Iraq. Neither could the British in the 20s either so don't feel bad...just remember the British empire collapsed in a big way not long after...
Maybe google's actions in this case should be putting "We had to close, because we are forbidden info" in big red letters on their chinese page?
:s
It would be closed by the end of the day, but it might help?
And when it comes to google's mantra, its about as good as MicroSoft telling you they will take you places
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
or part of the problem. Google's PR has come up with a nice piece of Orwellian double-speak to paper it over, but this is wrong.
Many are missing a simple fact: Google is one of the single biggest networks on Earth
What do you mean by big, and what do you mean by network? Iff by big you mean popular and by network you mean web destination, you are right. If you mean physical space and networked computers, Google has a bunch but not more than most corporations (let alone governments).
Google is not the simple result of two bright students who are also good entrepreneurs.
Here you make an assertion but give no evidence. If one were to draw a conclusion from all available, verifiable evidence one would conclude that you are wrong and that Google is the simple result of two bright students who are also good entrepreneurs.
Googling on the backgrounds/backers of Google oddly exposes some of the biggest US entities who need information.
You don't offer specific names or even URLs for some reason. I think I know the reason.
The information of zeitgeist nature is of the greatest value: getting to know what people are looking for, what are they interested in - in one word what they think. Controlling people with arms has become cumbersome and old-school since WWII, that is 1948. Controlling education, access to information and other softer techniques is way more efficient (think of marketing)
You have conjured a bunch of ideas and asserted them, but again with no evidence, or even a proof of argument. You also rampantly collectivize, as if "Google" getting information on "people" were something to be personally afraid of.
Do not beleive my words - look for yourself.
Done and done. I, like you, found no evidence to support your claims.
Google was blocked by China for certain time last year.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Can you point me to where you determined this?
Well, why wouldn't they want to maintain such an illusion?
They know that at least some part of the population is going to believe it. And as for the rest, even if they don't believe it, it makes them less aware of their lost freedoms.
They're not stupid, you know.. they don't want to provoke anything which would lead to people confronting the leadership directly with their oppressive policies. There is no point in pissing people off if they can avoid it; it'd only serve to undermine their own power.
Why would they else even bother to hold elections in a one-party state?
Why do they have lots of different newspapers, although they all report the same government-line?
And then there are the hundreds of little things which are prohibited without actually being prohibited on paper. Things that require permits which are impossible to get and so on.
I have several friends from the former east bloc (and mainland China), and they all tell me similar things, that the nice thing about the 'free world' is the _realization_ of their freedom. That when someone said "You are allowed to do this", that actually meant that you were allowed to do that.
Now I'm not necessarily saying that Google is allowing themselves to be controlled by China. But what I am saying is that this decision from Google certainly is in the best interest of the Chinese leadership.
What's being filtered, according to the article, is google's news service, not it's search engine. Although, as has been mentioned by other posters, the chinese goverment already attempts to block banned sites from being accessed through google's cache.
Also, the censorship is being carried out in google's china-based servers only. As far as I know, a chinese resident could still access google's US based service, circumventing the restriction
So instead of questioning or challenging their ridiculous censorship, they're gonna modify their search engine to accomodate it?
Wow... that's pretty low.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
i don't think google is, nor should be, responsible for trying to change foreign policy. if china wants to censor their internet, that's their perogative. while i may not necessarily agree with china's policy regarding the internet, it's not any of our business.
scott king
...is corporate-sponsored totalitarianism. What I find so ironic is that the same corporations who claim that their freedom of speech rights are being limited by preventing million-dollar donations to candidates, are the same ones willing to march lockstep with totalitarian governments like the Chinese.
My gut reaction is that by and large, the corporate world likes China. They dislike some of the corruption, but the idea of a massive marketplace that's allowed to develop business-friendly economic institutions, while at the same time allows for dictatorial control over the labor market and a lawmaking process that favors only insiders and government control.
Can anyone share a url for a search site that has decided to give China the finger over this issue? I'd feel better about using something like searchEatMeChina.com than to contribute to a Google that helps the PRC keep it's own people down.
That's not the point - Google violates principles that they explicitly claim to cherish.c t.html#1
"Honesty
Our communications with our users should be appropriately clear and truthful. Our reputation as a company our users can trust is among our most valuable assets, and it is up to all of us to make sure that we nourish that reputation."
http://www.google.ca/corp_gov/condu
As far as I know, Yahoo, for example, never said anything about not being evil, so whatever they did in respect to Chinese censorship, would be more or less okay.
Google, on the other hand, they're just full of shit.
I am talking about American citizens from China who go to China, return to the US and talk about their experiences. While talking individually in the US, they have nothing to fear. They know there are some problems but do not realize the full extent of the problem. If Google did not help the government in China, China blocked Google and one were to ask these returning Chinese "Could you use Google in China?", they would have only one answer. They could not pretend that everything is OK.
To me, the fact that google is stating exactly what they are doing makes it perfectly all right to me. It's either that or not exist there at all. If they were hiding what they were doing it would be very different.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"By your logic, they could get away with more censorship if China left Google intact."
Right now, China is getting away with "more censorship" because of Google's help. If Google did not help the government in China, then either the government would have to block Google or allow more Internet freedom.
China != USA, they do not *try* to bullshit everyone into believing that they live in a free society.
In my opinion, practically all totalitarian societies do try to do that. Almost to ridiculous extents.
For instance: I wonder, is there, or has there ever been, a country with the word "democratic" in it's name which has actually been democratic?
E.g. "German Democratic Republic" (A.k.a. "East Germany", communist dictatorship),
"The Democratic Republic of Congo" (Dicatorship under Joseph Kabila)
"Lao People's Democratic Republic" (A.k.a. Laos, communist one-party state)
You are one of the ultra-highminded ones.
Ah so you have a thing against "highmindedness"? Do you lack principles, or are they all just oriented around money?
You would keep the Chinese people from having the faintest approach to the WWW because their government would forbid some portion of it?
So, you do have at least one principle! I think: maybe you are just appealing to my principles to satisfied your own occult goals?
If you understood the problem you'd see Google is removing dead links from their pages that are dead precisely because they have been censored by the PRC.
Now, they haven't the faintest notion they're being censored, because Google wants to play nice with the PRC and hide their censorship.
That way, no mainland chinese will be able to demonstrate chinese censorship using Google.
How very benevolent of you, big brother.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
I think we're barking up the wrong issue. As Google Watch says, "We have no position on Google and China. Since the Patriot Act, we also don't know what to think about Google's dealings with the U.S. government. If we ever get full disclosure from Google, we will form an opinion. That's the prior problem and the fundamental issue. No one can believe what Google says about anything important. It's none of our business!"
Google provides services which help people do research. Studying research until you understand it brings knowledge. An old axiom states that knowledge is power. The fact that a site is not banned by the Chinese government does not make it useless to the Chinese populace. Google can help those people find information which is either not "objectionable" enough to be censored or which has not yet been censored.
Come back and tell me google is evil when they're sending a copy of all search terms entered by IP address with timestamps in a daily transfer to the Chinese gov't. (Not that it's necessary, because it can be done in between google and the Chinese internet.) Until then they're just doing what they can.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't use a search engine in order to have an "experience". I use it in order to get results.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Since their searches must work in conjunction with a list of banned sites in some way, they could add search options in free zones that highlight sites banned in other countries or provide entire lists of banned sights. Also to be included would be sites filtered or altered though a country's internet firewall.
Clever Chinese hackers probably have ways around the firewall (does anyone have info on this?). By listing banned sites in free zones it should be trivial for dissidents and political dissenters to get printed versions out to the masses, even if these items had to be smuggled in. One thing that should be in constant circulation would be the list of sites banned.
One could get a small or partial list of banned sites without Google. With Google it should be possible to uncover the extent of China's censorship. I guarantee such a service would be used by Chinese students and Chinese visitors to America.
Letter To Iran
One could argue that the scope of the "goodness" of getting their product banned in another country over website results that the people there aren't going to be allowed to see anyway is pretty damn limited.
But yes, in general, when a company says they're good, they're usually selling themselves. That's the way it works. It's the same with people who go around talking about how good they are.
That being said, is it really *immoral* to remove links to websites that they aren't going to be able to see anyway? There's a difference between not being good, and being evil.
I give it approximately one year before Larry and Sergei leave Google for good.
Google could give access to those sites through its cache, but that would end up getting the entire Google banned, and that's no good, because there's a huge amount of advertising revenue to be had from China.
Money talks and bullshit walks. "Do no evil", they say, but should we trust their word on that?
Can foreign nationals access the full internet while visiting China ? If not, can they SSH home ? What's there to hold Chinese citizens to SSH to a foreign "proxy" ?
How is Google dishonest? Did they pretend not to be censoring while doing just that? IMHO, them publicly admitting censoring results already meets their claim to honesty.
If your idea of being dishonest is having any form of censorship at all, then I'm afraid Google was dishonest from day 1. There are tons of illegal / "generally immoral" material (ie. child porn) online that I'm sure Google actively censors for all of their users.
I cannot say how people in China feel. I do know what (some) Chinese in the US say. One of them will be here (my university office) in 20 minutes. (A professor from Stanford and his graduate student are visiting me this weekend. The student is from China and the professor was in China within the last year.)
I have 6-7 colleagues from China. I meet many Chinese when attending conferences. "Every" math department has several mathematicians from China. The coauthor with whom I have written the most papers is from China. (I have 10-15 coauthors (e.g. peter, hal, andy, alan, maria, hasan, bent, buma, mila, julie, (+chinese) etc.) in total.) The point is that there is lots of contact in the mathematical community with people who travel to China and it is easy to get information about conditions there. The people of China are not dumb but it is often easier to overlook problems than to admit that they exist.
No, he's required to do what the shareholders want him to do or they can replace or sue him. Generally it's hard to get shareholders to agree on anything other than making money though, but they will tolerate CEOs with secondary objectives so long as they don't interfere with profit.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
IMHO, them publicly admitting censoring results already meets their claim to honesty.
IMHO, your O is very selective about the facts it chooses to represent the situation when it makes a determination about Googles honesty.
The pp was making a point about the conflict apparent in juxtaposition of the mantra "do no evil" and their agreement with china to erase the blocked/censored sites from their results pages.
If your idea of being dishonest is having any form of censorship at all, then I'm afraid Google was dishonest from day 1.
If you are referring to Googles agreement to censor the sites they link to you are nuts. The mainland chinese users of google simply got dead links, and couldn't connect to Googles cache. They were blocked but not by Google. Google's sin came when they agreed to make their version of the world look like the PRC's.
Blocking child porn is censorship, I guess I could be argued, but Google does that to comply with the law (I think).
Responding to DMCA takedown notices is mere compliance, as well, even though the law is absurd.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
That's the game Google is playing. Your game, the one which goes as follows, has but one conclusion:
- Google opens for business in PRC, providing cache access to documents blocked by the government's filteres
- PRC blocks Google
- Game over. The people of China lose.
By going in soft, Google can build public mindshare by providing a powerful search tool that will help the public see into the gray areas of PRC's censorship, and begin exploiting them.With your approach, Google's principles would become instantly worthless to the people in China. With Google's approach, they will have the opportunity to attack the problem of censorship from within, rather than from outside.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
So you don't buy anything that is 'Made in China'? Because that's supporting communism and pseudo-facists, too. I'm willing to bet if you took an honest look around your house, at least half of what you own is made in China. This very keyboard is. This monitor is. The mouse I'm using is.
/. Oddly enough, we (as a nation) have decided to refuse to deal (economically) with Cuba, but really, China is worse. Why? Because it's cheap labor, and lord knows we'd rather pay 6.99 for a keyboard than 9.99 for one from China
I personally don't see many people concerned with this outside of
Bill
Maybe Google might make the information collected about its chinese customers - sry users - with the legendary long-life google cookie. Anybody searching for Fa*** G*** from a chinese IP might expect a knock on the door from a secret policeman carrying not a search warrant but a google user search record. (Google are rumoured to be negotiating a deal with the NSA to do just that with American user data.) Personally I think it is a major mistake of Google to stop being a proper search engine in China and becoming a AOL style rubbish portal. Obviously people in China will use searchengines and meta-search-engines that dont restrict thier searches as and when they find them. Shame on you Google!! Government by force is evil. hello from http://www.node-net.com/
People tend to forget that Google is a business, and that the primary motivation of any business that is not non-profit, is profit. Google is not the altrusitic entity that people make them out to be. They will do whatever they feel is needed to maintain a growing profit margin, and if that means agreeing with some government's censorship laws, they'll do it.
Just think of the royal mess that could follow if the chinese government decides that it should start messing with gmail too. A large database of well indexed mail could be an interesting, and quite damaging tool for them to continue their opression of the chinese people.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Now, read an interesting article published by CNN. Toward the end of the article, you will see the results of a CNN/Time poll conducted in 1997. 50% of the Chinese in Hong Kong prefered social order over democracy. 60% enthusiastically supported the handover of Hong Kong to Beijing.
Further, if you are enrolled at an American university, note that the Chinese are underrepresented at meetings of Amnesty International although they are overrepresented in engineering classes.
Google will not change its atrocious practice of supporting Beijing -- because the Chinese, in general, simply do not care about freedom of speech, democracy, and other Western values.
If Google is willing to provide regional censorship at the request of operating governments, how do I know that they aren't censoring my search results here in the US?
Historically I've been a big Google supporter, but I'm starting to have second thoughts here.
If this is going to be their MO, I think there is going to be a lot of room for a more open search engine that promises not to censor material.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Er, of course, the news about what they are doing would be among the censored material... so the people actually affected would not find out.
Something like 65%? Oh, you mean outside the U.S.? I have no idea....
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
That's the game Google is playing.
That's probably why Google did what it did: because google is gaming the system rather than adhering to the "do no evil" mantra. They are choosing the evil greater of two evils (while ignoring the other choices they have which have less immediate economic gain). But this is the conclusion of the argument (Is google not "doing no evil" by censoring search results to the PRC subjects) that you are arguing to justify your conclusion. Merely by being available (whether censored or not) is of benefit to the people of the "People's" Republic of China is an interesting question but is rather firmly trumped by Googles decision to censor.
providing cache access to documents blocked by the government's filteres
Nobody is suggesting that, therefore again you are arguing from false presuppositions. The cache is already blocked, however now Google is removing any trace of the censorship from their pages to cooperate with the PRC in the censorship of the 'Net. So they are cooperating with the PRC to remove any trace of censorship. Google is clearly not even in neutral territory: they are actively censoring their own pages to make the PRC's censorship invisible.
By going in soft, Google can build public mindshare by providing a powerful search tool that will help the public see into the gray areas of PRC's censorship, and begin exploiting them.
That doesn't even make sense as an argument. Maybe you could try again?
Google's approach, they will have the opportunity to attack the problem of censorship from within, rather than from outside.
I thought that argument was discredited long ago? You will not stop bombs dropping in vietnam by getting a job making the fuses.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
One could argue that the scope of the "goodness" of getting their product banned in another country over website results that the people there aren't going to be allowed to see anyway is pretty damn limited.
Was that threat even raised? Based on the article your issue is a Red Herring: China tried to ban it but relented under public pressure.
hat being said, is it really *immoral* to remove links to websites that they aren't going to be able to see anyway? There's a difference between not being good, and being evil.
It is certainly immoral make it a part of your business model to cooperate to hide a governments censorship from its public.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
China represents what, a sixth of the world's people? It's tough to avoid doing business with them in some way. Google's "Don't be evil" mantra is commendable, but what does it mean? If most Americans are willing to tacitly accept doing business with the Chinese regime and still consider ourselves to be "good" people, is it appropriate to hold Google to a higher standard than we hold ourselves?
Another question, for the scientists and engineers in the crowd--how many of you use Google to answer work-related questions on at least a weekly basis? Daily? More than once per day?
Google is profoundly useful for things besides fomenting political unrest. I dare say that cutting off China's access to Google would constitute a small but significant blow to them economically and scientifically. Is it "evil" to help researchers and engineers do their work, just because those individuals are located in a repressive country? Is it "evil" to not help them?
How many people have looked up medical information through Google?
Is it "evil" to cut off that source of health information to a billion Chinese people because we don't like their government?
Food for thought.
~Idarubicin
Google has a serious publicity problem. This whole episode has sullied the name of Google and should bring doubt into anyone's mind that Google is not censoring their results, no matter where they live.
I mean, think about it -- Google has shown themselves to be quite willing to censor results to accommodate the aims of a repressive dictatorship. How much easier would it be for Google to censor results in the U.S.? Wouldn't it be quite a bit less "evil" to censor results at the prompting of the Dept of Homeland Security for the noble purpose of "fighting terrorism'? (And if you think they're not already, how would you know? The PATRIOT Act prohibits Google from saying anything!)
To my mind, a cornerstone of Google's "don't be evil" motto has to be "unfettered access to the internet". That's the only way it can work, otherwise Google can't be fully trusted. I think in cases where Google has to compromise their values just to do business, they should rebadge themselves as something else and reserve the name Google for unfettered access to the internet, when they are truly able to "not be evil".
Rebadging can be done in such a way that it still serves the purpose of letting repressed people know they're not getting the original, but in a subtle way. For example, Chinese users keying in google.com could be redirected to giggle.com where they would see
GIGGLE
Powered by Google
And that's all Google has to do. Move censorship one step away from the name Google and send a subtle but clear message: "The real deal is Google and we aren't allowed to take you there. Here's a substitute approved by your government". Refuse to associate the name Google with censorship.
As a user and an investor, I hope Google is listening. This is not just important for the Chinese, this is important for anyone who needs trustworthy search results.
Speederaser
First we have to convince the moderators you have something insightful to say. :)
This is the "do no evil" recourse available to Google.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Sorry, I was referring to your claim Google is removing the censored links from their results pages.
And double sorry, because going back to the article and reading more carefully showed me whence your claim arose.
Thank you for your informative post.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
According to my insider hearsay, (note, it's hearsay, thus it's not admittable in court as evidence and by declaring it as such I can't be sued for libel, but I personally fully believe it to be true in my opinion, and again, i can't be sued for opinion), this started when Google was blocked by the chinese for having provided access through their search results to material the chinese government didn't like (dissenting views, and pro-democracy and human rights pages critical of the chinese government). Sergey (Brin), who is responsible for policy (Larry page oversees the technical side and Schmidt oversees the admins of doing business), wasn't quite sure how to respond, and was put by an insider 'grown-up' in contact with industry's 'grown-ups' to ask them, and as such he was talking to Esther Dyson who suggested to him, and effectively persuaded him with the following view; that internet use in china is, by large, a luxury that is afforded by those who are doing well within the system and thus don't have much to complain about, and that, essentially, internet users in china are people who prefer the status quo, and those who are deprived by the injustice of the chinese system either can't afford the luxury of being online or just don't need google to point out to them how bad things are. Basically, she advised him to cooperate with the chinese.
I should note that Esther Dyson is an investor in Google, albeit indirectly, through two venture funds and she won't say how much she's invested because she insists that she doesn't know the figures and deliberately avoids finding out.
Sergey was persuaded by this course or action and rationale, and google made contact with the chinese offering cooperation with them. Initially, google took the official line of refusing to elaborate on the extent of that cooperation, by insisting that they didn't make changes to their index but that they only advised the chinese on how to effectively block content from their users.
Now why does this matter?
I see many people who are defending Google saying it's a business and has no moral duty beyond acting within the business-regulating laws, and I can only suspect that else would've been said had it been something about Microsoft, or even Sun Microsystems (which is fashionable to hate these days by open source wanna-belong retards even though it's the second biggest code contributor ever to open source after UC Berkley). Well, morality matters to Google because they chose that it matters when they declared to the world that they're a company which motto is "Do No Evil". I personally am aware of people who find investing in Google attractive for charitable or philanthropic motives thanks to this feel-good motto, in a similar way to how they would want to invest in organic farming, green energy and the rest. Likewise, many people use it loyally with the same feel-good trust.
I have been somewhat busy so I'm not fully up to date with my insiders on recent developments, but now it seems that Google is blocking access to chinese sites not only for those they deem status-quo chinese internet users, but also globally, including people like me. If this is true then I do *not* feel good about this. It doesn't not agree with my morality, and morality matters because Google chose that it does.
As such, their motto should be fully declared as, and can only honestly be, "Do No Evil, with evil being defined and interpreted by our notable investors". Because after all, Evil is in the eye of beholder, otherwise why would I have a problem with Republican Nutcases whose worldview is "you're either with us, or with the evildoers".
How does Google respond if I spoof my IP? How does someone go about getting Google to return true, uncensored search results, independent of my country of origin?
blame canada! google.ca
I'm not advocating an embargo on Chinese goods, it wouldn't really be practical and, as others have pointed out, it won't do much to help the Chinese people. I'd like to see the Cuban ban ended, for similar reasons, and I believe that I've posted on Slashdot in the past on the subject of the hypocracy of our politicians using Cuba as their Communist whipping boy while cozying up to China.
However... Acknowledging that trade with Thugocrat nations is inevitable (and superior to embargo [1]) is not the same as embracing the idea of corporations joyfully exploiting the situation. Our corporations doing business in China should be under an obligation to cooperate as little as possible with the repressive desires of the thugs in charge, and that ultimatley is what bothers me about Google's decision. First is that they have tried to keep this secret, they did not publish an article outlining their position and their justification for helping the Chinese censor their news. Second is that in the past the Chinese Thugocrats have caved in to pressure on this very subject, which makes the fact that Google caved without any public outcry worse. Finally, Google could have taken the path of least complience, they could have put in the links to non-Thugocrat approved news with a "BANNED by the PRC" tag so that their Chinese viewers would be forced to be aware of the extent to which their government is keeping things from them. Instead, Google chose to go with the path of maximum complience, choosing not only to help the Chinese governmet censor what its people can see, but also keeping the people from even knowing that they are being censored.
[1] Though, I will admit to seeing the attraction of the idea. The notion that if you make things worse for the citizens they'll be more inclined to revolt is tempting. False, but tempting.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
This reminds me of the debate regarding companies that did business in South Africa during apartheid. Many businesses that wanted into the South African market argued that "constructive engagement" (basically handling the South African market the way Google is now handling the Chinese market) was the way to go - it would gradually let the people of South Africa get exposed to other ways of thinking, without unduly upsetting the current government.
Basically it was just lip-service to soothe peoples' moral sensibilities. Most companies only care about exploiting a new consumer base in order to achieve additional profits. Google has now demonstrated they fall in that camp as well. You can certainly argue about whether this is okay, or whether the companies have some moral obligation to the people they are trying to extract money from; but let's not try to reassert the failed policy of constructive engagement. The difference between then and now is simply that the Chinese market is huge whereas the South African market was rather small, from a global perspective.
#DeleteChrome
Unfortunatly the Chinese government can now (rightly) claim that they are trying to protect the population from the lying western media. http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/1 1.html
(Not that I agree with Google, nor for that matter with the Chinese government)
Oops. My first pass I thought you did have something insightful to say.
I read your post to say: "google's actions in this case should be putting 'this link is not accessible to the people of the PRC' in big red letters."
What you said is, however, not required (China already tried to block Google and failed under public pressure, and that is not, therefore, Google's problem) and not even an issue (the issue is the censored links that show up on Google's results pages.)
Try again.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
To me, the fact that google is stating exactly what they are doing makes it perfectly all right to me.
Google failed to choose the option least evil. They could have left the links as they were or put a little [censored] notice adjacent to it.
It's either that or not exist there at all.
You are wrong. Google's continued presence in China is not at issue as was clarified in the article.
If they were hiding what they were doing it would be very different.
They are hiding what the PRC is doing to the people of mainland China. That's the issue, that Google is cooperating with the PRC to hide censorship by the PRC.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
I noticed this the other day.
If you look at the bottom of the search results it tells you that X number of results were removed due to DMCA complaints. Smells like censorship to me.
If you go read the complaint cited it gives you the urls of the offending sites. So it's not very effective.
Thank GOD for the right to bare arms in the USA.
You really think that a bunch of civilians with guns would make much of a dent in the US army? If the Army gets a bloody nose they will call in the Airforce, and that will be the end of it. The USA has the power to kick anybody's butt. American civilians are not a magical exception. Stop deluding yourselves!
So long as the analogy is based around playing a game, how about deciding the game is a rotten one to start with, that the rules are crooked, and you're not really interested in playing along properly? So long as your opponents (it seems like that kind of game) are still adhering to the rules, they're in the weaker position. I'd use One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as a case in point, but, well, that doesn't really end that well. Unless the people of China are the Chief... Shame about Google McMurhpy, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and then mixing them up in a big bowl with all your metaphors.
This is a linguistic pet peeve, and has nothing to do with the issue.
wheelbarrow wrote:
Comparing the USA vs. China in this arena of the freedom of expression is ridiculous.
Which I find very odd considering that the entire point of the post was to compare these two things. The result of that comparision being that China is much worse than USA in this arena.
I feel better now.
Technically, you are correct. But it's still better then not being able to bare arms at all. Just think of it as deterrent and the ability to form orginized militia.
Life is not for the lazy.
Okay, I'll bite...
Did I hear that? Here on slashdot of all places?
If the socialists in that country see fit to regulate the media to the extent that massive nation-wide filters need to be erected to keep "bad" things out, then Google (an American company) has no business telling them they are wrong.
What in the world?! Are you just dumb? In the best interests of mankind, it is far better to have a well educated populace with minds of their own to where they can benefit each other and the society they live in.
But you say a company, a group of people who are educated in many things, has no right to tell a government they are wrong, in principle and example (of not allowing their country to dictate business of internet searches, information and truth to be found) that they are wrong?
What are you smoking? The idea and mere notion that any government would restrict, limit and or otherwise hinder the peoples choice and agency to learn, educate themselves and live in freedom is wrong!!! A company has every right and responsibility, as individuals do as well, to fight against those that opress by example, words and action and to help their fellow man (mankind) and lift them up.
I'd like to know where you learned what you did in regards to your opinions. I respect them for what they are, but the answer you display in responce to keeping certian kinds of information away from the public that are obviously harmful, such as kiddie porn is like comparing apples and oranges.
There is a stark and obvious difference in censorship of the good things in life that may contradict the will of opressive and ruthless leaders and in the harmful nature of child porn.
I'm sorry but that's just wrong.
To me, the fact that google is stating exactly what they are doing makes it perfectly all right to me. It's either that or not exist there at all. If they were hiding what they were doing it would be very different.
But they are:
IN CHINA
Who gives a flying F--- whether or not we know the Chinese Google is getting censored, the Chinese people need to know this (and you can bet this news will be censored in China)
Life is too short to proofread.
Game over. The people of China lose.
How do you figure?
At least under that scenario the people know that Google IS being censored.
If you place NO VALUE WHATSOEVER on freedom of speech and information, then the people of China loose, but if you do, it's pretty easy to claim that the people of China would be BETTER OFF under that situation.
Life is too short to proofread.
Now, people this is a prime example on how to argue: First, attack the opponents character and integrety, then open up with a new curve, which may or may not be true, as there we must take the true, holy word of the protagonist.
Sig
First, attack the opponents character and integrety, then open up with a new curve
Are you referring to the PP's sneer at my "highmindedness"?
Or that I accepted that as a part of his "argument" and addressed it as such?
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
IMHO, your O is very selective about the facts it chooses to represent the situation when it makes a determination about Googles honesty.
n ary&va=honest&x=0&y=0
How so? I subscribe to a very literal definition of honesty, definition 1a at m-w.com:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictio
So, is Google censoring while telling everyone they're not censoring? No. Did Google ever make any claims about letting its users search the whole web with no censorship whatsoever? Not that I know of. So, how are they dishonest?
If you are referring to Googles agreement to censor the sites they link to you are nuts.
Well, in that case, I'm glad to report that I'm not nuts at all. In fact, the idea never occurred to me until just now. Now, why / when / how are they going to censor the sites they link to?
The mainland chinese users of google simply got dead links, and couldn't connect to Googles cache. They were blocked but not by Google. Google's sin came when they agreed to make their version of the world look like the PRC's.
Blocking child porn is censorship, I guess I could be argued, but Google does that to comply with the law (I think).
Responding to DMCA takedown notices is mere compliance, as well, even though the law is absurd.
There we go. Now we're getting to the crux of the problem. Google's censorship of their Mainland Chinese results is a result of them complying with local law.
Unless you can somehow successfully argue that there is an intrinsic difference between a picture of a 17-year-old having sex (censored in Google US, underage porn) and a picture of an 18-year-old having sex (censored in Google Mainland China, porn), Google's MO hasn't changed since day 1.
Unless you can somehow successfully argue that there is an intrinsic difference between not listing a site due to a DMCA takedown notice (Google US, government-backed censorship) and not listing a site because the government says the Tibetan Independence Movement is illegal (Google Mainland China, government-backed censorship), Google has always merely tried to comply with local law.
What I don't understand (actually, I understand, I just want to poke you with it) is why you didn't throw a fuss when Google complied with the first DMCA takedown notice, but rather are right now.
IMHO (again), censorship is censorship. Once you start censoring, there are no more lines to cross as censoring one topic is as bad as censoring half of the topics out there. The important thing is being honest about what is censored, and about why they're being censored. And that is why I believe Google is (if nothing else) being honest.
...open up with a new curve, which may or may not be true, as there we must take the true, holy word of the protagonist
No you don't, it's in the Fine Article itself. No new curves, just the topic of the Fine Article. Perhaps you should read it before sneering at my "holy word".
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
The USA has the power to kick anybody's butt. American civilians are not a magical exception. Stop deluding yourselves!
While you are generally true, do not underestimate the might of the will of, say, 500 million people. During the coup against Gorbachev in Soviet Russia, the army (which is made of humans) chose to support the people and the coup failed. What happenned in Tiananmen was possible because the army was against the protestors. When the protestors and the army are on the same side, things will change.
Whatever. Your house is probably loaded with stuff made in China. So you too, are supporting the Chinese government.
To argue against my point that the previous poster was being selective about the facts he chose to represent the conflict you have done the same thing. Do you hope to wear the truth of my argument down to a nub? You might tire me but you haven't addressed the crux of my argument.Ok, my point (and I forgot to include the relevant portion in my original quote, so I'm sorry if that is a cause of misunderstanding) was to underscore that these are not analogous situations: that Google was complying with laws by removing DMCA takedown material. And that I'm not certain Google has child-porn material that it blocks. That I'm sure that stuff would be jumped on and removed by the Feds as soon as it showed up. But in any case, removal of material that violates law isn't censorship by Google, it's complying with the law.No. PRC blocked Google entirely but it didn't hold because of popular resistance. PRC wants Google but they don't want some sites Google caches/links to. Those sites aren't in Googles purview, and providing a link to a site that's blocked is an inconvenience, not an illegal act. You are conflating the presence of a censored link with something far worse.
If the PRC wants to make a law against Google in the PRC, they can block Google. But they won't.
That's why Google has the option to leave the links but mark them (for the sake of convenience) or just leave them as dead and inconvenient. But they didn't take that option.
That option was the "do no evil" option.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Fuck China.
Nothing can be everything to everybody.
Let it be enough that Google is an asset to the world as it is. It does not also have to be the point of the spear of freedom also.
But heaven bless whatever turns out to be the point of the spear of freedom for the billion or so Chinese who need it. I think it might be their own hunger and spirit fired by symbols and ideas that exploded upon the world in 1776 in a dozen plus one colonies of a corrupt kingdom back then.
Please delete your Slashdot account immediately, and refrain from visiting this site for the next twenty-seven(27) weeks. At the end of this period you will need to write a five(5) paragraph paper explaining what you've learned in your time away, and submit it as an article to be discussed, before you can post here again.
Please refrain from using the internet for more than ninety(90) minutes in a fourteen(14) day period. Unused time will not accumulate.
Mefus, it's time to go.
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-PICS-Statement
2. When access to a particular URL is blocked through an implementation of PICS, error conditions or other user interface functions ought to specifically indicate that the URL is not accessible because of blocking by a content selection tool. Relevant information could include:
a. the rating system whose value is out of range (if more than one is being used) and which variable and value led to the blocking of a URL.
b. some indication of where the blocking occurred.(i.e. is it part of the browser and under local control, or is it a proxy and if so who owns and/or operates the proxy.)
A student I did some group work with (a lovely, gentle guy) told me that the Tiananmen square massacre was an urban myth, and that there was no censorship in China, just a consensus not to view immoral information. And he was a smart guy too, happily wading through the most byzantine of OO designs.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
You have changed the argument. Please go back and read again, so that you may see that Google's "do no evil" mandate is at conflict with their chosen strategy to "disappear" the blocked links on their results pages. That is the conflict we are arguing. It's completely irrelevant that Google is admitting (to us, who knows what the Chinese see since they are being censored by the PRC, not Google.) they are removing the dead links.
No, I don't believe I have changed the argument. Please re-read the parent post that I originally responded to. It claims that Google violate a principal that it cherished, and then went on to quote the Honesty principal from Google's Code of Conducts (and provided a link, too!). My original response was that I don't see how removing links per local law violates the Honesty principal.
Now, I may not be understanding you correctly, so please correct me if I'm wrong. But, are you suggesting that, by removing links per PRC's request, Google has suddenly started doing "evil"? By who's standard? Yours? Mine? The US government's? The PRC government's? Google's? The ONLY one that I believe we can hold them accountable for is their own. And guess what? That's why they have the corporate governance webpage up to tell everyone what their definition of "evil" is (rather, the page tells everyone their definition of "not evil"). Unless you can find a rule on their corporate governance webpage that they broke (or that they changed the page to pretend a rule never existed), I don't believe you have a case in claiming that Google violated their own rules.
To argue against my point that the previous poster was being selective about the facts he chose to represent the conflict you have done the same thing. Do you hope to wear the truth of my argument down to a nub? You might tire me but you haven't addressed the crux of my argument.
I'm sorry, I must've misunderstood you. I actually thought that you meant I was being selective about the facts I represented when you quoted me and responded with "...your O is very selective about the facts...". Now, as for attempting to wear the truth of your argument down to a nub, I desire no such thing. I merely wish to defend my position (or better yet, be proven wrong -- I can afford to learn something new today). Unfortunately, now, I'm very confused. Please tell me, just what IS the crux of your argument?
Ok, my point (and I forgot to include the relevant portion in my original quote, so I'm sorry if that is a cause of misunderstanding) was to underscore that these are not analogous situations: that Google was complying with laws by removing DMCA takedown material.
Very good! So, we have established that by removing links to sites per DMCA takedown request, Google is merely complying with local law and thus not "doing evil" (atleast, by your definition of evil). How is removing links to, say, the Tibetan Independence Movement per PRC government request not merely complying with local law? Or are you really suggesting that, since America is the greatest nation in the world, anyone that doesn't do what we say (note, that's NOT "what we do") is automatically evil and they all need to either go to Hell or be liberated by us? Okay, that was uncalled-for, please disregard the previous sentence.
And that I'm not certain Google has child-porn material that it blocks. That I'm sure that stuff would be jumped on and removed by the Feds as soon as it showed up. But in any case, removal of material that violates law isn't censorship by Google, it's complying with the law.
To be honest, I can't be certain that they purge child-porn links, either. But, given my understanding of how search engines work, if Google did not actively purge links to child-porn pages, they will show up when someone searches for them. You might be correct about the Feds removing child porn as soon as it showed up -- if all websites were hosted in the US. But we all know that that
I just shorted my Google stock... I refuse to help capitalize those who compromise core principles for a buck.
Time to censor Goggle stock folks. Lets teach them what censorship is all about, eh?
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
A gilded cage is still a cage, the right to bear arms (as opposed to bare arms which means you can wear a t-shirt) is a vestigal and useless right.
The only thing bearing arms against the US govenment will achieve is a quick and violent death for the said bearer. Have a look at how violently the unarmed anti-war demonstrations were put down in the US, what do you think the response would have been if those protesters were armed?
Dissent is now being touted as un-american, armed dissent will be labeled as terrorist uprising, and we all know what a fair trial "terrorists" get in the US.
The right of any american to form an oranized militia is long gone, if you manage not to be shot, you'd be shipped off to guantanamo bay faster than you can say "but it's in the constitution....."
"Google has decided that in order to create the best possible search experience for our mainland China users we will not include sites whose content is not accessible."
This is just a bullshit excuse.
Google should list what's out there on the net and be done with it.
After all; that's what a search engine is for and what people should expect from a good search engine.
If website banning from certain governments turns certain search results into dead links in some countries, so be it. At least the people will have some idea of what's being banned.
I'd rather know what's being hidden from me, even if this means a certain link here or there won't work.
(Btw: Eventhough it's rare: not all links from Google's search results work.
A site disappears for some reason or another and if it's not visited often enough by Google it takes a while before Google catches on. In the meantime, the link from the search results won't work. So big deal. [rolleyes])
Off topic I know, but what you pointed out is exactly why I want a Michael Badnarik as president. I want my freedoms back.
Bush has bastardized the constitution and Kerry is a flip-flopping coward that is all talk. But hey......*sigh*
Life is not for the lazy.
What hope do the people in China have to change their oppressive system when even the supposedly freedom-loving (but factually corporate-driven) "West" assists their dictatorial regime in maintaining control?
And if it was just the ethnic chinese who were left to deal with the consequences of their own government, but the Chinese Communist Party's army - the so-called "People's Liberation Army - is also occupying the lands and destroying the cultures and national identities of China's historical neighbors in Tibet and East Turkestan. Ironically, China's propaganda machine is using these occupied neighbors as ultra-nationalistic fodder in various ways to keep their population under the impression that the "evil splittists", manipulated by evil foreign meddlers, are threatening their own country's (China) "unity" and that China is under constant war against those who question the Communist Party's status que.
It is in this "information warfare" that Google et al now helps the ruling regime by playing their game and providing a supposedly free and unbiased internet search service which however only expresses the Party's propaganda about contentious issues that chinese people need to be able to discuss about in order to mature as a modern and unhostile nation.
China is in many ways like the Nazi Germany in 1930s after the Nazis grabbed power from the elected government.
The chinese people or their invaded neighbors have no means to force change, even if the wanted. The Han chinese themselves also have no incentive to become machine gun fodder for the Party's army when the "evil West" is in cahoots with their communist dictators (who realized that business can be used to both placate the West and destroy their manufacturing base at the same time) and the Party is clearly helping China both grow larger geographically and stronger in terms of military power and global influence. The single remaining if feeble moral argument supporting the massive foreign investment in totalitarian China has been that rising living standards will eventually lead the population to demand greater political freedom. But this will bring us back to Google et al (the corporate-driven West) helping the Party to keep its iron grip on information and only providing the people with Party propaganda, thereby helping the Party (which makes China stronger and its greedy foreign enemies economically weaker) prevent any political change.
As long as an Empire continues to expand and its power increases vs "competitors", the core populace (except the invaded people of course) has little incentive to rock the boat. The people in all empires, past and current (China, Russia, USA) are prisoners to this sad policy and it takes either massively resource-sapping war (Britain), inner revolution or unusually enlightened and well-informed population (not yet evident in human history) to reverse imperialist colonialism.
If the Free World cannot bring itself to address China's totalitarianism in a united way but instead feeds its growth, the (money-driven) Free World of today deserves whatever that state-planned totalitarian regime of China throws in its way.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
I do not accept the argument that the profit motive excuses all other behavior.
You overgeneralize. The profit argument wasn't made in favor of "all other behaviour". It was made with regard to one specific behaviour and you did not provide anything against that argument, except if you meant that "the profit motive isn't a justification for any behaviour at all". If you mean the latter, I think the collary is that you reject any form of capitalism.
Or more probably, you simply don't accept a profit argument with regard to the case at hand. Well, that's your right (but it's lacking anything except your opinion).
Furthermore, Google Inc. claimed to reject that argument when they claimed that they would not be evil.
I disagree. There is a difference between "don't be evil" and "do good". You might say that "don't censor" falls in the first category. I consider it to fall into the second. Maybe you see what I mean from a different viewpoint: Take Google away from the setting. What changes? Are the Chinese better off afterwards than they are with Google now? I don't see how.
So Google doing its business in China didn't make the situation worse, did it? (Among other things, they don't add new bans, they only block what already is censored by the gov't). Then, when they make nothing worse, how are they evil?
Yeah, you may argue that they should do the Right Thing. That "doing nothing" or "fitting in" often will make things worse and looking and not helping makes you guilty as well. But that's not about being evil. That's about ideology and doing good: If I don't dare help somebody trapped within a burning house, I am not evil, I am just a wimp. Yeah, I am not doing good, either, but we are talking about "don't be evil".
I hope you can see my point by now. You don't have to agree with my point of view or make it yours. It's enough if you can agree that it's a valid point of view, i.e. that "don't be evil" can reasonably be interpreted in my way.
If you do (and I hope you don't refuse only in spite) then ask yourself, what do you accuse Google of, if they made their statement with the same understanding which I have.
(And no, I didn't come up with that interpretation of mine just now... I really understood Google to mean something like that and I am actually surprised that you understood it differently... if they meant with "don't be evil" to say "be good", they could have put that as their slogan to begin with.)
In retrospect, it is obvious that the "don't be evil" line was nothing more than marketing. I had hoped otherwise, and I will admit to a definate bitterness at discovering that it was, in fact, total BS.
Actually to me that doesn't sound as if you had much hope to begin with, but simply jumped at them when the first opportunity (alleged misbehaviour) showed up.
Disclaimer: Even if I argue in favor of Google here, it's not that I don't have doubts of what they do here (regardless of their "don't be evil" core value). But I feel you judged much too fast. Even if they fucked up... this being the first time in years, shouldn't you give them some leeway?
Keep an eye on which arguments are silently dropped in replies. Not always, but often times it's very telling.
That's not along my definition of quality at all.
s/best/most popular/g
Popularity means profit.
You are using a quote he included from Google's Code of Conduct page to displace the argument at hand: that Google's "do no evil" policy conflicts with Google's choice to "disappear" evidence of censorship. Sorry, that Red Herring makes the rest of your post uninteresting to me.
Okay. If you're unable / unwilling to engage in a rational argument, then I will not force you.
So, it is all in the best interest of the users. The poor users don't want to be bothered by links that are broken.
But what about users who are using tools such as peekabooty or triangle boy to route around the great firewall of china?
I'm sure Google, with its "do no evil" motto, lets the users turn off the "suppress links that are usually broken in China" feature in this case, right? Just like you can turn back on the porn links and links in another language if you really do want them. Riiight...
Maybe they should change their motto to "Do no evil, unless the evil allows access to a really big market." Shame on you, Google!
Search google.com for "falun gong" - result Mozilla MessageBox says "this document contains no data"
Search yahoo.com and there are many documents.
Search google for "tienanmen" - result 317,000 documents
Search google after anonymizing - result 317,000 documents
Search yahoo - result 411,000 documents
Search google for "hu jintao" - result 107,000 documents
Search anonimized google - result 108,000 documents
Search yahoo - result 185,000 documents
No time to investigate more deeply than that.
But Google is not the only source of information.
China isn't so interested in (or is incapable of) blocking everything - just those ways used by the average non-geek uninformed citizen. Most of the time. But they can tighten down when they want. Around the anniversary of Tiananmen, for a week or so I found many more websites blocked, including anonymization proxys that are now open.
IMO its shameful for google to filter their web results for china. It doesnt give us the best experience (whatever that means); it helps to give us the experience the censors want us to have. And that is certainly evil.
My insight from this: the world needs competition in search engines, in order to maintain choice and freedom in more ways than you might think. If google were the only choice, here we'd be in the dark.
The first thing necessary for the soldiers to disobey their orders is to have doubts about them, and/or about those who issued them. This is something an access to unfiltered information (or at least clearly showing again and again that something is being filtered) can help with. This is something we the technicians, with the assistance of TCP/IP, can help with.
We can't supply tangible weapons. But we can supply the doubts.
Then again, I was not referring to the broken links, but suggesting a "in your face" demonstration against the PRC. :\
But opposing a dictatorship with money is probably evil in googles eyes
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
How about setting up a search engine that spits out the difference between the chinese version of google and the unfiltered? You could put in a query like "corrupt communists" and only the CENSORED pages would be returned.
Google says the Chinese news service draws upon roughly 1,000 sites -- a broader array than in Germany, which trolls 700 sites, and Italy, which monitors about 250 sites.
So Google Germany are trolls? Mod them -1! I suspect the illiterate AP journo meant "trawls".
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
If Google is supporting the Chinese government by doing business with them, what are we doing when we purchase goods made in China? You might think there is a difference, but not really. Happy goldfish bowl to you.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
Ha! Instead of answer an honest question, mod it away.
sometime i googled, then asked friends in net to copy the material for me if i couldn't access the forbiden website. but this may not work in future as google won't list those forbiden sites items :(
>That's why Google has the option to leave the links but mark them (for the sake of convenience) or just leave them as dead and inconvenient. But they didn't take that option.
Someone mentioned an option of displaying a note saying "Because of the PRC government's censorship, you may not be able to actually reach some sites". Or even more extensive/frequent caching of "sensitive" sites so that users can easily get them from Google cache.
Does that mean in order to 'offer best Internet experience for Saudi users' and 'abide by Saudi laws', Google should censor its news search results and include only those sources approved by royal family, creating an online collection of Wahhabism and Jihadism?
That's exactly what they are doing in China.
The only way to fight Google is to let your voice be heard as widely as possible.
Please write to Google about your thoughts. Google offers a bad product to Chinese users. Let market decides. Then Wall Street will put it on notice.
To be fair to Google, it's by no means the worst collaborator of China's censorers. Yahoo did that well before and it did not help its business at all. Google should not be an exception.