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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
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!
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
"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.
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.
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.
Uh huh.
place a checkbox in the advanced search options:
[ ] display search results your government wont allow you to view.
-- john
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
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
... 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
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.
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?
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.
"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
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.
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
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!
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.
Google was blocked by China for certain time last year.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
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)
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
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
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
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".
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)
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