Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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
It would be better if that were apparent.
Why? Because you merely believe that they should have access to the same type of sources that you do? That is not a reason why a culture should be changed via pressure from a company based in another jurisdiction.
How could anyone not want to know that certain sources are being systematically hidden from them (and in particular, which sources)?
You mean, "how could they possibly not want to be like me?" Believe it or not, there are billions of people who dont live like you, dont want to, and have made this choice conciously. The first step to understanding another persons culture is to accept that they can be different to you AND equal. As soon as you do this, you cannot talk about changing China to suit yourself, and your personally held opinions.
I don't think it's calling someone stupid to point out that he or she deserves the same access to information (even if some of that information is imperfect) that the rest of us enjoy.
By saying that they deserve access to what you get, you are superimposing your own standards on people you dont even know. There are cultures where unlimited access to, for example, pr0n is not something to be enjoyed, but something to be stomped on, and supressed. They are not wrong for trying to block it and anything else that they dont want, and Google is not evil for obeying those laws.
Knowing the degree of censorship is helpful to promoting change even if everyone in society knows, in general, that censorship is occurring.
The Chiese do not need you to pat them on the head like children, in a "there there little Chinese man we will make you free" fashion. They can make their own decisions, come to ther own conclusions about how they want to organize themselvs, and then carry out their plans, all without your approval or consent.
To say that change needs to be "promoted" is paternalistic, nauseating and very wrong headed.
It is certainly not "OK" to "point out that censorship in China is a bad thing". The Majority of Europeans think that fining CBS $900,000 dollars for inadvertantly showing a female breast on TV is utterly insane, but its your business if you are an american, and no one elses. I brought in the 911 example because clearly, Amerca (where Google is from) has plenty of its own problems with censorship and media control. Rounding on Google for conplying with local censorship laws in another country while American society is in thrall to its own tight media control is a little...silly dont you think?
Not that you were doing that.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Absolutely -- what bugs me is the blind devotion Google receives from its followers, and the constant apologetics which they issue. These same people generally are (rightfully) distrustful of large corporations (ie Microsoft), but discard that distrust when it comes to Google.
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.