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Google Targeted By Anti-Censorship Movement
wormnet.org writes "An article has been posted on The Observer reporting that Google has been targeted by the group "Students For A Free Tibet" because of the internet company's relationship with the Chinese government. The article states: "... more than 50,000 letters have been sent to Google bosses in recent days protesting at the company's decision to censor searches on its google.cn website in line with Beijing's wishes. Protesters have also staged public 'break-ups' with Google at demonstrations outside many of its offices around the world.""
Is that like some sort of declaration of boycott?
Actually, yes. It was a boycott planned to begin on Valentine's Day, and continue until Google gave up it's evil censoring ways. A website was even set up to help with the occasion. No Luv 4 Google (It's not my spelling, it's theirs, sorry)
They're not just focusing on Google though, since Microsoft and Yahoo both filter their searches in China also. They've got a large list of alternative search engines you can use and other ways of protesting.
Maybe it's that they think stopping American businesses from pumping money into an evil regime is a way of taking on the Chinese government?
Seriously, read something like Blake Kerr's Sky Burial ("An Eyewitness Account of China's Brutal Crackdown in Tibet") and you'll see why the free Tibet crowd exists and why they think it would be a good idea for the U.S. to refuse economic support to China until this brutal rule ends.
There's a difference between being able to work with China, and sucking up to China. MSN and Yahoo deal with China is, every time China sks to block some site from their search engine, they do so. Google went the extra mile and gave themselves a "competitive edge" - they block sites without China even asking according to keywords and such...
- ods15
One additional intresting link on google:
o cracy
.com gives you.
http://images.google.com/images?q=democracy
http://images.google.cn/images?cr=countryCN&q=dem
note cr=countryCN without it the chinese google will give you what
Self correction... Every time I go to .cn it redirects me directly to .com with the same search.
I do wonder why.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
China as far as I know has no constitution.
You need to shut up. You need to get some education. You need to know what you are talking about before you mouth off.
Otherwise you just make an ass of yourself.
China does indeed have aconstitution. In theory it has a very good constitution. Unfortunately most of the core clauses on freedoms and rights are terminated with the subclause : "...except where this would disturb the peace/breach social order/endanger the harmony of the state".
Next time first learn, then speak. Unless it's a question.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Being myself in China (Canadian working in Shanghai) I know a bit more on the story. At first I must say that I was really shocked with the news of Google following the footsteps of Yahoo and Microsoft with censoring their search results. So I went deeper and did some tests. Here is what I found out:
First of all, and many of you know this already, the only censored search is google.CN and NOT google.COM. Yes, If I do a search with google.CN the results will be filtered, but nobody stops me from using google.COM which is still not censored at all, even for people using it in China. I thought they might use some IP detection of some sort and filter people that are located in China, but no, they don't. So Chinese people can still use the normal english Google if they are not happy.
Secondly, and most important: My Chinese girlfriend showed me that when you search for something that should be filtered ("tiananmen", for example), it displays a very clear message in Chinese, repeated several times in the page, saying something like "Some results have been removed due to local laws". Now how does that make Google better? Well, think about it: they could have done just like Microsoft and Yahoo and simply hide the controversial entries. Nobody would even know they did as it is completely invisible. But their approach is interesting when you think about it. It means that Chinese people (who so far pretty much ignored that they are being lied to on a daily basis) will now notice that A LOT of what they search online is being censored! That will completely change their view of the government and break the general ignorance in the population right now. Who knows, maybe Chinese people will start to protest and perhaps things will eventually change? All I'm saying is that if you look at it that way it has indeed a positive effect. That's what everybody seems to completely fail to understand right now when they criticize Google. I think they (Google) know damn well what they are doing, they just hoped that us clever people would get it but it seems like most of us obviously don't!!
So anyway, look at it that way: Microsoft tells Chinese people what to write in their blogs (when my gf writes on her MSN spaces, she gets a message saying that she uses "inappropriate language" if she tries to write "freedom" or "democracy"), Yahoo sends people to jail for writing their opinion in an e-mail, and... Google INFORMS Chinese people that they are being lied to... So, who's really the big evil one here??
Just my 2 cents...
David