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Google's China Problem
Wraithfighter writes "The New York Times has a rather lengthy, but informative, piece on the origins of Google's current Chinese search engine, as well as a very informative look at how censoring is actually done in China. From the article: 'Are there gradations of censorship, better and worse ways to limit information? In America, that seems like an intolerable question -- the end of the conversation. But in China, as Google has discovered, it is just the beginning.'"
Are there gradations of censorship, better and worse ways to limit information? In America, that seems like an intolerable question
Oh come on, very few in Amertica would argue against any limitations on information.
From trade secrets to copyrights to defamation to classified documents to pornography laws, restrictions on information are inherent in our whole legal system. How about court sealed documents? Furthermore, atatcking "propaganda" stations has long been considered a legitmimate aim of our military in waging wars.
Of course there gradations of censorship. The debate has ALWAYS been about which information can be restricted. Pretty much everyone agrees that some should be. Prentending otherwise is unhelpful and it's dishonest.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
like you haven't give a lot of your rights away recently.
One thing that irritates me about this whole debate is the implicit assumption that China being Communist is just a technicality and not a big huge mega problem. People just pretend that the issue isn't there and just hope it will go away if they put their blinders on. They just go about "trying to do the best they can" while completely ignoring the nature of the big ugly hideous beast breating down their throat.
How do I know that all this talk about giving Chinees the "most freedom that we can" is all bullshit? Because the people saying it are not only censoring, but they are lying. None of them call it like it is, none of them dare say "hey your government is a piece of shit" for fear of offending the Chineese powers that be. Basically, it is a policy of appeasement and to see how it will play out - Chineese history shows very clearly, it will end in disaster.
Near the end of the first page, Lee sums up the attitude on both sides of the Pacific pretty well: "I don't think they care that much. I think people would say: 'Hey, U.S. democracy, that's a good form of government. Chinese government, good and stable, that's a good form of government. Whatever, as long as I get to go to my favorite Web site, see my friends, live happily.'"
It's nice to know the Chinese are as apathetic about their government as we are in the U.S.
What?
According to the article the chinese internet excutives' point of view is that censorship isn't an issue sinse chinese aren't interested in the censored content anyway. Makes you wonder why there's so much effort put into censoring it in the first place...
There are still many ways to bypass the block. Assuming one knows that the web page exists. Thanks to this "optimization", this is no longer the case.
If the effect of this "filter that is no censorship" is merely cosmetic, then why was Google forced to include it or face being banned from operating in China?
Surely there's a difference between "this event happened (because there's search results for it) but your country doesn't want you to see any information about it " and "this doesn't exist - look - that event ***never happened***"?
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Shouldn't the title read: "China's Google Problem"?
I realize that Google is trying to enter a new market, but I wouldn't be surprised if China really wanted Google there too -- on their terms of course.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
Only in this country, censorship is not done in the name of the government. It's done almost solely to "protect" children or those with weak sensativities. I don't necessarily agree with the idea but I am saying that it does exist here.
Is it 5:30 yet?
>Google isn't censoring the internet for the chinese, they are optimizing it.
Thats a new one.
They are omitting results due to local laws. If this is optimizing, why don't they omit every single search result in America that would break local laws here?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
> Do the leaders at google, yahoo, and cisco really understand the consequences of their choices other then beyond the next quarterly report?
I know this is a tech forum, but please don't forget companies like MacDonalds and KFC, which are really (negativelty) effecting the health of the population. Get rid of them first, since they can't possibly do any good to anyone.
(IMO)
Max.
>google add a note at the bottom of the page saying something to the effect of "some of your search results have been omitted in compliance with local laws".
Suppose I search for "rumsfeld secretary of defense " and I get a nice set of results but at the bottom of the search page it says "some of your search results have been omitted in compliance with local laws".
Now is it;
1. Faked pictures/fan-fic stories about Donald Rumsfeld that clearly (or maybe not so clearly) break one of the multiple local decency laws.
or
2. Legitimate criticism of a high-ranking official highlighting his various professional flaws worthy of public discussion.
For me the whole Google/China thing comes down to the question - Do you trust a company and a government to think for you?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Do two quick searches to see for yourself, the difference between google.com and google.cn. These links refer to the image search on the U.S. and Chinese Google pages, respectively.
http://images.google.com/
http://www.google.cn/imghp?hl=zh-CN&tab=wi&q=
Search for "Tiananmen" on both sites and notice the *significant* difference in content returned by each.
Maybe someone can clarify to me what exactly is bad about communism.
Very easy: The politicians, psychopaths, gangsters, opportunist and other power crazed animals that created regimes called communist across the world mostly made the live of the people of said courntries miserable. For this reason, communism has a really bad name. On top of that, it's a rather impractical philosophy which tends to ignore the way most current societies work, thus creating very quickly big gaps between theory and implementation.
A good part of the allure of communism was that it tried to distance itself as far as possible from capitalism and the atrocities that were commited in it's name in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. But once people subscribed to this philosophy came to power, being the crooks they were, they just went on and committed the same kind of atrocites or worse.
In some countries (eg France, Italy), the communist parties are just are respected as other parties and they don't seem to be really doing worse only because of their philosophy. This could also be because those parties adopted a pragmatic line that doesn't seem to offend their voters.
In the end, it all boils down how a the members of those movements behave and their philosophical motivation ist just window dressing. Satanists caring for sick people to give them more time to sin and damn them to hell are a lot preferrable to devout christians torching gynecological clinics in the name of a rightous and loving god.
Google is just having to deal with a situation brought on by decades of meddling by American business elites in the affairs between America and China China's government and American interests employ PR firms which harness former government officials like Henry Kissinger to lobby Congress and the American people in support of trade rules that result in major exporting of jobs and materials, along with turning a blind eye to Chinese human rights and environmental transgressions (also much to the delight of American business, whose interests are often at odds with democracy and the public interest). I find it interesting how Google is walking the line here...
I think you just ignored what he was saying. If you know a certain page exists, then there are many ways to bypass China's internet filtering. It's not perfect, and it never will be.
But by removing the blocked pages from Google's index completely, it's as if they never existed. In fact, blocking them no longer matters, because most people will never realize they exist in the first place.
Fundamentally, it's the difference between being handed a history book that's been filled with black marker lines covering stuff that's "redacted," and being given a history book that's been totally rewritten to only show one point of view. In the first case, you're at least painfully aware that you're getting a one-sided viewpoint, in the latter case you're not.
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Google did not do anything ethically wrong.
Blocking the results ensures that chinese people can use Google.
It is not teribly difficult for a chinese citizen to bypass the firewall, but guess what? It is also fairly easy for a chinese person to bypass the google censorship too!
Those who cannot figure out how to bypass the google censorship would likely have trouble bypassing the Great Firewall. Therefore the censored results are all that they have a use for.
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"Is there somewhere someone so inevitably dumb who doesn't know you bastards did it for the petrol? I'll stick to Europe."
To me at least this implies that somehow Europe is above making excuse to cover their asses when oil is concerned. I was merely illustrating that they're just as two-faced as the rest of the world, even if they wont admit it.
The rest of your comment I can't even reply to, because it's a collection of statements that lack "coherence". Coherence is what strings statements together into an "argument". I'll do my best anyway.
You know, the terrorist attack in Madrid?
Yes
What did they do?
The terrorists?(As implied by the fact that they're the only subject you've mentioned) They bombed trains.
Withdraw.
Oh you ment the Spanish, yes, they did, though they continue to fight a war with Basque that has been going for decades, pacifists they aren't. You're also apparently trying to make the point that backing down is what people should do, I'm sure you've got some harsh words for the U.K., and Japan, who depsite being victims of a terrorist strike and repeated kidnappings have not backed down.
You know 9/11?
Yep.
What did they do?
The Terrorists? The Spanish?
Invade.
I assume you mean Americans. Yes they did, your point? Even if we work on your assumption, the Iraqi war was 100% for oil, and just run with it. The American invasions convinced Libya to give up their weapons progran, fostered political reform in Sryria, overthrew the Taliban, who if nothing else are guilty of destroying the priceless history carved into the sides of the Afgan mountains, and topled the regime of Saddam Hussein. Whether it was worth its price in blood, and whther the governments of those nations with be able to solidfy and prosper is another story and up for debate, but regardless of motives no one can claim that it's been all bad.
I am just waiting for the next thing that happen to you and, man, am I going to laugh.
I don't see what I have to do with any of this, considering you don't know thing one about me other than that I'm aware that Germany and France, the largest opponents of the Invasion of Iraq were two of the three largest importers of Iraqi oil. Furthermore, why you would laugh at the suffering of anyone, me, Americans, hell the moon people, is beyond me.
What goes around, comes around.
Someone who laughes at the misfortune of others should take that to heart.
Excellent link, thank you.
Most relevant to this discussion of censorship is the sixth part of the documentary. They start the segment by asking four students at the Beijing university to look at the infamous image of the man stopping a column of tanks in Tienanmen square. None recognize the image at all, and only one understands enough to connect it to the incident of 1989. It's as if it never happened for anyone younger than a certain age. By controlling information, the Chinese government has managed to control history.
Didn't the president of China visit Bill Gates before Pres. Bush?