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China Blocking Access to Google News Site
loconet writes "BBC and Reuters are reporting that China is blocking access to the Web site Google News according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. The organisation also accused Google of being complicit by filtering its Chinese-language site." From Reuters' version of the story: "The Paris-based group said the government had been blocking Google's English-language news Web site for about 10 days, after the company launched a Chinese-language version that removed politically sensitive reports."
I'm no real googlephile, but I'd take a moment to think about it for a bit. If China was going to block a news site you owned entirely, unless you provided a censored version, it's not like you could do anything to stop them.
So you have to decide whether your service is still going to do some good to the people over there even if it is censored.
I only hope Google has enough social conscience to find a sneaky way to hint to users over there that they are not getting the whole story. I could see if you provide a service that gives people the impression of uncensored impartiality while doing the censoring, then maybe in that case you are doing more harm than good, and just being censored entirely would be better.
Someone had to do it.
meanwhile Iraq disappears from frontpages even though more US soldiers where killed this month than any other month so far, if google censored US news how would you know ?
of course the Whitehouse wouldnt attempt to hide politically sensitive stuff about Iraq now would it ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/01/opinion/01kristo f.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
China's Donkey Droppings
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
For the last century, the title of "most important place in the world" has belonged to the United States, but that role seems likely to shift in this century to China.
So what are China's new leaders, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, really like? Are they visionaries who are presiding over the greatest explosion of wealth the world has ever known? Or are they ruthless thugs who persecute Christians, Falun Gong adherents, labor leaders and journalists in a desperate attempt to maintain their dictatorship?
There's some evidence for both propositions, and they are probably both true to some degree.
When Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen rose to the helm of the Communist Party two years ago, many Chinese hoped they would bring a new openness to a nation that is dynamic economically but stagnant intellectually. Instead, China has become more repressive.
The repression has now engulfed a member of The New York Times's family. Zhao Yan, a researcher for the Beijing bureau of The Times, has been detained by the authorities since September and is not allowed to communicate with his family or lawyers.
Mr. Zhao is accused of leaking state secrets, a very serious charge that could lead to a decade in prison. China's government may believe that he was behind the September scoop by The Times's Beijing bureau chief, Joseph Kahn, that China's former leader, Jiang Zemin, was about to retire from his last formal position.
While The Times's policy is, wisely, never to comment on the sources of articles, my own private digging indicates that Mr. Zhao was not the source for that scoop. He is innocent of everything except being a fine journalist who, before joining The Times, wrote important articles in the Chinese press about corruption.
(In fairness, sending journalists to prison for doing their job is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon. Several American journalists - Jim Taricani of NBC, Judith Miller of this newspaper and Matthew Cooper of Time - may be sent to U.S. prisons in the next month or two for refusing to reveal their sources.)
Mr. Zhao's case is depressingly similar to that of another Chinese journalist, Jiang Weiping. He is serving a six-year sentence for "revealing state secrets," even though his real crime was exposing corruption.
"China has changed so much economically, but not politically," Jiang Weiping's wife, Li Yanling, told me. "It's a puzzle to me."
The authorities ordered Ms. Li to keep quiet about her husband's arrest, and detained her when she didn't. The couple's daughter, now 15, was traumatized at losing first her father and then her mother to the Chinese prison system. When Ms. Li was finally released, the daughter called her constantly from school to make sure that she had not been arrested again.
Mr. Zhao's arrest is just the latest in a broad crackdown in China. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 42 journalists are now in prison in China, more than in any other country.
"There was a period of openness, a period of hope, when the new leaders first came to power," said Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University. "But now they've consolidated power, and everything has closed up again."
Mr. Jiao should know. He wrote an essay this year denouncing censorship, and it was immediately censored. Now the government has banned Mr. Jiao from teaching.
I've felt this cooling as well. I was planning to visit China this month, but the government has declined to give me a visa. It's the first time I've been refused, and the State Security Ministry may have worried that I would write a column about its unjust imprisonment of Mr. Zhao.
I love China, and I share its officials' distaste for those who harm it. That's why I'm angry that hard-liners in Beijing are presenting China to the world as repressive, fragile, tyra
I'm sure the repressed Chinese appreciate not being bothered by getting to see the results to their illicit queries.
Freedom starts with you.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
In other words, I don't care who is stupid, stupid is still stupid. Yes, that includes when I'm being stupid.
As for Google, they've IPO-ed. They're now out there to make money for their shareholders, not to win friends amongst the geeks, nerds and news-freaks of the world. If you want to please the money-makers, you do what it takes to make money. Which is exactly what Google is doing, and it's hard to blame them for feeding the beast they've got under their roof. You feed that beast, or it feeds on you. It gets fed, one way or another.
If you don't like that kind of world, don't IPO. Sure, you won't make as much money, but you won't be a slave to it, either. It's an all or (almost) nothing deal. The only way to stop it being completely nothing is to please groups who maybe aren't as rich or powerful, but will still pay for a damn good service when it's there.
If Google had worked hard on improving contextual ranking and other indirect methods of measuring the usefulness of a page, they'd have maintained or improved accuracy, which would have meant more interest and, in turn, more revenue from advertising, contributions and other sources.
Right now, what do they care if you can't find a damn thing? They've already admitted their photo engine is way behind (what, they can't run a cron job? It's not automated?) and it's still way too easy to Google Bomb. So? Provided investers are happy, everyone in Google who has shares will be happy. Selling a crappy cut-down service to China is going to make investers happy.
As I said, you can't really blame Google for that. That's how the big markets work, and if you want to play in that arena, that's how you have to live. At least, until there's a decent alternative at that level.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, I'm an American. I voted for Bush, who won both elections amid some calls for better counting.
And I want EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTED! Even if it means that my choice loses.
Of course, that means every vote, both the votes in heavily Democratic counties and the military absenteee ballots.
Even though Kerry conceded, I would like to see a recount in Ohio. I'd like to see it laid open. We claim to be the leaders of the free world. Let's back it up.
seg fault
The war of definitions is such a game which cannot be won. There are, as I see it, at least four different and completely unrelated definitions for the words, "Liberal" and "Conservative".
On the one hand, "Liberal" implies to some the idea that governments should not allow personal gain or individuality of any kind so that all people are treated equally, --an ideology which would certainly lead to fascist nightmares like China.
On the other hand, "Liberal" implies to others that people should be treated with healthy respect and given the room to grow and live in freedom. Liberal = Liberate = Free. This is how I define the word, and I define, "Conservative" as the opposite view point. By this definition, China is the product of Conservative ideology. --Where only a small group of people have huge freedom while the masses suffer under Draconian controls.
When it comes down to it, these words are pretty useless for describing different view points, exactly because there are multiple definitions for each and high emotions attached to the different concepts.
Beneath this shouting match, I see only two different approaches:
1. People who believe in, "Me First, Screw Everybody Else." (An ideology, which if left to its own devices, ultimately results in the pooling of power within very small groups. It is upon this model that Fascism is based. --And societies which live in the illusion of freedom, but which are anything but free. --Like the U.S.)
2. People who believe in, "I'll share with those who are also working to build a better world and who are also willing to share". (A model which the 'Me First' people despise because it would stop them from enslaving and raping and building Walmarts.)
These two models cannot co-exist, and neither model can ultimately prevail in this world. This is why there will always be strife and war in this reality. This level of existence is a giant stew pot designed to teach the basics of civility and appropriate behavior. --Those who learn all their lessons and get fed up with trying to make sensible systems work here, will finally move on to higher levels where entire non-selfish paradigms can exist. Those who decide to embrace selfishness can also rise to levels where pure selfishness can also exist. Service-to-self people are prevented, however, from moving beyond that point.
-FL
I have read about the first point on many semi-official sites, although the estimates of the number of deaths there is 10~40M, which is still staggering. Government officials do not seem to mind these articles much, and maybe it is published on something official.
As for the rest, since no one around me know the fact, I find it safer not to firmly believe anyone's opinion.
It's weird, just about every screenshot people post on here is from a windows PC. Granted, most people are running Firefox instead of IE at least, but still - I thought we would have a higher % of Linux/BSD/Other users on this site.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just because the hunger to improve the bottomline of the multinational corporations made China the largest "outsource-based economy" it still remains a Communist country.
It gets worse: since the governments of the Western countries are under the heavy influence of the multinational corporations, China has lost it's hope to democracy.
A strange kind of post-modern slavery: it's everybody's interest to keep the political, economical "slaves" of China under the tight Communist rule, in order to keep the cheap, short-leashed, strike-free "off-shore" labour force available for all corporations around the world.
It's not over here: the cheap, strike-free "off-shore" labour force creates an increasingly poor middle-class even in the most developed countries via outsourcing.
Since these customers have less and less purchasing power, they can't afford the luxury to refuse either the reduced cost goods, provided by the "globalized slave" economies, or even the ideology that creates this global economy.
The workforce in the developed countries are also kept on ever shorter leash by the threat and reality of further outsourcing. Corporations can get the benefits both way.
There is really nothing left to complain about: You want the 50% sale price on Nike, because your purchasing power shrinks, Nike wants to further increase their profit, the Chinese Communist government want s every cents to provide fundings to stay in power.
If there was anything to learn for a Communist government from the fall of the Communists in the USSR and Eastern Europe, that would be the realization that you can't sustain even a Communist dictatorship without an economy, which is able to export and get hard currency.
So stop crying about Google's censorship.
It's everybody's interest. Even yours.
It's all perfect the way it is.
Be happy and shut up.
Around about 12 months ago, plus or minus several months, I noticed a very sudden reduction in the number of pro-Arab articles in the English-language Google news for USA readers. There used to be heaps of articles from English-language newspapers in the Arab world (mostly translations), expressing the Arab points of view on the various modalities of massacring Arabs in the last couple of years. Does this indicate that Google "changed their algorithm" again? That's what they say whenever the general search changes drastically. I suspect that Google got a lot of comments from the vast right-wing conspiracy about the "anti-American" views in news articles about the wars. It's a pity, because now the Google news only contains pro-USA or very mild articles. Blood-curdling reports on US and Israeli military actions don't get linked any more.
Cuba has almost nothing. It's a pissant little nation with a militaristic leader and no military power to speak of. Can they feed themselves? Care for their people? Sure they do the best they can.
Cuba is a big black eye on US Imperialism - we owned the place, and over the next half century proceeded to piss it away. Previous administrations (and this one too) would rather push Cuba around because it doesn't have the military strength or alliances to challenge us. They're tightening their alliances with China... but then we get back to that whole "rising standard of living" and "trade sanctions" thing.
Let's see what happens when Castro drops...
When Google wants to operate in the US, it abides by US law. When Google wants to operate in China, it abides by Chinese law. And right now, Chinese law says no polical web content. Who are we to criticize how they live? I know plenty of people who have gone over there and they say that the people of China appear to be rather contect with their situation.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
If you produced something intented to be fake, you should tell the readers that it is fake.
If you produced something intended to be incomplete, you should tell the readers that it is incomplete.
So, if it is censored, you should tell the people that it is censored. Or otherwise they will reasonabily believe that it is not......
Therefore, Google, please respect your users and tell them the truth.
http://www.ieaa.org/~adrian/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Screw mod points -- this is more important.
"Here's a page which talks about Jasper becker's book Hungry Ghosts, which covers how farm collectivization during Mao's "Great Leap Forward" resulted in the death of some 30-60 million of your countrymen."
We already know. In fact, everyone knows. But what the fuck is anyone going to do about it? The Communist government in China has progress a lot over the last 30 years. Sure, it's not exactly a democracy, but take a good think about American and Europe around the last turn of century.
"Here's a page which discusses the genocide rsulting from China's invasion of Tibet, where "over 17 percent of the Tibetan people killed, and 6,000 monasteries ruined."
Did you know that Tibet practises slavery? Which, incidentally, is illegal in China, and has been for well over the century and bit that the corresponding laws have existed in America.
The other two points, I'll concede, however, they are not entirely without reason either. China cannot afford to go all democratic right now, or else you'll get another break up of the Soviet Union on the world's hands. Except this time you can have 1.4 billion people instead of a few hundred million. This, incidentally, is also why the government is so hard on not allowing Tibet to leave China, and to keep Taiwan -- if one exception is made, where do you stop?
"Freedom starts with you."
Freedom is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's all very well for those who have always had food and homes to say that they'd rather starve or die than give up their "freedom". Hunger and poverty can make you see things another way. Until China is strong enough, politically and economically to not be bossed around by America (unlike the rest of the world) don't expect any changes.
Final word -- people in China know about what the government is doing -- propaganda has kinda been done to death by the old Communist government. Chinese these days are a very cynical and skeptical bunch, but just about everyone agrees that the current state and progression of China is as good as it can be, given historical circumstances and external factors.
You need to spend some time with more than one of those links, chief. Here's one for ya. Like I (and you) said: we essentially owned the place. We could have kept it as a state, but we didn't. Ironically, it likely would have been much better off if we had rather than let it become a haven to mob bosses and internal corruption.
Perhaps you feel a great sense of superiority living in the US and being completely ignorant.
Please be aware that:
Every already fucking knows what you posted.
Perhaps you were unaware that Tibet was a slave-society, where the revolution was funded by the CIA, and didn't last long because being a slave (as the majority of Tibetans were) FUCKING SUCKS. Please be aware that the nations near to Tibet are now in Maoist revolutions of their own (and Maoist revolutions are so 1980s).
Falun Gong is a crazy-ass religion. Considering China's history, where (amongst other incidents) a crazy-ass cult whose founder claimed to be Jesus's younger brother caused the violent invasion of the nation, surpression of crazy-ass religions is perhaps more understandable. Besides, America has freedom of religion only if you're a mainstream Christian. Look what happened at Waco, and that was just a few people.
It's fucking terrible how many people died during the early years of industrilization, isn't it? But in the face of such poverty, could "The Great Leap Forward" have been done better under another system? Chiang Kai-shek's government stole the entire supply of gold, in a time when the currency was entirely backed by gold. Obviously, if the nation wasn't bankrupt, such drastic steps wouldn't have been necessary. And there's a lot more to the story. It's just amazingly ignorant of an American to blame it all on Communism, but perhaps that's to be expected. Anyway this whole point is moot because it's not like it's a big secret that people died in the Great Leap Forward.
It's amazing how Americans gloss over the inconvenient fact that they had genocides and slaves in their recent history, but are quick to condemn China for the faults of their recent history.
Apparently, getting on TV makes one a big hero?
In short, criticizing China is fine, but you're completely ignorant on the subject, and one-sided in your attack.
> Method a: we refuse to deal with china. China
> remains a thid world country with no middle class
Yeah. You've exported a lot of your own industry to China, because it's cheaper. So, first thing is: you are interested in China being a third world country, because it's the only way for you to have a cheaper workforce. And the second thing is: are you so sure that they will just give you your factories and plants back? Thay have bombs, as you've said yourself.
> Method b: we make china a trade partner, export
> as much of our culture as we can, and china
> becomes a nation of the fastest rising middle
> class in the world
You've already done it with the USSR. And it's gone. Yugoslavia? Gone too. Now it's Ukraine's turn to go. That's what your so called "partnership" and "culture" do.
As to the middle class it's just propaganda. "Middle class is good". Don't make me laugh. China is not ready for any middle classes. It's in industrial age yet, but it will soon catch up. Think of it: if your population is 80% farmers, what middle class can there be?
>> "Here's a page which talks about Jasper becker's book Hungry Ghosts, which covers how farm collectivization during Mao's "Great Leap Forward" resulted in the death of some 30-60 million of your countrymen." > We already know. In fact, everyone knows. But what the fuck is anyone going to do about it? The Communist government in China has progress a lot over the last 30 years. Sure, it's not exactly a democracy, but take a good think about American and Europe around the last turn of century. Does everyone know? Not the chinese I've met. In fact they believe it's a definete lie. >>"Here's a page which discusses the genocide rsulting from China's invasion of Tibet, where "over 17 percent of the Tibetan people killed, and 6,000 monasteries ruined." >Did you know that Tibet practises slavery? Which, incidentally, is illegal in China, and has been for well over the century and bit that the corresponding laws have existed in America. And... that's a good reason to kill more that 17% of the tibetan people? >The other two points, I'll concede, however, they are not entirely without reason either. China cannot afford to go all democratic right now, or else you'll get another break up of the Soviet Union on the world's hands. Except this time you can have 1.4 billion people instead of a few hundred million. I'll have to agree on that one. >This, incidentally, is also why the government is so hard on not allowing Tibet to leave China, and to keep Taiwan -- if one exception is made, where do you stop? The thing is... why do you want to keep regions of China within the country, if they do not want to? I think you should NOT stop - let regions leave if they want to. Why not? Why does it have to be one big country? I'm from the EU. I believe we should stick together, all european countries, but if there's a country where the population does not want to - let them. Just like China should get the fuck out of Tibet, and forget about Taiwan. Leave them the fuck alone!!! >>"Freedom starts with you." >Freedom is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's all very well for those who have always had food and homes to say that they'd rather starve or die than give up their "freedom". Hunger and poverty can make you see things another way. Until China is strong enough, politically and economically to not be bossed around by America (unlike the rest of the world) don't expect any changes. Freedom IS all that! And much more! What we've seen in Europe is that we weren't able to get rid of most starvation and poverty before we got rid of the dictators. >Final word -- people in China know about what the government is doing -- propaganda has kinda been done to death by the old Communist government. Chinese these days are a very cynical and skeptical bunch, but just about everyone agrees that the current state and progression of China is as good as it can be, given historical circumstances and external factors. I can only judge by the chinese I've talked to myself - and that's not the picture I get. I hope you're right, though.
-- A good compromise leaves everyone mad. --Calvin and Hobbes
Who cares? We are quite pompous and self-righteous claiming that liberty and freedom of information should be a basic human right, yet, we live in a *very* censored society. No, its not our 'govt' that censors our news (surely there is official spin, but, its still different) - its our 'free enterprise' system. Walt Disney corporation controls the news outlets related to ABC, Billy-Boy-Gates has hands on NBC... c'mon, lets wake up and be real here, our news media is very actively managed and pre-digested by commercial 'sensitivities', and on the whole we *like* it that way. Otherwise, a different news channel would arise to meet the market 'needs'. Seems to me, that the Chinese must LIKE it their way too. That sentiment is even furthered by my travels in China - I walked around and spoken with ppl (had a native Chinese translator to accompany me - no, not a govt minder).
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
The question isn't What's wrong with it, it's What's right with it. Why is the Chinese government (allegedly) blocking a news source like Google? A) Because a freely informed Chinese citizenry is a threat to its autocratic rulers, B) Chinese citizens aren't demanding to exercise their right to free press:
/. is bad for Chinese power? Blocked. "Oh, that's OK, I've got 100 others!", but then they start blocking sites by content, automatically and you have nothing left that is critical of the Chinese government.
"Article 35 [of Chinese Constitution]. Freedom of speech, press, assembly
Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration."
http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/ch00000_.html
Now, even if it wasn't in your constitution, it would still be a right, should you choose to exercise it. Ironically, even if it's in your constitution and you don't choose to exercise it, it's as though you don't have it.
You list a dozen sights above. What happens when the next site posts news critical of the Chinese government? Blocked. Or if some lame ass ministry official reads this post and decides
Then you get to relearn the lesson that it's better to include dissent in a civil forum than exclude it to the underground, which, coupled with the inevitable corruption of government without public criticism, leads to bloody revolution. You'd have thought China had enough of that for a while.
Get your head out of your naive nationalistic ass, read some world history and use some common sense.