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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)
Would it be better if China took Google offline entirely?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
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.
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!
"We must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most. And that is the indifference of good men." -- Boondock Saints
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
... 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...
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.
Uh huh.
... we can search for sites about Cuban Cigars, we can even read other peoples reviews of them. We just can't buy them. :(
Do you think that the Chinese are so stupid that they need Google (or you for that matter) to tell them that they are not "free"?
And as for this "false picture" being presented to the Chiese by their government, your time would be much better spent correcting those people that think, for example, that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 911.
I'll leave it to you to compare who is free and who is not, who is getting uncensored news and who is not.
Or is that a bad idea?!
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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".
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...
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.
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?
I don't want to insult anyone, but I spoke with chinese students who came in my college to study CS and they had strange answers when I asked about the chinese gov., libery, privacy... They seemed more interested in what capitalism in communist China could bring them (like cell phones and junk food) than censorship.
What? but there's no censorship in China? I almosted laughed when I heard that one. Maybe they were just young, but it was disturbing.
"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
Actually, I sincerely doubt that most Chinese people know what they're missing. They may know the government censors dissent, but they don't necessarily know what that dissent entails. In other words, yeah, what the grandparent said.
For a quick OT/Troll rating, I'll answer your Saddam 9/11 connection thing, too:
First Gulf war led to a large American presence on the holy land of Saudi Arabia to protect their oil from the threat of Saddam.
Osama Bin Laden, angered at the presence of infidel soldiers in some of the holiest places of Islam mouths off to the Royal family, gets kicked out of the country, and joins a group of anti-western terrorists.
Years later, Bin Laden masterminds 9/11.
-----------
My point is that while Saddam certainly wasn't connected directly to Al Qaeda, the problems of the Middle-East are all inter-related. It's possible to think that establishing a viable western-style democracy (unlike Iran's) in the region might alter the status quo for the better. Whether doing that is possible is another issue.
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.
In reply to your "take a stand, Google" issue. I think it may be more moot than we realize. If Google is blocking results that are behind the Great Firewall, how is this affecting the end-user? They can't see the site anyway. And, if you should happen to be tech-saavy enough to break through the firewall, you would be able to use the USA uncensored version of Google, and would be able to see the actual pages linked. What would worry me greatly is if Google filtered out dissedent sites from the worldwide Google results.
Plus, what if you knew that the Chinese were torturing people who visit questionable sites, even non-political ones? I am not saying I know this is occurring, but with Communism having such a bright past, this fails to seem far-fetched. Is a porn link listing worth getting someone put in a gulag?
Most Chinese just likely want what we do out of the web, answers to questions about our health, business hours, and to e-mail family and friends. To get firewalled for questionable material would close off a major resource to a resource-poor portion of the world.
Rule of the open mind
People who are resistant to change cannot resist change for the worst.
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!
Leaving the caching service available would simply get Google banned too. No point.
There most certainly is a point if your stated corporate philosophy is "don't be evil." I submit that assisting the Chinese government in masking their censorship just so you can remain in the market most certainly qualifies as "evil."
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
At least that way people would be aware that there is this thing called 'Google' out there that the whole rest of the world relies on for searches, but which for 'some reason' the people of China can't use.
The Chinese people are many things, but stupid isn't one of them. They would figure out why they aren't allowed to use Google pretty quickly.
That would raise awareness of government censorship.
That would be a net benefit to the people of China.
I submit that assisting the Chinese government in masking their censorship just so you can remain in the market most certainly qualifies as "evil."
No. It's "neutral." There is a friggin' third choice.
Google's not "be good." It's "not be evil." Thus, they're "neutral." And neutral parties will make compromises like this one.
If Google is blocking results that are behind the Great Firewall, how is this affecting the end-user? They can't see the site anyway.
By listing the blocked results, Chinese people will have a better idea of how oppressive their government is.
Is a porn link listing worth getting someone put in a gulag?
I don't seriously think people here concerned with google filtering results are concerned with porn listings not getting through. While porn may be a subset of the items blocked, I think people here are more concerned with websites being blocked which, for example, take exception to the Chinese governments horrible human rights record.
Now when a Chinese citizen searches for
Chinese government human rights abuses
and they get a page with a response of:
Of the 184,000 search results only 4 are deemed viewable by your government. Click here for a list of webpages you are not allowed to view.
They will be more informed that if they got:
your search yielded 4 results.
-- john
Oh look, somebody mistook /. as a single entity instead of an amalgamation of disparate entities.
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.
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Ok, Beautyon, let's compare. I'll make a statement that I think is true about the Communist Chinese government.
The Communist Chinese government's rein of power is illegitimate. It is illegitimate because it's power is not derived from free and democratic elections conducted in an uncensored arena of freedom of expression.
That statement alone, made on a website like Slashdot in China, could land me in jail. Perhaps, I would even just disappear and be executed without due process.
Now, I could make the same statement about the presidency of George W Bush. I could say that his rein is illegitimate because the electoral college is a sham and Al Gore won the absolute majority of the votes. I can say that now, on Slashdot, whilst I casually sip my Sunday morning coffee and nothing will happen to me.
Comparing the USA vs. China in this arena of the freedom of expression is ridiculous.
No. It's "neutral." There is a friggin' third choice.
I do understand that the world is not simply black and white, and that "good" and "evil" is not a binary choice. That said, I still stand behind my statement that this is evil. Google is assisting the Chinese government by actively hiding evidence of their censorship.
Denial of human rights is a repugnant, indefensible action. Aiding those who do so is not a "neutral" act.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
It's been that way for decades. You conform or you die or go away for a long time. After a while you and your kids start to believe that the crap they do is normal.
That's why so many Chinese left China. My parents didn't leave because they didn't have a free google, they left because my dad's father was shot. For being a principal (of a school) during the counter-revolution. My mom's brother got sentenced to eight years of hard labour for wearing flashy shirts and liking the fast life (too Western).
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!"
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
You are exercising your freedom of choice to not submit to their system. The unfortunate souls born in the PRC (People's Republic of China) don't have that same freedom of choice that you are exercising yourself.
That is my right. I choose to live here rather than say, Dubai, where such rights dont exist. The people there or anywhere can live the way that they want; what I do not do is assume that my choice or philosophy is right for everyone.
You say that 'they can live in whatever way they like'. Really? The 'they' you are referring to must be the elite few that really run the PRC.
No. The "man in the street" in China can spill their own blood if they want to live in another way. They should not rely on Google, USA inc or any other outside force to do thier dirty work for them. If they want a revolution they can have it. If not, then they have to live in the system that they have inherited.
I wonder if you would risk your own life and the life of your entire family to make China "free". Thats the true test; wether or not you would forfeit your own life for those people, who you dont know anything about.
If you are a Chinese citizen, I stand corrected in advance about you not knowing anything about them, but, even if you are a Chinese citizen, you have no business asking the USA to come and solve your problems, rather like the Iraqi "dissidents" like Mr. Chalbi who only have their own lust for power at heart.
Your duty is to go to your own country, make your case, fight your own war and take the consequences, whatever the outcome may be.
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I think it's pretty simple. If Google links to sites that Chinese can't get to, all they'll get is whatever the Great Firewall gives them when it blocks something. If they provide cached content, or quotes from blocked sites, they'll end up blocked themselves.
They're too big a site to escape scrutiny. They can benefit from the situation themselves (advertising revenue for a billion people), but they can't improve the situation for the Chinese.
It's ethically ambiguous, but the cause is the government's policy on censorship. They're not going to change that if they have to block Google and use search.msn.com instead.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
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!
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
This seems to be the key difference that you are missing.
Not at all. The Chinese have already had a sucessful revolution to destroy their monarchy. They can do it again, and fix this present government if they think that it needs fixing.
As for the way Europeans can can discuss censorship laws, this is a consequence of the European citizenry not settling for anything less than what they want. They reap the benefits of that, and deserve the type of life that they get from this behaviour.
What is fascinating is that people from these Eurppean countries that forbid certain types of thought do not understand that looking from outside both perspectives, the Chinese censoring political thought and the Europeans doing the same are essentially the same action. The only difference is the type of philosophies that are banned.
Both perspectives ban thought because it is "dangerous to stability and order", "causes the potential for social unrest" and so on. The similarity in the language each uses to defend these actions is often surprising.
Try and take a look at if from the third perspective, if you can; it really throws it all into a different light.
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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".
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.
but in some ways there is no censorship.
Maybe not in the old-fashioned sense of government censors using black tape and scissors on newspapers and magazines.
We're much more sophisticated now. The government doesn't need to use such heavy-handed tactics, not least because government does not necessarily represent the most powerful institutions anymore.
Instead, we have just a few very powerful information 3 and 4 letter sources and wire services with access to most of the audience. Other viewpoints don't need to be actively suppressed, but rather ignored, just left to wither amidst a small audience of fringe elements. If the fringe elements have a valid point or important information it won't circulate too far. It will be drowned out.
"Provided by the management for your protection."