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Google Confirms Chinese Censorship Claims

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the great-wall dept.

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.

32 of 515 comments (clear)

  1. And what about the cache? by orulz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:And what about the cache? by jarich · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Leaving the caching service available would simply get Google banned too. No point.

      --
      Agile Artisans
  2. a point is.. by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  3. We should crucify Google! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  4. In Chineese version only? by taylortbb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  5. Not necessarily by christor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      And how do you think they came to this false conslusion?

      I suspect you asked that question to prove your point about censorship in the US rather than in hope of an answer, but I'll have a go. Have you tried talking to them?

      Nobody I've spoken to who holds this belief is really that wedded to the idea, or really thinks anything hinges on the question. If you come out with proofs they can understand ("Bush admitted it!"), they just don't care. They shift to, "well, those people" kinds of arguments.

      Basically, I think the people who bought that lie were willingly deceived. They had a visceral feeling that the appropriate response to 9/11 was a strong show of force in the Arab world, and Saddam was a good target to smack around. If you think about it psychologically, rather than logically, it makes a kind of sense.

      Because the two are conflated in their minds they continue to profess belief, despite multiple debunkings in the mainstream press before, during and after the war.

    2. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Despite what American corporate propoganda tells you the chinese people are not "oppressed" or "yearning to be free".

      Of course Americans think they are so free (haha, most prisoners in the world anywhere, per capita or otherwise) and they think they have such a democracy (2 corporate parties not to mention 2000 elections, haha) and they think they are so advanced (losing ground in published research and behind on various IT tech, haha).

      Despite the fact that your unelected president is grinding the workers into a pulp for the enrishment of the ruling class you continue to wave (waive?) your flag and feel so happy.

      In the last 4 years in America the number of billionares has increased and at the same time poverty has steadiliy increased!

      As long as you keep thinking you are so superior you don't notice how bad you are being screwed by your corporate lords. Just tie that flag around your head like a blindfold and just be glad you aren't "oppressed" like the chinese!

      Now go chow a bigmac.

    3. Re:Not necessarily by AoT · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Where to begin? the beginning it must be.

      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.

      The reason that it would be better if the censorship is apparent is because the chinese public, not the leaders, should have a some knowledge of whats being censored so *they* can decide if they want access to the same information. As for 'pressure', google doesn't pressure anyone, they help search the web. If that manages to impact a culture or government, so be it. If the Chinese want on the internet they're going to have to deal with their people reading things the government doesn't want them to read.

      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.

      If these people have made the choice conciously then why does it matter if they have access to other information. the rest of this is a complete nonsequitor. You can accept that the Chinese culture is different and equal and talk about helping china change. Of course you dropped that little 'to suit yourself' in there, which as far as I can see doesn't come into play ever.

      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.

      You seem to be continuing to argue that the laws of a government are somehow always directly representative of the country governed; this is not, however, the case. That the whole point of this.

      --
      A blog about stuff.
    4. Re:Not necessarily by wheelbarrow · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'll concede that the USA government sometimes over steps it's authority, to the detriment of the individuals involved and to the concept of individual liberty altogether. I read about your gym speaker. What happened was horrible. However, he basically told the FBI to f themselves and that was the end of it. Try that in Communist China.

      I have a big issue with one of your other statements: Now, I accept that they believe that, live by that, and good luck to them. As long as they dont try and make me live by their rules, they can live in whatever way they like.

      How fortunate that you were not, by the randomness of birth place, born into their system. You are free to sit on the outside, wish them luck, and tell them to leave you alone. 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.

      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.

    5. Re:Not necessarily by The+Snowman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's so nice that there's no censorship in US.

      I know this is a sarcastic comment, but in some ways there is no censorship. This article talks specifically about Internet censorship. When was the last time the FCC shut down a web site with "objectionable" material that could not be e.g. broadcast on television? If I type the word "fuck" on the Internet where children could read it, the FCC is powerless to stop me, while if I tried saying it on TV it would be edited or beeped out. Witness the web sites with that horrible atrocity, the nipple shot from the SuperBowl. I say horrible not because it was televised, but because it was so damn ugly.

      Anyway, government censorship is very bad, and the U.S. does have it, but it could be worse. Thankfully, with the Internet, I have access to information I never dreamt existed a decade ago. Even when I was on AOL back then, it was AOL censorship, not the government. Either way I was restricted.

      --
      24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
    6. Re:Not necessarily by Beautyon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think we agree on that.

      We absolutely and totally concur on that.

      the menace of the PRC

      Uh oh. Are they a menace? They are certainly irritating, but are they a threat to us?

      and someday it will fail.

      And believe it or not, we might live to see it. I agree with you about speaking out against them; you should never ever shut up. I would add that its probably not a good idea to buy their goods if you dont like the PRC. All of these things individuals should do, and I agree with boycotts in general.

      What I cannot support or stomach are these clowns that cant see the wood for the trees; who cant see that even though the PRC way of life is not for us, it is not within our rights to force them to change.

      Of course, what we do with our money is our business. This is probably the most persuasive and powerful tool we all have to hand. A boycott of Chinese goods could persuade them to behave in different ways and boycotts are not force, in the way that pumping objectionable search results into Chinese browsers is a kind of force.

      A pure Chinese instigated blodless revolution. Its possible, and when they do it (I think its inevitable) it will be legitimate, long lasting and good for everybody.

      --
      ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
    7. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The point is that these americans believe that SH was directly involved in the planning and execution of 911. I am afraid you are a little off. Some Americans at the top (includes political and media leaders) want the rest of the world to believe this truckload of crap that saddam was linked with alqaeda when in fact the evidence unmistakably actually points towards Saudi Arabia.

  6. Wow .. If only they could do that here by ZachReligious · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  7. No it is not fair!!!! by sopuli · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  8. Not only China by ecc0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  9. /. hypocrisy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    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 ./'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.

  10. Re:Just remember that by theLOUDroom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    That does not in any way change that fact that Google is run by humans, who should behave as if they have at least SOME respect for their fellow man.
    If corporations get the same rights as people, they also get the same social obligation to not turn this planet into a total shithole.

    Don't get upset with goodle over cencorship, get upset with the government who's laws they must abide.

    It's perfectly reasonable to get upset with google or cisco for helping a repressive regieme violate the rights of its people.
    They *could* refuse to do business with these goons, but they'd rather fuck over their fellow man so they can make a few more bucks.

    --
    Life is too short to proofread.
  11. Re:doesn't your answer pretty much by OS24Ever · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's easy to throw that little bone out now isn't it? How about in the 30s when concentration camps weren't known, and people that ran those businesses didn't have a clue as to what their product might have been used for until it was too late?

    Hindsight is 20/20, and it's easy to spout off on a forum on 'how things need to be done'

    China is a sovreign nation and just because we don't agree with how they plan on running their country doesn't mean we can't find a way to do business within their constraints. China is an emerging market. They are trying to do both communism and free market in a weird way, and if a company wants to grow any they need China to do so. If you don't play by their rules, you're removed from a one billion person market quite quickly.

    --

    As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.

  12. “Don’t be evil” ... by Grumpy+Troll · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... 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.

    As for "Don't be evil," we have tried to define precisely what it means to be a force for good--always do the right, ethical thing. Ultimately, "Don't be evil" seems the easiest way to summarize it.
    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.

  13. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  14. Re:well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    ... which is pretty much a ripoff of,


    "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
    -- Edmund Burke


    As for "Boondock Saints", I prefer this quote:


    And shepherds we shall be, for thee my Lord for thee
    Power hath descended forth from thy hand
    That our feet may swiftly carry out thy command
    We shall flow a river forth to thee
    And teeming with souls shall it ever be
    In nomine patrie, et fili, et spiritu sancti
  15. they did take a stand by taxman_10m · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  16. Re:Would it be better if China took Google offline by gaijin99 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I do not accept the argument that the profit motive excuses all other behavior. Furthermore, Google Inc. claimed to reject that argument when they claimed that they would not be evil. 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.

    --
    "Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
  17. Re:big deal by RWerp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And the articles not being shown are the ones that wouldn't show up anyway.

    Knowing that something has been censored is a knowledge in itself. In Poland, one of the gains of the opposition movement in the 80's was that the state censorship had to mark every place in published text they had tampered with.

    --
    "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
  18. No Joke by superpulpsicle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:No Joke by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Nothing...I'm in China, and I have an unencryped no-caching squid proxy set in the US. Hit any blocked sites (Voice of America, BBC News, etc), just hit F12-x in Opera, and continue.

      Actually, I use it more for overcoming the slowness of "the internet" here. Go figure, it's faster to go to a box in the US and relay from there than it is to go there directly. Wee.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  19. Re:That's fair enough by tek314159 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's valid. I live in China, and it can get pretty frustrating when a google search results in lots of links to geocities pages, and other sites on blocked servers. I really have no problem with Google just making those results vanish, since I can't see them, anyway, and they sometimes just result in opened tabs that never load when I forget to check the host domain. It'd be nice if there were an option, however. A little check-box or link to "See results including blocked sites". tek.

  20. Re:Would it be better if China took Google offline by k98sven · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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)

  21. Re:Would it be better if China took Google offline by Bob+The+Cowboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    I personally don't see many people concerned with this outside of /. 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

    Bill

  22. In the US the press is allowed to lie by verzonnen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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)

  23. Likewise by sbszine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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