Yahoo China has the Worst Filtering Policy

rmunaval writes "Reporters Without Borders has an article on search-result censorship in China by different companies. The conclusion was made based on six politically sensitive keywords. A search on yahoo.cn resulted in 97% pro-Beijing results compared to 83% on google.cn and 78% on msn.cn." From the article: "[Yahoo!] is therefore censoring more than its Chinese competitor Baidu. Above all, the organisation was able to show that requests using certain terms, such as 6-4 (4 June, date of the Tiananmen Square massacre), or 'Tibet independence', temporarily blocked the search tool. If you type in one of these terms on the search tool, first you receive an error message. If you then go back to make a new request, even with a neutral key word, yahoo.cn refuses to respond."

Comments

how long will it be before they tire of this game?

[cheesegunner]

They can't possibly win this one... sure, "tibet independence" is blocked, but if you search "free tibet" on google.cn, you get nothing but pro-tibetan pages. It may take a while, but I think they'll eventually realize that, just or unjust be damned, it's just plain uneconomical to try to keep up with blocking search terms.

Re:Olympics

[Zarel]

Considering the number of Westerners that actually want to search for things like "freedom" and "democracy" (as opposed to, say, "porn"), I'd say very few will notice.

Re:Look behind the headlines

[Pink Tinkletini]

There are those in Europe who believe America's habit of capital punishment is morally wrong, and a grave humanitarian injustice (and I'd be inclined to agree). But suppose you testified in a capital case, and your testimony helped send the defendant to the gurney. Next time you fly into Heathrow, do you think you should you be pulled aside, shackled, and tried in the Queen's court of law? Or would you appeal to the fact that what Europe considers morally wrong isn't the same as what America considers morally wrong?