Tangible Impact of Censorship on Search Engines

An anonymous reader writes "NetworkWorld is reporting that Indiana University Informatics researchers have created a site that highlights the differences in query results provided by country-specific search engines. cenSEARCHip looks at engines like the versions of Google and Yahoo built to accommodate free-speech restrictions in China, Germany and France."

Comments

countries

[heatdeath]

I find their choice of countries amusing. Are these really the only countries that significantly censor the internet? (Or are these the only ones that google cooperates with?)

Europe needs to commit to human rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Europe needs to recognize that free speech means free speech for everyone, especially the loathsome, or it's going to wind up with a problem soon. What exactly kind of message does it send that racial agitation against arabs is being championed and celebrated as a "we must do this to demonstrate we have freedom of speech" kind of thing-- at the same time that search engines are being censored, and people are being arrested for writing books? It says that being a fascist racist is okay in europe, unless you're the wrong kind of fascist racist.

Is that "European Court of Human Rights" thing just a total paper tiger, or what?

Re:Europe needs to commit to human rights

[meringuoid]

racial agitation against arabs ... fascist racist

I assume you're referring to the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, published in Jylland-Posten, and later circulated in the Middle-East by some imams trying to whip up an artificial controversy?

If so, then I have to ask whether you've actually seen them. Here they are. I can't see anything there that's racist. Some are critical of Jylland-Posten itself, referring to the whole thing as a publicity stunt. Some are critical of militant Islam. One - with the schoolboy, whose name apparently happens to be Muhammad - seems quite optimistic about integration and multicultural coexistence.

The only ones that anyone could conceivably take offence at are the ones criticising Islam or certain sects of Islam. But Islam is not a race, it's a religion, an ideology. Ideologies can never be said to be beyond criticism. Was it racist against Russians to criticise the ideas, the founders, and the results of Communism?

Re:Europe needs to commit to human rights

[k98sven]

Europe needs to recognize that free speech means free speech for everyone, especially the loathsome, or it's going to wind up with a problem soon. ...As if a (sub)continent of 25-30 countries with half a billion people can be expected to have homogenous views and legislation on everything.

What exactly kind of message does it send that racial agitation against arabs is being championed and celebrated as a "we must do this to demonstrate we have freedom of speech" kind of thing-- at the same time that search engines are being censored, and people are being arrested for writing books?

Let's see, you're taking the Danish Muhammed drawings controversy, and applying it to the German anti-Nazi laws, despite the fact that Denmark has no such laws? Or are you referring to the German magazines that republished the pictures once the controversy started? Well, that's a good question that you should ask the publishers. But making the assumption that the actions of individual publishers represents prevailing opinion just as well as their consitition does is just ridiculous.

It says that being a fascist racist is okay in europe, unless you're the wrong kind of fascist racist.

You'll be hard-pressed to find any substantial number of people subscribing to that view.

By analogy, the USA has a ban on the import of "any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing, or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper or other material, or any cast, instrument, or other article which is obscene or immoral" (Title 19 section 1305). But there are plenty of American porno magazines.

So by the same line of reasoning: Americans think that foreign obscenity is bad, but domestic obscenity is okay?

A Search Result Falling in the Woods...

[klenwell]

with no one around... does it exist?

I've always been amused by search result comparisons -- especially when they compare total results since most results beyond the first 1000 (as in the case of Google or Yahoo) are inaccessible.

What's the point, for instance, of Google saying there are 16,000,000 results for your query when they will only show you the first 700? I think this is even true of their API.

Incidentally, if for some reason you need to quickly find the last known google result, there's always http://www.lastgoogle.com/.

Silly

[xnot]

Messages are always censored to some degree, becauses ultimately, some system has to decide which messages get through. Either that system is a computer that uses some algorithm, or it's a human who manually decides. Usually it's the popular message that gets through, regardless if the message is accurate or not.

Ultimately it comes down to your level of trust in whatever system is doing the filtering. What most people don't get is there's almost always some "non-partial" element to messages. News media can't report on messages that the government deems as critical to national security. And now we are finding the same thing with google. And people are suprised?

Re:What about free speech restrictions in the US?

[LiquidCoooled]

Not quite free speech, but does google include DMCA blocks on their sites outside the US?

*Actually, it does.
I just did a search from google.co.uk (for kazaa lite) and got the following:

  In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 2 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.

Now, since I don't live in America and aren't governed by their rules, why in the hell is that blocked?

Re:Sample Google Searches: China vs. USA

[Eggz Factor]

Most telling is an image search comparison on Tiananmen Square. China returns pastoral images while UAS returns mostly images tanks and protest.