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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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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).
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/
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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