Bing Censoring All Simplified Chinese Language Queries

boggis writes "Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times journalist, is calling for a boycott of Microsoft's Bing. They have censored search requests at the request of the Chinese Government (like certain others). The difference is that Bing has censored all searches done anywhere in simplified Chinese characters (the characters used in mainland China). This means that a Chinese speaker searching for Tiananmen anywhere in the world now gets the impression that it is just a lovely place to visit."

Comments

contrast

[Lehk228]

well if their goal was to differentiate from google, i guess "don't be evil" is a good place to stand apart.

Re:contrast

[h4rm0ny]

well if their goal was to differentiate from google, i guess "don't be evil" is a good place to stand apart.

Google also censor results in China. Search for Tiannamen Square or Falun Gong on google.cn and you find just the same whitewashed results as with Bing. The difference is merely one of implementation. Google has done it by censoring the results in their country-specific site. Bing have done it by censoring results when you search using a language form popular in mainland China. It's hard to say conclusively which is least effective. With Google you can search via one of their international sites to get around it. With Bing you can enter search terms in a different language such as English. Both are, of course, subject to the Great Firewall of China interfering when you follow results to places like Wikipedia etc. which is not the fault of either Google or Bing.

So in summary, Google innovates and Microsoft copies. Not much change there, but unfortunately they have both sold out to the Chinese government. Neither is clean.

Re:contrast

[dotwhynot]

well if their goal was to differentiate from google, i guess "don't be evil" is a good place to stand apart.

Google also censors in China. I can't tell which of the two solutions I think is worse, so giving Google a free pass and only going after Bing the way this journalist does seems unsubstantiated. It is an easier target though.

Re:contrast

[DNS-and-BIND]

Censoring for political content is worlds apart from only allowing Latin characters on an English-language website.

Re:contrast

[h4rm0ny]

Actually, this gets more interesting having looked into this more closely. It's just about possible that Microsoft is being less evil than Google in this case. Whilst Google admits to deliberate censorship both on its google.cn site and (to a much lesser extent but still to some extent) on its google.com site (they eliminate some Falun Gong results from their image search - they admit this), Microsoft are pleading a different case. Basically, Microsoft have stated that the way their search engine works is to return results with a preference toward sites in the language searched in. Naturally when you search in simplified Chinese characters, which are overwhelmingly used in mainland China as opposed to places like Hong Kong and Taiwan which use the complex form, most of the results in that language are going to be from mainland China. And mainland Chinese websites are, well, not going to be essays about Tiannamen Square or have many pro-Falun Gong material.

I condemn censorship, but Microsoft's explanation is eminently plausible. In fact, if you thought about it, it's a natural consequence of returning search results in a particular language if that language is more or less exclusive to a particular nation that censors.

Re:contrast

[netsharc]

Of course it's very possible that there are people outside of Mainland China writing about Tiannamen, using simplified Chinese. A Google search (not a Bing one!) should confirm that.

So who speaks simplified Chinese?

Re:contrast

[peragrin]

if china won't let you into the country how can you bring them freedom? China doesn't need google google needs china. same goes fot MSFT, and heck all of the USA. China only needs our money to support themselves, however without their cheap products the american economy tanks.

Re:contrast

[commodore64_love]

>>>Google has done it by censoring the results in their country-specific site. Bing have done it by censoring results when you search using a language form popular in mainland China.
>>>

The Microsoft solution strikes me as the quick-and-dirty solution, while the Google method shows more advanced programming.

And for those that say, "Google shouldn't censor results," then you are naive. If Google did not censor, then Chinese government would block them completely and MS would quickly obtain a virtual monopoly over 1.3-billion-person market. I don't think any of us want to see that happen (again). Google is smart to take whatever market they can get in China, and as they gain influence, pressure the Chinese government (the way they pressure the US and EU) to do things the google way (open).

 

Re:contrast

[sharperguy]

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=tankman&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&aq=f&oq=

Re:contrast

[mikechant]

Google also censor results in China. Search for Tiannamen Square or Falun Gong on google.cn and you find just the same whitewashed results as with Bing. The difference is merely one of implementation.

I don't agree. I think there is a clear moral difference. Google seem to be doing the minimum they need to do to comply with Chinese law - restricting what is seen via the (effectively Chinese govt. owned) .cn domain in China. MS are apparently censoring everything that is seen by anyone using simplified Chinese anywhere in the world. Yes, they could use another language - if they even release that some search results are 'going missing'. So MS get the 'evil' award in this case because they are in practice censoring far beyond what even Chinese law requires.

Re:contrast

[AmiMoJo]

No, this is dangerous. MS are setting a precedent - a search engine censoring results globally for one language, regardless of the local laws of the country being served.

The Chinese government must love this: you can no longer get around the censorship by simply using a proxy in another country. Sure, you could search in English, but most Chinese people don't have a good enough grasp of it.

Re:contrast

[phiwum]

And for those that say, "Google shouldn't censor results," then you are naive.

Some people say Google shouldn't censor results because it is immoral to do so. If it is immoral to censor results, the fact that MS will gain dominance in China is irrelevant. So is the fact that failure to censor will hurt Google's bottom line. Most moral realists believe that moral norms trump other norms, so if it is immoral for Google to censor, then they shouldn't censor.

Note: I'm not necessarily in that camp. I'm not sure whether censoring results in China is morally prohibited or not. I'm just trying to explain why your claim that others are naive is insulting and false. Maybe you think that it's naive to believe that one should do what moral duty requires, but a less sensitive soul may reply that this opinion is just evidence of your own stunted intellectual development.

Re:contrast

[h4rm0ny]

Logically, accepting "someone else may do it if I don't" as a justification for your own immoral behavior guarantees a state of immoral behaviour existing. The only possibility of achieving a state without the immoral behavior is to not engage in it oneself. Yes, you are exchanging a certainty of their being immorality for a possibility that there might not be, but some of us consider that progress. And you might be surprised what an example can achieve sometimes.

My take on things.

Re:contrast

[Geoffrey.landis]

Google also censor results in China. Search for Tiannamen Square or Falun Gong on google.cn and you find just the same whitewashed results as with Bing.

Yeah, they all do. The interesting change here is that they are censoring based on language, not based on where you're searching from. See:
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China

List of what they're censoring here: List of words censored by search engines in the People's Republic of China (including, almost as interesting, some comments on words not blocked)

...So in summary, Google innovates and Microsoft copies. Not much change there, but unfortunately they have both sold out to the Chinese government. Neither is clean.

Re:contrast

[FatdogHaiku]

True for google.cn, not google.com. TFA is talking about any search done at bing.com done in Chinese. I agree that both parties are dirty, google chose to keep the dirt where it started and bing makes it world wide... not the same thing.

Re:contrast

[colfer]

The Bing results are similar to Google, when searching from the U.S. in Chinese. But Google over all shows more of the 1989 protest.

"Tianamen" in Simplified Chinese:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA&go=&form=QBIL&qs=n
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMB_en-GBAU309AU309&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0
(No democracy statue in either set.)

"Tianamen" in Traditional Chinese:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80%E5%BB%A3%E5%A0%B4&go=&form=QBIR
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMB_en-GBAU309AU309&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80%E5%BB%A3%E5%A0%B4&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0
(Democracy statue in both sets, scroll way down in Bing though.)

"Tianamen Incident" in Simplified Chinese
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6&go=&form=QBIR&qs=n
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0
(Tank Man in both sets, much more prominent in Google though.)

"Tianamen Incident" in Traditional Chinese
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6&go=&form=QBIR&qs=n
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0
(Tank Man in both sets)

The characters I used came from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

Re:contrast

[commodore64_love]

>>>Some people say Google shouldn't censor results because it is immoral to do so. If it is immoral to censor results, the fact that MS will gain dominance in China is irrelevant.
>>>

Not really. You have the choice of two evils:
(1) Google and Microsoft coexist. They both censor but at least there's competition and choice.
(2) Google is blocked from China. Microsoft is allowed in because they "play ball". MS quickly becomes a monopoly.

Option 1 has one evil (censorship). Option 2 has two evils (censorship and a corporate monopoly). I choose the lesser of the two evils which is option 1, and I suspect Google has the same thought process. ----- I also recognize that in politics, things change over time. Sometimes in the future I expect that Google will pressure China to remove the censorship from search results. Google can not exert that pressure if they are not in China.

>>>I'm just trying to explain why your claim that others are naive is insulting and false.

(shrug) It's not my fault the opposite side didn't bother to think it through. It's a bit like the Slavery protester John Brown, who believed all he had to do was grab a military base and the slaves would rise up. He didn't think it through either, and ended-up dead

Re:contrast

[commodore64_love]

>>>The only possibility of achieving a state without the immoral behavior is to not engage in it oneself.

By that reasoning we should all stop paying unconstitutional taxes. For example the USF tax that is collected to give electricity/phone service to rural farmers. Or stop paying the SSI tax. Or as a protest the ~$2000 billion bailout of rich people in Wall Street. None of these were a power granted to Congress. Of course that also means spending time in jail.

Or... we could pay these unconstitutional/illegal/immoral taxes, stay out of jail, and use our freedom to change the system from within. Like Ron Paul does.

Re:contrast

[troll8901]

Google is smart to take whatever market they can get in China, and as they gain influence, pressure the Chinese government (the way they pressure the US and EU) to do things the google way (open).

Just like the iTunes store. This is smart of Google.

The reasons why the RIAA gave in (allow non-DRM music to be sold), may not be applicable to the Chinese government, I suppose. I'd wait and see how Google handles this.

Re:contrast

[gtbritishskull]

I will repost from above...

I don't see how allowing a COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT to censor is evil. Whether or not the censorship is ethical is a different question. What if the china turned into a fully legitimate and people mandated democracy and still decided that they wanted the censorship? Should the google that you want still not operate in china? Because, that would be discriminating against a people and a culture, which in America we believe is wrong (or evil?).

Google is not a political group, it is a company. And, I do not want it to be a political group. A company should not define a people's morality. That should happen from the people through the government. I think google should do everything they can to be open and free, but it is not their job to fight the chinese government.

Also, how anti-censorship are you? Search for "child pornography" on google images and you don't see any naked 8 year olds. Search "pornography" on google images and you see plenty of naked people. Do I think this is wrong? No. Do you? If not, then your problem is not censorship, but just that YOU THINK china censors too much. Who are you (or the United States in general) to decide for another country what they should and should not censor. What would you think if google refused to do business in the United States because we do not allow gay marriage? While I am in support of gay marriage, I would be pissed off because I would not want any company dictating the US's morality. Open your eyes. Google claims to try not to be evil, not to fix all of the world's problems. Especially since meddling in other countries problems is the road to becoming "evil".

Re:contrast

[budfields]

Pardon me, but what if the Chinese searcher in question doesn't know English? Also, to my eyes at least, worldwide censorship is certainly worse than limited in-China-only censorship, necessary to do business in China at all, which can be easily avoided by Chinese citizens.

Re:contrast

[Blakey Rat]

Bing, Google, and Yahoo all censor results in China.

The only difference here is that Bing doesn't differentiate between Chinese language, and Chinese location-- so if you're searching in Chinese, even if you're in the US, you still get the censored results. I don't believe this is really that big a deal, frankly... maybe in BC.

Re:contrast

[phiwum]

You have the choice of two evils:
(1) Google and Microsoft coexist. They both censor but at least there's competition and choice.
(2) Google is blocked from China. Microsoft is allowed in because they "play ball". MS quickly becomes a monopoly.

Option 1 has one evil (censorship). Option 2 has two evils (censorship and a corporate monopoly).

Many people believe that if an act is morally prohibited, then it does not matter whether performing that act yields a better outcome than not. Thus, if it is wrong for Google to censor, then the fact that not censoring yields a worse outcome is irrelevant. (Utilitarians would obviously disagree.)

In any case, I don't see that Google has a moral duty to prevent MS from becoming a monopoly and I don't see that there is anything evil about MS monopolizing the Chinese search engine market.

Re:contrast

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Because if Google imposes censorship at China's request, then what will Google do when the US Government requests similar actions?

These are companies run by Americans... I find it sad, they are willing to sell out American ideals, for financial gain. It may be in China, but it may also be here in the US next.

Re:contrast

[u38cg]

I agree with it, but for slightly different reasons. I think in the modern age, the best way to spread liberal democracy and equality before the law is simply to allow people the best access to the fruits of it that we can and let them choose it for themselves. I'm pretty convinced that in the modern age, commuting the embargoes against Burma, Cuba, North Korea, and so on, would do more in the long run than any amount of diplomacy.

Re:contrast

[gtbritishskull]

If Congress passes a law requiring google to censor the internet, then google would do it. I would not expect anything less. They would probably put a lot of money into trying to have the law repealed, but they would follow it while it was legitimate.

Are you saying that if Congress passed a law requiring censorship (which is not a very far-fetched idea. Maybe not to the extent that China does, but I would not be surprised if there were some sort of law passed in the next 20 years that required something to be censored) then google should refuse to provide Americans with a search engine? It is not Google's job to control the american congress. That is the job of the people. Just as it is not Google's job to try to change china. If the people really had a problem with this censorship (and no censorship is perfect, if people in china want to find something they probably can), then they should force their government to change.

Do you buy chinese goods? Every dollar you send to china promotes their government by allowing their economy to grow. If you had a big problem with them then you would refuse to buy chinese goods. But, you are not going to do that because things from china are cheap (who is selling out?). It is very easy to get up on your high horse and say google should ignore a market of billions of people and call them a sellout. It is much harder when it is your money, not someone else's that is at risk.

Re:contrast

[jc42]

Pardon me, but what if the Chinese searcher in question doesn't know English?

Most of them don't. But the more interesting question is: What happens when people in China realize that bing.com works better if they use the traditional characters? The obvious guess is a slow growth of requests in the trad-char form (aided by some trivial software that converts between the two character "standards"). Then the Chinese government slowly realizes what's happening, and pressures Microsoft to apply the same filtering to the trad chars. This doesn't go over so well, because that would affect searches originating in Taiwan and Japan (and to a lesser extent Korea and Vietnam).

With time, Bing will probably have to switch over to a scheme more like google's. But in the meantime, it does make the whole thing look silly.

Meanwhile, I also wonder if the various sorts of filtering in use in "the Western World" can be similarly avoided by judicious mispellings? (Or is that misspelings or Miss Spellings?)

The Chinese population has also learned that a lot of filtering can be defeated by an especially silly measure: If you look at Chinese characters, you quickly see that most of them are made by taking two simpler characters and squashing them together, usually horizontally, but sometimes vertically. So what they do is send the two simpler characters instead of a single complex one. Thus, the Falun Gong followers will write the 2-char Falun as 4 chars, expanding the two chars in the obvious way. This can be done with the Gong char, too. Varying which characters you expand makes it difficult for software to decipher your text. Eventually, this sort of thing will stop working, but experience shows that government agencies can take decades to catch on to what's being done.

Re:contrast

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

right... its the job of the people...

and google is the people.

Re:contrast

[gtbritishskull]

Uhh... If you are going to answer my question, then be straightforward about it. The only way I can interpret your answer is "Yes, google is the people so if congress passes a law that limits what they can post on their search reasults, then they should close down all of their servers and services in the US and move shop to Europe." If that is what you are trying to say, then say it. If not, then your reply was mostly useless and I cannot give a response to it.

And, I am not proposing that you break US law to change things. You should go out on election day and vote for representatives that will support your view. Google does not have a vote (yet), so unless you are in favor of the leaving the US in protest thing, then I do not know how you would propose for them to affect US policy in any way different then how they have tried to affect it in China. I await a response of substance. If you do not have the ability to do that then let this thread die.

Re:contrast

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

you're being argumentative for the sake of being so.

And why aren't you proposing that one break US law to change things? Here in America, we have a history of breaking laws to change things.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

What part of that do you not understand? You're saying Congress will pass laws that limit what Google can say? That would be unconstitutional. I'm quite sure congress would try though, and probably succeed. It would then yes of course fall on GOOGLE and many others to stand up as THE PEOPLE of our nation to fight against our own tyranny.

Vote on election day you say? HAH.

In todays political climate, that would be like asking British to give us our "Freedom"

It doesnt happen that way. Government respects corporations more than people. If GOOGLE bends over for the Chinese government, they will certainly bow down to the US government if asked.

The people lose.

Voting is too often futile when greed, and the ruling class have a HISTORY of circumventing the rights of individuals for their own gain, and control over others.

Tell the people of Iran to go vote for change and see how well that happens. Tell that to the Afghans as well.

Re:contrast

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I'll address your silly child pornography and gay marriage "points"

First.. Child pornography:

Also, how anti-censorship are you? Search for "child pornography" on google images and you don't see any naked 8 year olds. Search "pornography" on google images and you see plenty of naked people. Do I think this is wrong? No.

I consider Child Pornography to be crime scene photos. Crime scene photos are not illegal, however child porn obviously is. I'm not sure child porn creates any more crimes than crime scene photos do.

Obviously i don't believe child pornography should be made legal and I think heavy penalties should be placed on those who commit such horrible acts, but is it illegal for the police to hold photographic evidence of child molestation? No. Why Google then? Its just a crime scene photo. OF COURSE i understand the reasoning behind why google cant, but... i'm just saying i'm not sure photographic evidence of violence, sex, be it fictional or non fictional creates any more or less copy cat crimes. In many ways it may deter crimes.

There are videos of terrorists cutting civilians heads off, and that is a crime scene... but its not illegal.

If Google's index happened to pick up a photo of child pornography, should they be held responsible for the criminal act of someone else?

States have varying legal ages of consent. One state has a law where 17 is legal to have sex with, but you cant photograph or videotape the sex act. Now in another state, that may be different. Is it child porn to film a 17 year old, where you can legally have sex with them? Yes by law, but its silly isnt it? Especially when kids are already filming themselves...

So obviously there are grey areas in life... Child pornography should be illegal, but again i'm not sure that crime scene photos make criminals. OF COURSE its digusting to look at such thing and get off, but no more so than looking at a beheading video and getting off.

Gay Marriage...

As for your Gay Marriage point.

Gay Marriage should be legal. Its that simple. AND YES.. If Google felt strongly enough about it, it would be their right to not do business in America until Gay Marriage was legal.

And to say "Google is not a political group" is just silly. Google certainly lives within our society right? Are they not subject to our governments laws? Are they not regulated in various ways?

Google is a political group. They have lobbyists. They have a vested interest in law and how it effects their business. You bet your ass Google is political, as much as anything else that exists in any system of laws.

Gay

 

Re:contrast

[hrimhari]

You really don't see a difference? I see Google first refusing to censor, then abiding to China's government after being threatened out of the country. But they censor "precisely" what was asked: searches in China. It may be a lucky implementation coincidence, but that's the fact in question. Google censors in China only because they couldn't get a better compromise.

Then I see Bing censoring not only searches in China but everywhere in the world. As far as I know, nobody asked Bing to do that. It may be an unhappy implementation coincidence, but that's the fact in question. Bing censors everywhere, and they could have gotten a better compromise if they tried.

You're right, neither is clean, but I still see a difference and I find it to be non negligible.

Re:contrast

[Anonymous Coward]

weird... try misspelling it "Tiannamen" and suddenly all kinds of supposedly censored content shows up on google.cn:
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=Tiannamen+square+protest&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&aq=f&oq=

However, click on the spelling correction, and it all goes away.

Re:contrast

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that there are more countries where mandarin is used besides China. Taiwan and Singapore are two examples. Taiwan would be a very interesting case because of its strained relationship with China. I know here in Singapore simplified Chinese is used officially. I think they use traditional in Taiwan, but I'm sure the people there would know and perhaps use simplified as well.

The Google route?

[GrumblyStuff]

Are they stating on said search results that they have filtered the results due to Chinese laws?

I mean, they can be only so subtle about it before China decides to block it entirely but at least MS could dangle that bit of info there for any one curious to wonder "Hey, now what law is that and why is it enforced?"

Anyone surprised?

[NecroPuppy]

This is Microsoft.

They probably meant to only censor these things in China, but v1 of their filters are worldwide.

They'll have it fixed by v3. Probably. Maybe. I doubt it.

(Note: I also think that the MS Bing commercials are about the dumbest I've seen. They beat out the mother and son's college roommate making kissy faces at each other. And that takes doing.)

Re:Anyone surprised?

[h4rm0ny]

Note: I also think that the MS Bing commercials are about the dumbest I've seen

Smart people will choose products based on their needs and their research on the matter. Commercials are for the people who associate brands with lifestyles (i.e. silly people). Don't be surprised if you find their commercials dumb, be uh, depressed that there exists a target audience for those commercials. Hmmmm. I need to re-think this. :(

Re:Anyone surprised?

[commodore64_love]

The type of people who say I should get "real" jeans called Levis, instead of the same quality but lower priced Arizonas or Wranglers. I used to fall for that nonsense, listening to the advice of the crowd ("Levis are cool; others are not") but not anymore.

Re:Anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously using Levi as an example of trendy jeans? They're ugly, cheap and uncomfortable. Seven, Guess, Lucky, Diesel...if you want to whine about overpriced "cool" brands, start with them. Except they're actually more comfortable than the cheap garbage.

Re:Anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

You wear Wranglers? LOL

Re:Anyone surprised?

[ClosedSource]

"I also think that the MS Bing commercials are about the dumbest I've seen."

You don't watch much TV do you?

Re:Anyone surprised?

[commodore64_love]

Are you seriously using Levi as an example of trendy jeans?

They were when I was growing up. Virtually everyone wore Levis, and if you didn't, you were weird. Those other jeans Seven, Lucky, Diesel didn't yet exist.

You wear Wranglers? LOL

Yeah because all the Levis jeans developed holes and fell apart. The Arizonas/Wranglers are still in one piece.

Re:Anyone surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

i never did cave to societal pressure; but for people like us there is no prize - just knowing that we have done our part.

not really

[siddesu]

DNRTFA, but I just did a search in Simplified Chinse for Tiananmen, and the first couple of hits referenced the massacre. Links to Wikipedia and bloggers discussing the events also popped up. I am not in China, FWIW.

Re:not really

[TeethWhitener]

Yeah I did a search on Bing for "" ('six-four,' a mainland reference to June 4, 1989, the date the army was deployed in Tiananmen Square) in simplified chinese and the tank man picture was still there under images. Though I'm also not in China. For comparison, the same search in google.cn yields a message at the bottom of the page saying something like 'According to local laws and policy, some search results are omitted.'

Re:not really

[TeethWhitener]

Left something important out: The first hit for that google link above is a page chronicling the Tiananmen square incident of 1989. The guy who runs it is in Shanghai. I wonder if it's accessible from the mainland.

Re:not really

[DNS-and-BIND]

I clicked on both links and got a blank page in my web browser. Here's a tester although I don't know why Hong Kong is listed - it's not behind the GFW.

Re:not really

[Khakii]

You might be forgetting image search which is the key thing that is censored. Searching the simplified chinese http://www.bing.com/images/search?q= results in lots of tourist friendly images but the same query in English http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=tiananmen results in lots of tanks. I am not in China.

Re:not really

[TeethWhitener]

Hmm, well the web addresses contain simplified Chinese characters, so you may have to have support for that in your browser. I tried the Bing link in your tester and it was fine in Seattle but failed in Shanghai.

One more thing about that google link. It looks like a translation of the Wikipedia page for Tiananmen square into Chinese. Whoever's hosting it has balls, that's for sure. Hats off to him/her.

Re:not really

[DNS-and-BIND]

Bah. Makes no difference. Last time I was in the States, I thought it would be a hoot to view the Chinese Wikipedia page for the 6/4 incident, save it to a file, and show it to everyone I know in China.

You would have thought that Nixon had come down from the clouds to deliver wisdom. Every person I showed it to (save one) immediately rejected it on the grounds that it could never have happened. It was like selling holocaust denial to a crowd of sophisticated New Yorkers. And I'm not talking about ignorant peasants, I'm talking about Ph.D.'s from highly respected Chinese universities.

boycott Bing

[simoncpu was here]

I've been "boycotting" Bing for quite some time now, because Google works for me. Now that there's a call for boycott, I visited Bing instead just to find out what the controversy is all about.

Re:boycott Bing

[h4rm0ny]

Google also censor search results in China. And conceivably more effectively if you can't get access to Google sites outside of China. (Typically, Google find a more savvy way of pulling off the technical feat of search-censorship than Microsoft). Yahoo has been the worst of the big three based on what information is available to us - they actually handed over the confidential information of a pro-democracy campaigner over there.

Re:boycott Bing

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Boycotts do not work. Go bing it and find out why.

Re:boycott Bing

[ClosedSource]

"I've been "boycotting" Bing for quite some time now, because Google works for me."

Really? How much do you pay them?

The evil government route?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they stating on said search results that they have filtered the results due to Chinese laws?

I mean, they can be only so subtle about it before China decides to block it entirely but at least MS could dangle that bit of info there for any one curious to wonder "Hey, now what law is that and why is it enforced?"

It's most likely illegal to give people unbiased information or hint at the fact you are being compelled to give limited information. Living with government abuses is a condition of doing business in any country.

It's not just China that does this anyway, they just do it worse than most. Behavior of this type is common in most countries. I've seen a few blatant examples of this kind of censorship from the UK coming from both the government and private interests. It's likely that for every government abuse of this type that's noticed there are a few thousand that aren't.

Re:The evil government route?

[GrumblyStuff]

I was thinking more along the lines that Google puts up a notice saying some results are not shown because they are complying with local laws. That's probably not the exact language but I think it's close.

Re:The evil government route?

[Lakitu]

Regardless of whether it's illegal, google does it. Stop apologizing for repressive actions of govermnent.

from a comment above:

The footer of google.cn reads "According to local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not shown." (google translation)

Chinese

[TopSpin]

Bing censors at the "request" of the Chinese government. Google censors at the "request" of the Chinese government. Yahoo censors at the "request" of the Chinese government. As a result of whatever you care to attribute the subservience of the Chinese people, 21% of our species is subject to the filtering policies of the Chinese government. Ultimately the Chinese must be the the reason this tyranny comes to an end. Or not.

The marketing companies of the West aren't interested in fighting their battles. Stop expecting ad pimps to be responsible for liberating anyone. Instead, raise your expectations of the Chinese.

Re:Chinese

[syousef]

The marketing companies of the West aren't interested in fighting their battles. Stop expecting ad pimps to be responsible for liberating anyone. Instead, raise your expectations of the Chinese.

Stop expecting the Chinese to be responsible for liberating anyone. Instead, despair.

Re:Chinese

[RyoShin]

The difference here is that Bing is going above and beyond the "call of duty". Google et al., as I understand it, filters only on their Chinese version (like google.cn). Bing is extending this so that any search done with Chinese characters is filtered.

This doesn't make Google et al. any less complacent or "evil" for doing so, but it does show that Bing/Microsoft is quite happy to throw away freedom of speech outside of the required areas, and is thus more evil for it. (Of course, according to /. Microsoft is always evil, so this wouldn't be new for them.)

Re:Chinese

[elnyka]

The marketing companies of the West aren't interested in fighting their battles. Stop expecting ad pimps to be responsible for liberating anyone. Instead, raise your expectations of the Chinese.

Stop expecting the Chinese to be responsible for liberating anyone. Instead, despair.

Not us anyone, but themselves. There is no reason to despair for 1.34B that prove ultimately incapable of liberating themselves. Most of their wounds since the late 1800's are culturally self induced.

It'd be nice to see them finally get the fuck up as a modern, democratic (or at least humane in the modern sense) nation, but there is a point that you just go "agh, WTF" and just sit back and watch the train wreck, waiting to see if it implodes into a self-sucking black hole, hoping it doesn't fuck up nearby nations in the process.

I find it deplorable that search engines, corps and entire governments bend over to China's economic might and implement/look over things that are unjustifiable by any modern notion of morality. But social reform is not their job or duty - that's the people's. The onus is eventually on them.

One could argue that knowledge is power, and that by removing search access to them you deprive them of the ability to fight for freedom. But the Chinese as a whole aren't some tiny tinie minority fighting for survival with bows and arrows. They have always proved themselves resourceful, and at some point they need to take responsibility for their own destiny.

Their freedom is not dependent on western search engines or corporations choosing to fight a moral fight that is not their own and for which they are not capable of even dreaming to win. Freedom, freedom in the modern sense of the world as people in the developed world knows, that depends on them, the Chinese people.

Re:Chinese

[Anonymous Coward]

While the Chinese political system was rapidly turning to the end of its dynastic cycle (the pattern is pretty consistently recurrent in Chinese history), the wounds were not self induced.

The mix of colonialism and outright invasion together with cultural shock from military defeats sent China into a state of coma.

Much of the setbacks of China in the past two centuries was about drinking too much western coolaid. Not that the western ideas were worthless, but the political reforms that were supposed to "modernize" China was so laced with immature imitation of western ideology that they basically failed one by one. (Not unlike what's happening when the US tried to set up a government in Iraq)

If there's a rational explanation to China's deaf ears on petitions to human rights, freedom, democracy and the such, it's not because of some evil agenda, but rather the fact that it was tried, and didn't work out. Yes, maybe they didn't try hard enough, but nobody's in a hurry to take those risks again.

Re:Chinese

[elnyka]

While the Chinese political system was rapidly turning to the end of its dynastic cycle (the pattern is pretty consistently recurrent in Chinese history), the wounds were not self induced.

The mix of colonialism and outright invasion together with cultural shock from military defeats sent China into a state of coma.

Much of the setbacks of China in the past two centuries was about drinking too much western coolaid. Not that the western ideas were worthless, but the political reforms that were supposed to "modernize" China was so laced with immature imitation of western ideology that they basically failed one by one. (Not unlike what's happening when the US tried to set up a government in Iraq)

If there's a rational explanation to China's deaf ears on petitions to human rights, freedom, democracy and the such, it's not because of some evil agenda, but rather the fact that it was tried, and didn't work out. Yes, maybe they didn't try hard enough, but nobody's in a hurry to take those risks again.

I hardly see early 1900's warlordism and subsequent fuck ups like the Cultural Revolution as the result of western cool aid. Human rights, freedom and democracy had never been tried out. The only that had ever been tried was industrialization. But human rights, freedom and democracy? When were they tried? And certainly there had been Chinese polities that have enjoyed them to various degrees of success (Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.)

Everything that has been tried in mainland China has been about twisted concepts of modernization and industrialization, during the unraveling of the Qing dinasty (or more like a lip service as reaction to Western/Japanese interventionism.) It was pretty much non-existing with the warlords period and during the Sino-Japanese war. And then, they went at it again with the establishment of the PRC within the frame of failed ideologies and false, snake-oil sociology.

At no point there has been a single entity or polity in Mainland China that has tried human rights, freedom and democracy. Ergo, they can't claim they have given up on them because they are failed concepts.

Re:Chinese

[elnyka]

BTW, I'm not bagging on the Chinese. I'm simply stating that for democracy to takes place, they have to undergo a deep and widespread cultural change. Their culture has been based on authoritarian figures, be it dynastic or socialist. And yet, they are now consciously in the 20-21st century. So it is up to them to get democratic institutions to work for them. No amount of protestation from our part against collaborating search engines will ever change that.

Re:Chinese

[the eric conspiracy]

Damn straight Microsoft is always evil.

Just look at Steve Balmer's eyes. Notice the red glow. Can there be any doubt?

Re:Chinese

[Anonymous Coward]

I am home-staying with a Chinese family, and they are generally very nice. They are a well educated, well-to-do family, both parents having lived and worked in Japan for at least a decade, and are currently working in Australia.

However, in the few political discussions I have had with them (which I really don't want to get drawn into, for obvious reasons that I am Taiwanese, anti-Chinese Communist Party, anti-KMT, and me being their tenant an'all :-P) they seem to have a very warped view on having democracy in China (with hints that it applies to all Asian countries too!). It seems that they like the idea of democracy, but insists that it simply would not work in China because of greed and corruption, not in the top echelons of government, but instead at the lower levels where, according to them, it is apparantely impossible to control. Their view is that the democracy that exists in Taiwan is a shambles, almost as if they see it as a farcical show.

However - this is a family that has emigrated and enjoyed the freedom of Japan, and Australia (eg they have two kids!!). So, what seems to be weird about their thoughts are:

1. They are quietly proud of themselves being of Chinese heritage (well actually that can be said of most nationalities)
        - but they choose to live anywhere but China, yes I heard them say they'd much rather be in Oz or Japan than China.

2. They quietly want the respect and admiration of the westerners/foreigners (again, who doesn't like that) to the extent they'll show that they are educated enough to agree that democracy is a Good Thing(TM)
        - but they criticise the free and democratic Taiwan. They insisting that Taiwan is part of China, common cultures etc blah... but that Taiwan's democracy must be a joke, they should not follow suit because China does not work that way. How in the world can they possibly expect respect when they choose the bad thing while *knowing* that it is bad, for the 'practical' reason namely that Chinese people are too corrupt? Am I alone in thinking that it must cause them some pain to think like this? not being able to hold your head up high the very moment the topic of politics come up in polite company - "oh that lofty idea, its good, but Chinese people can't do it, but don't you dare insult us and can we has some respect plz!"

I suspect the reason that they still have these views despite having lived abroad for so long may partly be helped by the internet. I have noticed that they get their dose of news from Chinese media, and not the western outlets (well the parents do - I hope the kids will not be subjected to too much of this biased, ultra-nationalist reporting). It is sad to see that the stranglehold of the CCP is so strong though.

In relation to your post - no I do not to expect the Chinese will fix the problem of filtering themselves anytime soon, there are plenty who are fine with what seems to be contradicting thoughts that their government feeds them through their monstrously powerful media.

Re:Chinese

[Hatta]

It'd be nice to see them finally get the fuck up as a modern, democratic (or at least humane in the modern sense) nation, but there is a point that you just go "agh, WTF" and just sit back and watch the train wreck, waiting to see if it implodes into a self-sucking black hole, hoping it doesn't fuck up nearby nations in the process.

Boy, aren't you going to be surprised when it's the West that implodes first. We are hurtling towards authoritarianism a lot quicker than they are approaching freedom. That they are on much sturdier economic ground doesn't hurt either.

Re:Chinese

[theheadlessrabbit]

^^ very true.

It is very hard for Westerners (such as myself) to understand how Confucianism has influenced Asian Societies.
But it is very hierarchical culture: "You have your place. A peasant's place is in the field, your boss' place is in the office, and the emperor's place is in the palace. Do not question, do not challenge, it's not your place." It is also one where respect is earned though age and position, not though accomplishment.
    The idea of a group of peasants gathering to make decisions above the emperor, (and even about who the emperor should be) is very alien to their culture.

To us, this is ridiculous, if the boss is a moron, screw him, do it your way. "who cares that you are old, you're still wrong"

I can be argued which way is better.
From my perspective, I see that in only a few hundred years, our way has dominated the world.
From their perspective, their way has lasted the test of time, we are just a blip, one of many they have seen come and go.

Either way, China is opening up, their students are coming to our countries, assimilating our values, having access to our knowledge, and retuning home with them, and possibly discussing their findings with their close friends.
you can't stop the signal.

Re:Chinese

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, I'm not bagging on the Chinese. I'm simply stating that for democracy to takes place, they have to undergo a deep and widespread cultural change. Their culture has been based on authoritarian figures, be it dynastic or socialist. And yet, they are now consciously in the 20-21st century. So it is up to them to get democratic institutions to work for them. No amount of protestation from our part against collaborating search engines will ever change that.

Try security and stabilization: the era the Nationalist government attempted to reign in was torn apart by war, famine, and a highly corrupt and ineffective government. When you're constantly living in fear of getting shot and/or starving to death, democracy and human rights aren't really on the top of your "must have" list.

Re:Chinese

[Anonymous Coward]

cold

Re:Chinese

[Anonymous Coward]

> From their perspective, their way has lasted the test of time, we are just a blip, one of many they have seen come and go.

Only in the most highly revisionist sense has the old Chinese way endured. The old Chinese way only worked due to flukes of geography - it was nearly impossible for outsiders to invade - and, even then, that never protected them from internal conflict, and didn't really protect them from the Mongols either. It's easy to pretend you're the untouchable center of the world when you can only be attacked over an impassable desert, impassable mountain range, or impassable ocean.

But that changed a couple hundred years ago. When China got chopped up and colonized by Western powers, that was the point at which no one could sanely claim that "their way" had any more staying power. And it only really gets worse from there on. They got conquered by Japan. They got a large chunk of territory taken by the Soviets after, and spent the whole cold war forced to park an army on the Soviet border. They couldn't take Korea, couldn't take Vietnam, couldn't take Taiwan.

And now China's critically depending on two-way international trade for its survival. It desperately needs the exports to prop up its hybrid communist system and to afford the fuel and food imports that it would be starving without. It's basically impossible to be both aware of history and the present day AND still think the stereotypical old Chinese mindset is valid. IMO, it's just remnant propaganda at this point, an attempt to hold up some shred of pride and pretend their survival isn't already fused at the hip with the West.

Re:Chinese

[elnyka]

BTW, I'm not bagging on the Chinese. I'm simply stating that for democracy to takes place, they have to undergo a deep and widespread cultural change. Their culture has been based on authoritarian figures, be it dynastic or socialist. And yet, they are now consciously in the 20-21st century. So it is up to them to get democratic institutions to work for them. No amount of protestation from our part against collaborating search engines will ever change that.

Try security and stabilization: the era the Nationalist government attempted to reign in was torn apart by war, famine, and a highly corrupt and ineffective government.

And war and famine were the product of warlordism (which I mentioned in my first post), and corruption has never been something just up in the ruling elite. It's been present at all levels of society for hundreds, if not, thousands of years.

When you're constantly living in fear of getting shot and/or starving to death, democracy and human rights aren't really on the top of your "must have" list.

Exactly. This reinforces my statement that they (or anyone for that matter) can say that Chinese or the PRC's government does not believe in freedom, human rights and democracy because they were ideas they tried and failed.

They were never tried to begin with, independently of the circumstances why they were never implemented in the first place.

One thing I've learned, from watching the history of my own country, and many who come from war-torn countries will agree with, is that violence, war and corruption does not occur in a vacuum "up there" with the ruling elite. There is a social context, an ethos that runs, in one shape or another, up and down the classes/divisions of a society.

Societies that are found in that type of quagmire must change, either on their own or pressured by external forces (*) to reshape their ethos and create institutions and a sense of law of the land, which all combined makes it harder for that kind of chaos to take place.

(*) And no, I'm saying that they should be invaded and force-fed democracy. But in every society in history, their ethos and social institutions do not change for the better (or worse) in navel-gazing isolation. It is always pressure from external forces (constructive and destructive) that causes the change. It is up to each society to construct a less chaotic, less unjust reality.

Re:Chinese

[eloki]

The idea of a group of peasants gathering to make decisions above the emperor, (and even about who the emperor should be) is very alien to their culture.

Haven't there been plenty of peasant rebellions though? Some have led to the fall of dynasties such as the Han.

I agree with the basic thrust of your post, in that the Confucian society encourages knowing your place and acting accordingly. But I wouldn't say that rebellion is alien (as if unfamiliar), rather that it's familiar but considered more radical than it is in Western societies.

The NYT reporter misses the forest for the trees.

[reporter]

The reporter at the "New York Times" completely misses the big picture. If Bing is censoring only simplified Chinese queries, then anyone in mainland China can do a search in any other language and obtain the full uncensored results.

In other words, Microsoft has cleverly created a big hole (in its agreement with Beijing) that allows uncensored information to flood into China. The only catch is that the query must be in some language (e. g., English) that is not simplied Chinese.

By contrast, Google censors everything in China, regardless of the language used for the query.

Besides, Microsoft's scheme will encourage ordinary Chinese to learn a foreign language: English., Japanese, etc. Doing so is always positive as many Western languages means many channels by which foreign ideas can enter China, thus modernizing it.

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[1s44c]

The reporter at the "New York Times" completely misses the big picture. If Bing is censoring only simplified Chinese queries, then anyone in mainland China can do a search in any other language and obtain the full uncensored results.

In other words, Microsoft has cleverly created a big hole (in its agreement with Beijing) that allows uncensored information to flood into China. The only catch is that the query must be in some language (e. g., English) that is not simplied Chinese.

By contrast, Google censors everything in China, regardless of the language used for the query.

Besides, Microsoft's scheme will encourage ordinary Chinese to learn a foreign language: English., Japanese, etc. Doing so is always positive as many Western languages means many channels by which foreign ideas can enter China, thus modernizing it.

More likely google tried to do the wrong thing because they had to and succeeded. Microsoft tried to do the wrong thing because they had to and messed it up.

We have seen the results of Microsoft's work and Google's work. Google is an innovative technology company, Microsoft are a bunch of clowns with an innovative and sometimes illegal marketing strategy.

Microsoft has become as evil as Google?

[pedantic bore]

Gasp!

Once we're boycotting all the search engines that have caved into to the demands of the Chinese government, what search engines are left?

Re:Microsoft has become as evil as Google?

[AnotherUsername]

While I realize that this is very ideological of myself, but why don't the various search engines just tell China to fuck off? I mean, why does the rest of the world put up with China's bullshit? Whether it is economic warfare on the rest of the world by artificially devaluing its currency, to their lack of basic human rights, to the fact that without a basic freedom to read opposing views, nothing is due to change anytime in the near future, China is a problem to everyone else.

By the way, I do realize that one of the main reasons that the search engines are not telling China to fuck off is pure and simple: money. There is a lot of ad revenue to be had by companies like Google and Bing.

Re:Microsoft has become as evil as Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has Jeeves also kowtowed to the Chinese government?

Re:Microsoft has become as evil as Google?

[BhaKi]

Once we're boycotting all the search engines that have caved into to the demands of the Chinese government, what search engines are left?

If you think that very few search engines would be left, then there's a better strategy for you: Instead of boycotting search engines, boycott Chinese products. That's what your government wants to achieve by flooding media with anti-China news. The sooner you boycott Chinese products, the sooner I get back a shit-free Slashdot. Oh, wait! What have I been thinking? After boycotting Chinese products, there will be news flood about some other country.

Re:Microsoft has become as evil as Google?

[phiwum]

You think that the American gov't produces anti-China news stories? And they do this because they're pissed that China sells too many products here?

Gotta say, it's a cute theory. Thoroughly unencumbered by facts, but darling nonetheless.

Re:Microsoft has become as evil as Google?

[baKanale]

To paraphrase the GP, once we're boycotting all the products that have been produced by the Chinese, what products are left?

hmmmm

[the_other_one]

I have been self censoring my bing english language querys.

Lets google in simplefied chinese....

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see how google does in simplified chinese:
http://images.google.com/images?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA
look quite different from
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen+square

The evil bastards at bing also censored google ?

Google in simplified chinese...

[TheLuggs]

if you google in simplified chineseyou get: http://images.google.com/images?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA which looks quite different from http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen+square the evil bastards at microsoft are censoring google....

Re:Google in simplified chinese...

[auntieNeo]

I'm guessing Google censors the images by default because there aren't many Chinese language websites that actually display the controversial images, so Google doesn't associate the images with the Chinese text very well. This is just a guess, but might even explain why Bing seems to censor this. It's an unfortunate side effect of the way search engines work I suppose.

Re:Google in simplified chinese...

[TheLuggs]

More or less my point, well actually kutz's point, but with bing the author calls it censorship. but the author finds it shocking that a marketing drone calls something he didnt expect a bug, and the same issue is later called inherit behaviour. So why did the guy say in june is was a bug.. probably because he didnt know any better.

But never let logic get in the way of a good witch hunt.

boycott link

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one which finds it hilarious that in an article named "Boycott Microsoft Bing", there is a clickable link to Bing... and if you consider that it's not very often that you actually search for a new search engine... this might be one of the few cases when you get in contact with Bing at all... so if anything it will probably have the reverse effect.

Google maps and satellit images do not match at TS

[j-beda]

Interestingly, for Tianamen Square, the google maps location seems to be about a block east of the satellite photo:

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tiananmen+square,+china&sll=-25.335448,135.745076&sspn=39.349464,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Tiananmen+Square,+Dongcheng,+Beijing,+China&ll=39.903745,116.393924&spn=0.016559,0.036564&t=h&z=15

compared to

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tiananmen+square,+china&sll=-25.335448,135.745076&sspn=39.349464,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Tiananmen+Square,+Dongcheng,+Beijing,+China&ll=39.903745,116.393924&spn=0.016559,0.036564&z=15

I wonder if their maps are shifted or their images are shifted? Anyone in Beijing have a GPS handy to get a reading for the square?

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[h4rm0ny]

Lets see you write an operating system and an Office suite with programs like Excel. ;)

Facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Tiananmen actually is a rather lovely place to visit...

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[Imrik]

The searchers will still be unable to visit most of the links returned by the English search, the only real difference would be that you could read the summaries.

Re:Google maps and satellit images do not match at

[Anonymous Coward]

The photo is right; the maps are off. It's like that all over Beijing (possibly other parts of China too, I guess) on maps.google.com and Google Earth, but ditu.google.cn (the Chinese version) is fine.

Some quasi-scientific experiments

[phoenix321]

Assuming we have an Internet surfer searching for information about Tiananmen square.

Inputs can be "Tiananmen" or tian1an2men2 in simplified Chinese (which will not render on /. due to missing UTF8 support)

Compare the Google returns for searches
http://www.google.de/search?hl=cn&safe=off&q=tiananmen&btnG=Search
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=cn&safe=off&q=tiananmen&btnG=Search

http://images.google.de/images?hl=cn&safe=off&q=tiananmen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=cn&safe=off&q=tiananmen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
(note the difference in the TLD, safe search is off in all cases)

Wildly different results, the CN domain returning no image of Tank Man and the DE domain returns nothing BUT him.

Trying that again in traditional Chinese:
http://images.google.de/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&start=0
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&start=0

Results almost identical, with only a slight variation in their order.

http://www.google.de/search?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw&start=0
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw&start=0

Results again wildly different. Both searches now return Chinese content, but the DE domain prominently features a YouTube link to our good old friend Tank Man, while the CN domain prominently features a city map and Baidu links, which are guaranteed to not contain something about Tank Man, I can assure you.

This get's more pronounced if we search for Tiananmen in Chinese AND the year number 1989, which simply must return some content about the protests if the search engine itself is any good.

http://images.google.de/images?hl=en&safe=off&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%201989&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=en&safe=off&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%201989&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Same result: both searches return pages entirely in Chinese, but the DE domain return a Chinese photo of the protests first and the CN domain returning only photos of The Party Leaders and happy soldiers.

Let's compare the results with other TLDs
Russia:

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[h4rm0ny]

I can't mod you up because I'm posting all over this thread. But thank you for a very useful post.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Jeeeb]

Trying that again in traditional Chinese:
http://images.google.de/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&start=0
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&start=0

I don't speak (or read) Chinese but I do know Japanese and can recognise simplified vs traditional characters. I'm pretty sure that search is in simplified characters. I replaced the "men" with the Japanese "mon" which is identical to the traditional Chinese "men" and the results changed significantly. Link:

http://images.google.de/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80&btnG=Search+images

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Florian Weimer]

Wildly different results, the CN domain returning no image of Tank Man and the DE domain returns nothing BUT him.

Search results are skewed to perceived national interests. For instance, if you use the U.S. version of Google to search for "germany", Wikipedia's "Nazi Germany" entry appears at the top of the second page. If you search for "germany" in the German version, this doesn't happen. Similar ranking differences can be observed for the names of Nazi collaborator groups using other national versions of Google ("vichy" in the French version, for instance).

I don't think this is censorship, at least it cannot be proven from the outside, just by looking at search result, that it is the real thing. Part of it is probably Google's self-defense: if they rank results which are served locally higher than others, it is less likely that they get sued because they can show that the original content is served from the same country, and tell the plaintiff to get rid off it directly at the source. For many users, the results may actually be more useful as a result of national skewing. But the whole scheme breaks down for searching tech topics: you get tons of obscure local blogs reposting original U.S. content instead the original sources, which is rather useless most of the time.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[sdiz]

IThe footer of google.cn reads "According to local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not shown." (google translation)

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[aurispector]

The gist is that google, ms and yahoo can't do a damn thing about it. Their choice is either to abide chinese law or not operate in the market. Idealism not withstanding, china is the fastest growing market and if the day should come when search is NOT censored by the government, they will need an established presence in the market or they'll merely be also-rans.

In the meantime we all get treated to the spectacle of exactly how newspeak will be implemented. The only question remaining is whether the future worldwide will be dominated by open or censored search results. Frankly, it doesn't look good.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Florian Weimer]

The footer of google.cn reads "According to local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not shown." (google translation)

Google shows this on some German search results as well, even though it's rather likely that they haven't received an authoritative request to alter the results (it's hard to prove a negative, though).

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it is OK (to whomever) to censor when we can make a buck?

Becoming blocked by the GFOC, at least you won't be part of the disinformation game. No information is BETTER than wrong information, and in this scenario, INFORMATION IS WHAT SEARCH ENGINES ARE ABOUT.

If China wants to play games with truth, let them play by themselves. This causes others to work for China's cause. If search engines censor to make a buck, where is their line drawn (to make a buck)?

What do you think would happen if folks in China wake up, and find Google.com goes to Geegle.com... where Tiannamen "is the perfect vacation spot"? People will only take so much, so why would you buffer (in this case) China's actions?

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[nkh]

You should search for the Tienanmen square (with an e instead of an a) and you'll get pictures of tanks in the chinese version of Google. Of course I'm not located in China, but still, I see tanks in the chinese web site.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[kjart]

Example search terms to try are Mac OS, Linux, Ubuntu, Windows - the results and the fairness of the results are abysmal.

Can you actually back that up? I just tried searching for Linux, Ubuntu and MaC OS on bing and google and the results were very close. I didn't see any kind of fairness bias (in fact, Ubuntu results are possibly more useful on bing since it specifies the official homepage as the first result and there is a direct link to the Get Ubuntu page).

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[CecilPL]

So, it is OK (to whomever) to censor when we can make a buck?

Yes, because Google is a corporation whose responsibility is to its shareholders, not to the people of China.

If search engines censor to make a buck, where is their line drawn (to make a buck)?

They draw the line when they run a cost-benefit analysis and find that making that buck harms their reputation by more than a buck's worth.

"Don't be evil" is a very good motto because it makes people believe that the corporation has ethics and responsibility, rather than being a mindless money-making machine. The people running Google have just decided that they can best make money by endearing themselves to people.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[datapharmer]

I also did this out of curiosity, having experienced the same problem as the original poster when bing was in beta. I don't know if it was on purpose but if you searched "linux windows" or similar you would get a bunch of linux bashing windows loving blog nonsense. It appears much of that has been corrected since that time.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[troll8901]

A most excellent and well researched post. Very very insightful. Thank you for spending the time to write this post.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[jthill]

The gist is that google, ms and yahoo can't do a damn thing about it.

Yes, they can. Google does. Microsoft doesn't.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[gtbritishskull]

I don't see how allowing a COUNTRY'S GOVERNMENT to censor is evil. Whether or not the censorship is ethical is a different question. What if the china turned into a fully legitimate and people mandated democracy and still decided that they wanted the censorship? Should the google that you want still not operate in china? Because, that would be discriminating against a people and a culture, which in America we believe is wrong (or evil?).

Google is not a political group, it is a company. And, I do not want it to be a political group. A company should not define a people's morality. That should happen from the people through the government. I think google should do everything they can to be open and free, but it is not their job to fight the chinese government.

Also, how anti-censorship are you? Search for "child pornography" on google images and you don't see any naked 8 year olds. Search "pornography" on google images and you see plenty of naked people. Do I think this is wrong? No. Do you? If not, then your problem is not censorship, but just that YOU THINK china censors too much. Who are you (or the United States in general) to decide for another country what they should and should not censor. What would you think if google refused to do business in the United States because we do not allow gay marriage? While I am in support of gay marriage, I would be pissed off because I would not want any company dictating the US's morality. Open your eyes. Google claims to try not to be evil, not to fix all of the world's problems. Especially since meddling in other countries problems is the road to becoming "evil".

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Anonymous Coward]

the interesting thing is if you misspell Tiananmen -> Tianamen and search on google.cn, you get images of Tankman, and articles about the protests:

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=tianamen&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&aq=f&oq=
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=tianamen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=w

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[chriso11]

There is a significant difference between political censorship and child pornography/gay marriage. And too bad if a democracy wants to censor itself. I'm pretty sure that the US government would like searches for My Lai, tuskegee airmen, japanese internment camps to look better, but they don't censor that. While Germans aren't proud of the Nazi era atrocities, they are not suppressing the past. A democracy which suppresses its history is one on a fast track to tyranny.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[icydog]

Unlike in America where it's common to accidentally (or something intentionally) misspell certain words, and tian/tien is a good example of something that might be overlooked in English, it's not something Chinese people will do because (1) there's no alphabet and (2) if you mess something up you get a totally different word

Also, tien isn't a valid Chinese word. So my point is that, unlike what we might do in the West, Chinese people aren't going to misspell it to get the results they want.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[phoenix321]

Yup, you're right on correcting me, I incorrectly wrote "tradition Chinese". This experiment was done using Chinese Simplified, because that's the prominent script on the Chinese mainland and the primary objective. I don't know if Traditional script is unreadable to the majority of mainland Chinese, but they sure will search in their regular script first.

I can only read the most common simplified characters - anyone here qualified to verify on Simplified vs. Traditional characters for tiananmen?

The search results really indicate a totally different audience writing simplified (Mainland) and traditional (Taiwan) Chinese. Maybe its speakers have totally different opinions and interests and Google doesn't skew the results but only reflect the language users.

If that is true, Mao Zedong would have a late triumph for the simplification of Chinese, when critical search results simply don't turn up in search engines because of a different UTF8 code. That is classic Orwellian stuff.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[phoenix321]

Japan, South Korea and of course also Taiwan (aka "The Republic Of China") actually suppress some misdeeds in their history and anyone caring to bring unpleasant things from the past to light is ridiculed and bullied by the public. This is not totalitarism but probably just the dominant Far Eastern culture and mindset: ancients are sacred, and publicly(!) criticizing one's family or group or city or country nothing but treason.

Anyway, I don't see Taiwan, Japan or S.Korea on the fast track to tyranny. But I would be surprised if you can get away with publicly criticizing Chiang Kai-shek or any detail of his leadership and operations.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[phoenix321]

Is this a common romanization error or a code word to work around censorship?

Tien is not recognized by my IME and doesn't return any searches except for a common romanization mistake for a family name that is also pinyined as Tian.

I recognize Tieban, but only because it has something to do with food:)

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[phoenix321]

Another poster brought a similar result, so I think it has either something to do with clear keyword censorship OR that the correct term is simply overcrowded with harmless results to bury the naughty results deep down in Search Nirvana.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[phoenix321]

They have a link to Chillingeffects or at least had one a while back.

Of course it is because of government censorship, but only the rose-colored, doubleplusgood flavor of it - for the fight against Nazism.

Because everything Nazis did was evil and perverted, a general consensus has emerged in Germany that everything done AGAINST Nazis must therefore be fine and dandy.

So we got our censorship back. High-profile Neo Nazi sites like Stormfront.org and a couple of Holocaust deniers are censored through Google. Every once in a while the general unwashed public remembers a demand to block known Nazi IPs at the router level, but after beating around a little bit they accept that they probably cannot succeed in doing that because the evil Nazis could present different IPs, use darknets or just move on to another forum.

When the activists that drive each wave finally realize that every censorship infrastructure comprehensive enough to crush their evil Nazi foes will always be capable of crushing their pirated music downloads, they suddenly lose focus.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[jc42]

Inputs can be "Tiananmen" or tian1an2men2 in simplified Chinese ...

Or tian1an1men2 in pinyin ;-).

The dictionary I have only lists one character for an2, which means "to speak", and that would give a somewhat surrealistic name to the gate. Not that the Chinese are opposed to surrealism, of course, as you can see by visiting the various sites such as engrish.com that have some very entertaining signage, much of it from China.

I do keep wondering how hard it would be to clone slashdot and start up a UTF-8-encoded version. While we're at it, we could simplify it by tossing out most of the WEB 2.n stuff. Neither he Great Firewall nor Bing wouldn't be likely to object to our doing that.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[amRadioHed]

The only character that is different in different in traditional is the third character, men2, but it's such a common radical I can't imagine the traditional form would be unrecognizable to many in the mainland. I've only studied Chinese for a few years but I can read both forms just as well.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Whiteox]

Their choice is either to abide chinese law or not operate in the market.

That's exactly what the politically correct solution is.
There is a universal ethic about respecting a country's laws and traditions. If you visit China, best practice is to do exactly that. If you become a citizen, you do that anyway or you are in trouble.
In this example, the great firewall has nothing to do with the regulations 'imposed' on Google/Bing. That's a condition of China.
Google/Bing are following Chinese law.
It is up to the Chinese people to change their laws, not Google's or Bing's.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[jc42]

Actually, "tien" rather than "tian" for the Chinese symbol for sky/heaven/day is from an older romanization that you don't see much any more. Mandarin phonetics don't line up too well with the phonemes of English, and since the Chinese haven't used the Roman alphabet until recently, there was really no true standard way to write phonetic Chinese until Mao's government declared a standard. Various groups tried, mostly religious (missionary) groups, and some of their schemes are wildly different from the others.

The vowels are especially problematical, since all six of them have a rather wide variation, and they overlap English vowels in ways that seem odd to English-speaking people. A simple way to put it is that there's no mapping from the "Roman" (either Latin or English) vowel symbols to Mandarin vowels that will cause English-speaking people to pronounce Mandarin vowels correctly. Pinyin was partly an attempt to do that, and they did a better job than most earlier Romanization schemes. But if you read pinyin words as if they were English, people who speak Mandarin will have a lot of trouble figuring out what you're trying to say. Thus, the 3rd syllable of Tiananmen has a vowel like the first syllable of the word "Monday", not like the vowel in "men" (and it has a rising tone, making it sound like a question to English ears ;-).

This isn't unusual, of course. Phonemes in different languages rarely line up very well, even in closely-related languages.

The real problem is the tendency of people everywhere to preserve old misspellings and mispronunciations of "foreign" words, and ignore the native speakers when they try to correct the mistakes. Consider the old spelling "Peking" for Beijing. Except for the tones, "Beijing" should produce a fairly accurate pronunciation by English speakers. "Peking" really never was very close (from an English viewpoint), but lots of writers prefer it because it's what they learned when they were young. OTOH, the American media has developed a pronunciation that has a "zh" as in "measure" sound in the middle of "Beijing", which is odd because Mandarin doesn't have that consonant. I read a discussion recently on a linguistics blog/list about this. They weren't able to discover where that bizarre mispronunciation could have come from. They ended up basically classifying it as an example of mysterious pack behavior on the part of American journalists, who apparently learned it from each other. (If anyone knows who started this, I could pass the info along to the linguists. ;-)

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[JackieBrown]

And if google ignored rules and regs from sovereign governments, people would be complaining about how American companies force American values.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Jeeeb]

Here is the complete results for traditional vs simplified:

First traditional:

Google Australia:
http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Google China:
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Simplified:

Australia
http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
China
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2%E5%9B%BE%E7%89%87

I'm guessing google is returning pages based on the language you search in. When you write tianmen in traditional characters it's ambiguous whether the language is Japanese or Chinese (Same characters, same code-points), so the results are a mix. Note the two particularly bloody pictures in the google.com.au search are from Japanese sites.

Heres a Google Taiwan search in traditional characters:
http://images.google.com.tw/images?hl=zh-TW&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi&gbv=1&ei=dv0IS9SvMoyVkAWF8IisAw
As you can see some bloody images come up.

Anyway, I imagine the root of the problem is simply that there's not a lot of discussion about this amongst mainland Chinese (I.e. people who would write in simplified characters).

Finally, as for your question about Mainland Chinese being able to read both traditional and simplified characters well it depends on the character. However, educated Mainland Chinese people that I've meet have generally been able to read any Characters I could write (Me writing the Japanese versions of them, which are generally traditional characters). The inverse is also true I can recognise many characters written in their Mainland China simplified form. In the case of Tianmen, I would be amazed if they couldn't.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Florian Weimer]

They have a link to Chillingeffects or at least had one a while back.

The link exists, but the letter that is presented there is completely redacted. It does not show the responsible government agency, nor the affected content. In all likelyhood, that's because there's no official request to filter the search results.

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[phoenix321]

My dictionary returns several possibilites for speak and neither of it is pinyinized "an".

But anyway, according to my dictionary, the characters in Tiananmen would literally translate to
tian God/Heaven/Day-peaceful
an peaceful/silent/healthy
men entrance/gate/door

This term signifies the very gate where the emperor went through on certain festivities, and for people to watch this gate they built this huge public square. This is surreal enough for me, thank you :)

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[jc42]

I'm curious about that an2 that I found in the dictionary. It won't show up here, due to /.'s anti-UTF-8 policy, but you can see it at U+557D. Like the wiktionary.org and mandarintools.com entries, this includes a mention of Cantonese in the definition, probably meaning that it's one of those chars that really isn't used in Mandarin (although a Mandarin pronunciation is given). This interpretation is encouraged by the 'kou' radical in the char, which is common in the collection of Cantonese-only chars. OTOH, a Kangxi index is listed for it, so it's an old character. Maybe it has died out in Mandarin.

There are a lot of obscure nooks and corners in Chinese writing. If they had any sense, they'd've gotten rid of it centuries ago. But I suppose that'll happen about the same time that English adopts a phonetic spelling system. ;-)

just don't talk about it !

[mr_musan]

I don't want /. to get banned as well though its so odd they haven't banned bcc yet ??? these chinese people are odd on this

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[gnud]

Does bing have a text cache like google?

Google still the best option for Chinese people

[seshomaru samma]

In China you can easily switch to google.com and get the same results as the rest if the world. You can search google.com in Chinese. Bing does not allow you this luxury if you are from China. It switches to English and changes the background picture but gives you the same Chinese government results if it knows your IP is from China. BTW- Chinese people know about Tiananmen They have satellite dishes with Taiwanese channels that spend 50% of their air time criticizing the mainland (the other 50% is sex and celebrities)

Re:Google still the best option for Chinese people

[Findeton]

"In China you can easily switch to google.com and get the same results as the rest if the world."

Yes, you can. But after searching 2 or 3 times about tiananmen, you won't be able to load google.com again (until 2 hours later): The firewall will detect that you are searching for information that threatens the dictatorship and therefore will (without showing you any warning) block you from loading google.com for 1 hour or two. Then you'll realize you shouldn't have searched for that information, because if you repeat that behaviour N times the thought police will actually go to your house for you and you'll end in jail or dead.

There was an article on wired about how China's firewall makes people censor themselves this way.

Evil?

[KingSkippus]

From TFA:

Microsoft's current position, which insults my intelligence and yours, is that there was indeed a bug of some kind and that that is fixed--but that searches in simplified characters continue to produce pro-Communist results because of the algorithms used.

Think about this. Most web sites that are in simplified Chinese are probably in... Wait for it... China!

So I'm guessing that since discussion of topics contrary to the state agenda will get you thrown in jail, that most sites written in simplified Chinese about things such as Tienanmen Square really are about how it's a nice place to visit. If that's the case, then it's entirely believable to me that top search results in simplified Chinese for topics like that would return state-sanctioned sites.

It's not insulting to my intelligence to think that there's probably nothing to see here, except a reporter who is probably justifiably skeptical of Microsoft's claims, but in this particular case, is probably being a bit overzealous in his accusations.

I wonder, if the reporter tried an Arabic language search for something like "American aggression" and most results returned (surprise!) web sites expressing anti-American sentiment, that must mean that Microsoft is also appeasing terrorists, right? EVIL!!!

Re:Evil?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Think about this. Most web sites that are in simplified Chinese are probably in... Wait for it... China!"

... and yet Google's results are markedly different, and represent a tried and true robust ranking system based on what people querying in that language are looking for. Since most of the results they will get with Bing are ... wait for it ... censored garbage , it is probably insulting the Chinese speaking/writing population of the US to assume they prefer to read China Government censored propoganda.

Re:Evil?

[h4rm0ny]

Since most of the results they will get with Bing are ... wait for it ... censored garbage

Okay, you're posting all over the place with this stuff. What evidence do you have that Bing is censoring results? Google admits that they censor results. Microsoft say that they do not. So back up what you're saying with something, please. TFA hasn't held up. It makes sense that if the vast majority of online presence in a particular language is in mainland China where online censorship is the rule, that the results of searches for, e.g. Tianamen Square, come up with Tourist Information rather than articles about the protests. But even so, it's not the case that this universally happens. Compare the two image searches posted lower down in this thread, done in Google and Bing. The Google one omits pictures of protests and "tank man". Bing actually has them.

So kindly back up your statements with some evidence, because I'm not seeing it. I'd like some searches in simplified Chinese to back this up, please.

Re:Google maps and satellit images do not match at

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you get it? Anyone who wants to visit Tiananmen Square is being sent to the Ministry of Public Security for...reeducation.

That's an interesting way of doing it...

[Hillbert]

Doesn't this mean that anyone in China who speaks, say, English or Russian could get around the censorship just by searching Bing in their other language? And I suppose this also prevents Chinese people from using a proxy to search Bing, if anything in simplified Chinese is being censored regardless of IP location?

Re:That's an interesting way of doing it...

[h4rm0ny]

Yes, that is correct. Anyone searching Bing in China using English or Russian (in your example) would get the same search results as you or I searching in English or Russian. That's not a loophole, Bing isn't actually censoring anything apparently. It merely returns results preferentially in the same language you search in. And simplified Chinese is pretty much a mainland China thing where, unsurprisingly, there aren't a lot of websites talking about protests or being positive about Falun Gong. The author of TFA comes across as having quite an agenda, imo.

Censorship is wrong.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

This is the internet. Censorship is wrong. Stop being a fucking child microsoft, and start being a human being. Hell, children have a better sense of freedom than you. Just google the kid that refuses to pledge allegiance to the flag in his elementary school, and his reasons why...

Microsoft... BE AN AMERICAN COMPANY, OR GET THE FUCK OUT.

Re:Censorship is wrong.

[jellyfrog]

This is the internet. Censorship is wrong. Stop being a fucking child microsoft, and start being a human being.

If Microsoft was a human being, I'd hate to imagine what he would look like. (A terrorist? A lawyer? I don't know which is more likely)

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[Anonymous Coward]

By contrast, Google censors everything in China, regardless of the language used for the query.

Untrue. google.cn censors every language. google.com is not blocked in china but still shows unfiltered results.

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[justinlee37]

That isn't what this commenter had to say.

Re:Google maps and satellit images do not match at

[TheLuggs]

The Search for tianemen square did point to tianemen square on the map, and did not point to tainemen square on the satelite images. Logic dictates that the maps are correct and the satelite images are misaligned.

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[oDDmON oUT]

Why? Couldn't he just buy one, like Bill did in the first place?

Compare to google's simplified chinese search

[ZankerH]

For "tiananmen square" http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi Apparently, nothing to see here (apart from the parades of the glorious People's Liberation Army). (disclaimer: I used google translate)

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[h4rm0ny]

OP: Microsoft are a bunch of clowns who can't create decent products. Me: Lets see you produce something better than Windows 7 or Excel, or even remotely close to that. You: Three decades ago, Microsoft bought an OS.

I fail to see the logical sequence here. If you're just trying to find ways to put the credit for any good points of MS products onto others, rather than give it to them, then you could at least show some more up to date knowledge and refer to Windows NT which built its networking capabilities on top of FreeBSD (and was later the platform for Windows 2000) and for which I don't think they paid a cent, unlike MS-DOS. But the fact remains that MS have put out some very good software and likely put the OP who's calling them "clowns" to shame. And now that they actually have credible threats to them (Yay! Linux!), they're really getting their act together. Note that I don't give a "Yay! Apple" even though they are also a motivator to MS to improve their products. The reason is that I see Apple as merely Saruman to MS's Mordor. They don't want to overthrow MS, they want to be MS. The various Linux distros are the Fellowship of the Ring in this analogy. Gandalf = Slackware. Aragorn = Red Hat. SuSE has to be Boromir (will betray the rest). Legolas has got to be Ubuntu - has all the style and the looks, bit poncy. Debian would probably be Elrond - totally important and the basis for everyone else's progress, but not going to get the glory. Gimli is surely Gentoo - really impressive if you look at the facts, but ugly and frequently overlooked.
I've gone off on a tangent, haven't I?

Is it legal?

[pmontra]

Can they censor queries made by American citizens using a simplified chinese keyboard in the USA?

Re:Is it legal?

[h00manist]

That would problably be an excellent ground to start challenging these policies. Since many of these censorship results are visible in many countries, all kinds of people can mount a legal challenge against Chinese censorship from home. Plus, all the media and legal content abount censorship in china will have to be censored in china. Slowly the whole internet will be censored...

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[hengdi]

By contrast, Google censors everything in China, regardless of the language used for the query.

Not true. I live in China, and can easily find info on Tiananmen square, I just have to use google.com and not google.cn.

And who are we to say no?

[Anonymous Coward]

And exactly who are we to say no to the new rulers of the economic world? Oh that's right, we still got some pride, honor, and values left from WWII
But yeah, no, we must obey to the Chinese overlords.

For Freedom Day

[tjstork]

I've been on the fence about listening to China, but no more. I conclude that the American idea of freedom, the American revolution, is an ongoing experiment and must apply everywhere in the world. We Americans by nature are assholes, so we may as well do something productive with it. We are obligated to participate, to be subversive to tyranny or even tendencies towards it, everywhere we go and we must be that way at home.

American companies operate because they are granted license to by the people of the united states as a whole.

At home, nor abroad, can we tolerate any government that violates any fundamental liberty. Even if we cannot agree on what fundamental liberties all, we must be dedicated to the idea that the more liberties that we uphold, the more we have. We forget that freedom is so sacred as of late, and we listen too much to those who would say that we have freedom too much.

I say that we say that for right now today is Freedom Day. Take a second to glance at the Constitution and understand that the government is allowed to do only what is on that little piece of paper and you are allowed to do everything else. Write whatever you want, go to a gun store, read something subversive, stop by a church, hang with some protestors, revel in the fact that you are free and can do things. Even as we bum out about how the west has gotten the short of the stick in manufacturing, we should be extremely cognizant that we can do so many things our counterparts in China and other parts Asia cannot, I can take my made in Chinese flag and I can burn it.

Today is Freedom Day, and so is every day. Remind yourself that you are free.

Re:For Freedom Day

[maxume]

As assholes, Americans should be very careful of all the people out there that are dicks.

Re:For Freedom Day

[smoker2]

Hitler had a similar idea. How about you do what you do, and let other nations do what they do. Mind your own damn business. You can't even live up to your ludicrous dreams at home let alone have the moral authority to impose your ideas on others. WE ARE NOT INTERESTED !

You loudly proclaim the right of others to do and think as they wish, but only as long as they coincide with your own narrow views. Can you not see the hypocrisy ?

The litany of hypocritical acts committed by the USA grows ever longer.

• We have 1000s of nukes, but you can't develop them
• Global War on Terror - except you've forgotten the Taliban, Contra, IRA, et al
• OMG the planet's going to be under water - but we reserve the right to buy the biggest most energy inefficient TVs and cars money can buy
• People should not be oppressed by the govt. - but the DHS, TSA, CIA, NSA, FBI can monitor, arrest and hold without charge, censor, and "disappear" at will.
• Torture is illegal - except when it suits us.
• Aggressive acts by foreign powers are not to be tolerated - but we can get involved in Vietnam, Korea, Africa, Iraq
• You should have the right to use a piece of equipment you own in any way you choose - DMCA
• You stand for Free Trade and capitalism - except when it doesn't suit you, and conflicts with your business ideals
• ETC.

This photo sums up my opinion of Americas influence in the world. That's right, you're a bunch of overbearing clowns. You're so xenophobic that the only way you can deal with a different culture is to mold it into a slightly poorer version of your own, so that you can pretend you're better off than them. Where of course "better off" is a purely financial metric. As a culture you are best defined by the words greed, image and ignorance.

When you have the perfect society, please feel free to comment again.

Re:For Freedom Day

[tjstork]

* OMG the planet's going to be under water - but we reserve the right to buy the biggest most energy inefficient TVs and cars money can buy

I need my fucking giant ass car to haul my giant ass TV so I can watch your shitty island sink in high definition.

Picture...

Hey, that's Uncle Sam standing in this picture:

http://www.popularpages.net/pics/free-blow-job_4_2222_si.jpg

Re:For Freedom Day

[chance2105]

Glenn? Is that you?

Re:For Freedom Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, American Dad!

Re:For Freedom Day

[Anonymous Coward]

please take a good long nap, then rub your eyes hard and look around you. really LOOK and SEE what your freedom consists of. if you believe that choosing between mcdonald's and burger king is a relevant free choice as opposed to the choice the 'free market' made to offshore your manufacturing to china to make use of all that 'free market' labour then power to you. this is not a matter of scale, your individual free rights are restricted by the assets and value that 'gives' you that 'free' choice.

when was the last time you looked around at the long term residents in their cars at the far end of the walmart parking lot? was that a 'choice'?

please take a moment to review this bit here called 'the tragedy of the commons' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons and apply it to things other than land management.

"uncensorable" websites, routers, etc ??

[h00manist]

it seems that most companies now, at the request of various governments, copyright groups, spy groups, "security" policies, police, pro-paranoia parents groups, etc are working on many ways to censor everything. and in many cases, succeeding to a good extent, as a result of the work done. in the US, it's mostly corporations using lawyers- but it works. what happened to the "uncensorable" internet? where are the projects to make communication "uncensorable" again? perhaps these belong more properly in the political-technical-legal area, and not possible in the purely technical area.

"Tibet oppression Han" -- simplified chars

[John Guilt]

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=%E8%A5%BF%E8%97%8F%E6%8A%91%E5%88%B6%E9%9F%A9&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=5b7cf21b103219ea ...returns >1.4M results http://www.bing.com/search?q=%E8%A5%BF%E8%97%8F%E6%8A%91%E5%88%B6%E9%9F%A9&go=&form=QBLH&qs=n ...returns Sweet Fanny Adams Yes, the Chinese Google site is as bad, but at least a Chinese user can potentially hit an external Google site with one tunnel/proxy or another. (Note: I'm not a terrible bigot, though I'm probably as bigoted as average: I do not blame all Han Chinese for the oppression of the Tibetan people, and of course there are some Han willing to risk extreme punishment to help them; however, one of the ways Tibetans are being oppressed is by the massive settlement of the country by Han Chinese, and beside I wanted as inflammatory a non-obscene word-set as I could for the experiment.)

619,427 censored individuals in NYC, as of 2007

[h00manist]

The New York metropolitan area contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, enumerating 619,427 individuals as of the 2007 American Community Survey Census statistical data, including at least 6 Chinatowns, not to mention fledgling ethnic Chinese enclaves emerging throughout the New York metropolitan area.

Re:619,427 censored individuals in NYC, as of 2007

[Anonymous Coward]

Cantonese (which uses traditional characters) is more common than Mandarin in most North American chinatowns.

Re:619,427 censored individuals in NYC, as of 2007

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more about when you moved out of China.

Simplified Chinese was created and spread mostly around the late fifties / early sixties. If one left before then (which a lot of the Cantonese-speaking people did, for the gold rush) you wouldn't have used it. Also, as Hong Kong wasn't part of PRC until 1997, those who left there before the handover kept using the traditional characters (and thus why you think Cantonese uses traditional, while the people of Guandong use simplified Chinese just fine).

And join the Amish?

[tepples]

boycott Chinese products

The United States has outsourced so much of its manufacturing to Chinese firms that in 2009, the Amish are almost the only group who can pull off a boycott of products made in China.

So English queries favor sites from England then?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Microsoft have stated that the way their search engine works is to return results with a preference toward sites in the language searched in."

Really? It's rather curious then that when I search in English sites from England aren't at the top of the list. Assuming everyone who speaks Chinese is from China is not even ludicrous ... it is just the spin of the day/fiasco. What do they do when you search in French? Do they prefer Canada or France? Think man! Think!

Chinese Censorship != Attempt to Rewrite History

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever done something wrong and then not wanted to talk about it? If you have, you know that avoiding the subject doesn't make it go away, but hey, at least it means you don't have to keep on confronting the it. In fact, as you may have seen it, ignoring your lapse may have allowed you to maintain a sufficient level of self-respect so that one day you could become a better person. It's always good to staying positive, right?

So what is the Chinese censorship of 64? At its core it is nothing more than a government-dictated instance of the above coping mechanism. Why is this important to know? Because unfortunately too many Westerners believe that its censorship has instead been some delusional attempt to rewrite history. If you're one of them, please, listen up. The Chinese do not want to rewrite history -- it's just that the wound is still too fresh for them to talk about it. Give them about 50 years and the discourse will change.

Also, please stop thinking that the government censorship is in someway actually preventing Chinese people themselves from knowing about 64. Oh sure, maybe you have a friend who told you that when they asked a mainlander about Tiananmen, they didn't seem to know anything except for how it's a good place for tourism. But do you want to know the real truth? Chinese people carry shame strongly (as do many other people), and the actual reason that person acted ignorant is because they just don't want to talk about it with your arrogant foreign ass. Sorry, they just don't. Imagine if tourists just kept on bugging Americans about slavery or the War in Iraq? The first couple times you may say something, but after a while, it'd just boil down to "whatever, are you going to buy the cap with the flag on it or what?".

So are we Americans any different? Ask us at a good time about the awful choices our nation has made, and the response you'll most often hear is, "that was the government's decision, not my own". From the sounds of it, maybe our choice of coping mechanism is different, but when it comes down to it our inability to attest to our own failures gleams threw just the same.

Point is, please stop picking on the Chinese. Let them as a modern nation continue to mature and prosper. They have come so far despite their numerous failures, and deserve our respect and at least a minor attempt at genuine understanding.

Best /. quote ever

[argent]

We Americans by nature are assholes, so we may as well do something productive with it.

Yes, let's put the "fun" back in "dysfunctional". :)

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[smoker2]

You really are so full of shit you actually think you smell good.

My code is now being used by clients such as Micrsoft, BT and the London Stock Exchange ...

did they hire you by name after a long and exhaustive search throughout the world, or did a firm you worked for put you on a team that did the work ? Given that the LSE had a massive crash, are we to assume your code wasn't involved ?

Do you think you could beat MS at software production ? Why do you think the other poster thinks that ? Conflating an organisations abilities with an individuals is playground shite. I think Cadillac make crappy cars, do I need to make better cars in order to have an opinion on the subject ?
Prick.

Re:Evil, No Clueless, NO BOTH

[omb]

After a VERY few searches it is Obvious that Bing is a very poor search engine, Not even on a par with what Altavista was.

Now, M$ EVIL (TM),

implemented cluelessly. As soon as their grip in American Corporates is broken they are in for a very hard time.

Re:So English queries favor sites from England the

[h4rm0ny]

Really? It's rather curious then that when I search in English sites from England aren't at the top of the list. Assuming everyone who speaks Chinese is from China is not even ludicrous ... it is just the spin of the day/fiasco. What do they do when you search in French? Do they prefer Canada or France? Think man! Think!

What is this rubbish? You find it "curious that when you search in English, sites from England aren't the top of the list"? English is spoken far more widely than just in Englang, including a certain country called the USA you might have heard of. You'd be surprised if you searched in English and got lots of results in German, though. In contrast "simplified Chinese" is used by mainland China (you can't even include Hong Kong as they don't use it much), the UN and the impressive but nontheless tiny "country" of Singapore. So why do you go all conspiracy theory when the primary search results for a search in simplified Chinese are overwhelmingly sites from mainland China?

Saying that I "assume everyone who speaks Chinese is from China" is showing a complete ignorance of what we're actually discussing.

Re:Evil, No Clueless, NO BOTH

[h4rm0ny]

After a VERY few searches it is Obvious that Bing is a very poor search engine, Not even on a par with what Altavista was.

What were your search terms?

ROTFLMAO

[Zero__Kelvin]

"You'd be surprised if you searched in English and got lots of results in German, though. "

Not if I was using Bing, I wouldn't ;-)

"Saying that I "assume everyone who speaks Chinese is from China" is showing a complete ignorance of what we're actually discussing."

I know exactly what we are discussing. We are discussing why people in the USA get real uncensored results when they use Google, but get mostly Chinese government propoganda when they use Bing. You see sir, it is you who exhibit the ignorance. People who are in the US probably came here from China for a reason, and for the overwhelming majority it wasn't to subscribe to and propogate the propoganda of the Chninese government.

Re:ROTFLMAO

[h4rm0ny]

Not if I was using Bing, I wouldn't ;-)

Okay - that made me laugh! :D

The point is that Microsoft have a credible case here that they aren't censoring the results. As has been shown elsewhere you certainly can get results for Tienanmen Square that include "Tank Man" from Bing when using simplified Chinese (I think that and Falun Gong are the only examples of censorship most Slashdotters actually know). These actually even include results that Google has deliberately censored (you don't get Tank Man with the same search in Simplified Chinese). Given that the vastly overwhelming proportion of sites in Simplified Chinese are in mainland China, it would be odd if China's censorship didn't skew the results. Even a lot of ex-pat sites outside of China probably use English.

Microsoft might be censoring the search results with Bing but TFA is a loaded and biased piece that makes nauseating excuses for Google's own censorship whilst their case against MS amounts to "I thought I had some evidence, but it turns out there's another explanation but they could be censoring things even though I admit they're probably not. Still, people will only read my inflammatory headline and that's the main thing".

And no, just because you declare in bold that we are limiting discussion to Chinese ex-pats in the USA, doesn't mean we're going to. My topic was here first. ;)

Regards,
H.

Re:ROTFLMAO

[Zero__Kelvin]

"The point is that Microsoft have a credible case here that they aren't censoring the results."

I agree, but the problem there is that they don't advance that case. They could have came forward and said that they are merely incompetent and hadn't tested their system and considered the ramifications of their poor design decisions. Instead they won't admit it, and they instead say that it is just that they have a different mechanism in place than Google. This leaves me to have to choose between if they are more incompetent or more evil in this case.

Now they have a response where they do admit that their is something amiss, but again make excuses, etc. and minimize it. Most likely, they had code to censor in addition to bugs, and the code to censor was still active. Now they may have eliminated the code to censor and still have to deal with the bugs. This is, in my mind, the most believable scenario, though I admit that my perspective is tempered by the overwhelming evidence I have seen over 20 years that they are both incompetent and evil ;-)

Finally, consider that offering proof that the results aren't skewed at this point is rather Orwellian, as Microsoft has had time to tweak their engine. Just because they say that they found a bug and it will be fixed doesn't mean that it is true. They very well may have had a policy that they have already adjusted due to the negative publicity. This lets people say: "Look citizen! Microsoft is at war with viruses and an ally of openness! Microsoft has always been at war with viruses and an ally of openness!", and many people will swallow that hook, line, and sinker :-(

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[the eric conspiracy]

The current state of Windows is dependent on the vast oceans of money that derive from Microsoft's heinous business practices during the era of MS-DOS when they had a clearly inferior product.

So indeed the comment the MS bought their first OS is very relevant. Their entry into the business and subsequent donimance has little or nothing to do with their current products.

Re:Chinese Censorship != Attempt to Rewrite Histor

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, someone had the audacity to dismissively label the parent a troll. Where's their explanation?

Re:Chinese Censorship != Attempt to Rewrite Histor

[WindBourne]

Point is, please stop picking on the Chinese. Let them as a modern nation continue to mature and prosper. They have come so far despite their numerous failures, and deserve our respect and at least a minor attempt at genuine understanding.
Sorry, but no. I have a lot of respect for CHINESE PPL, but for China, the gov.? Nope. Their approach is no different then it was 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60 years ago. Basically, it is a totalitarian state that is AFRAID of its ppl. Otherwise, they would have finished tianiman. Worse, they are the ones doing major destruction around the world in terms of pollution, economy, etc. I hold them (and W) mostly responsible for the current economic situation. CHina was given a gift by Clinton in giving them MFN as well as into WTO. And they have reneged on their part (free their money and drop their trade barriers). Instead, they have actually increased trade barriers, manipulate their money to make cheap cheap cheap exports relative to all other western money, use no pollution control to keep the cheapest prices and are subsidizing various industries. Nearly everything that the Chinese gov. is doing is regarded as unethical as well as illegal in almost the entire world. If another nation (developed or not) were doing the same to China, they would be upset. I do not hold the chinese ppl responsible for this (unlike I hold Americans responsible for voting in W a second time).

Finally, Chinese gov. IS attempting to rewrite 64. It is not simply that they are keeping it quiet, but they have recently taken to speaking about it as these ppl were terrorists. That is re-writing. It would similar if American gov. stated that Kent State murder was because students had physically taken over a number of buildings, holding hostages, and was killing soldiers.

Re:Chinese Censorship != Attempt to Rewrite Histor

[Lakitu]

Chinese censorship is almost entirely a way to stifle dissent because of a fear it might cause violence, which would in turn disrupt the country's attempts at modernization.

You can't compare "government-dictated coping mechanisms" to Western "coping mechanisms". It's government-dictated! In one case, you might have every single individual of a country feel one way because they choose to (which obviously is not the case). In the Chinese example, you have to struggle to even hold that opinion -- even peacefully holding that opinion -- and you might face serious repercussions for it.

China has come so far, and it seems like everyone realizes that. Why do you think so many people are looking to China as a new "emerging market" or whatever? That was not the case 30 or 40 years ago. That does not mean, however, that you can dismiss their "numerous failures", as it does not really matter if "government-dictated coping mechanisms" are good spirited or not. They may be now, but a massive system of repression exists, and if it continues to exist in the future, it WILL be abused.

When you have a small group of people with extraordinary power deciding what is good for everyone, you are destined for injustice. Expressing that fact is not "picking on" the Chinese people, it is a tried and true lesson which everyone had better hope many Chinese have learned.

One word

[WindBourne]

baudea.
That is pushed and controlled by the Chinese gov. in the same way that Pravda is pushed and owned by Russia, or Fox News is pushed and owned by the republican party.

Another words; Oops :)

[WindBourne]

Way to early in the AM

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[h4rm0ny]

My code wasn't involved in the LSE crash, actually. My code is in some of the lower-level networking systems, thanks for asking. ;)

I like the way rather than point out any weakness in my argument you shot off to investigate me and see if there were any nice ad hominems you could use. I like the way that you consider my fifteen years experience in software engineering some sort of insult. I particularly like the way you carefully snip my old bio to make it sound like crass boasting when it was actually a joke: the full version ends with "so why do I spend half my time explaining to people how to insert pictures into Word documents?" I like all these things you've done because they amuse me. All they show is an attempt to construct poor ad hominems which makes you look like you can't argue.

As to the two lines of your post which contain an argument:

Do you think you could beat MS at software production ? Why do you think the other poster thinks that ? Conflating an organisations abilities with an individuals is playground shite. I think Cadillac make crappy cars, do I need to make better cars in order to have an opinion on the subject ?

The OP called MS "a bunch of clowns". He began the comparisons at the individual level. I have found that generally, the people who work at the level of writing OS's or large application suites such as MS Office, have too much of an appreciation of the work involved and the difficulty of it to casually put down others that do the same. I've often seen Linux fanboys here on Slashdot slagging off Windows. I don't recall seeing any Linux Kernel developers engaging in the same sort of petty bashing. They know what's involved and they've all made coding mistakes that can kill a system dead (sometimes released, sometimes caught in time). I've done enough larger scale work to know how epic a task like Windows 7 or Excel is. And that is why I asked the OP if he could do better - not because there's any chance a lone individual could, but because his casual laughing and insulting of other developers strongly suggests to me he's never worked at that level. If he came back and said, "actually, I've committed a number of fixes in the Linux kernel," or "I'm one of the Open Office devs" then that would be something. But like I say, these people have gone through the process and tend to not make massive blanket insulting statements like the OP.

No, you don't need to make a better car than Cadillac in order to have an opinion on whether their cars are good or bad. But if you were a car designer, you'd probably be a lot more thoughtful about it. And even if you're not experienced in this matter, you still ought to be able to say "Cadillac cars are crappy because manufacturer X does Y better". I'm typing this in Opera on a KDE desktop. My primary OS is Gentoo. I like GNU/Linux because it has all the tools that I need to work with free, it's more secure than Windows and I can tweak it to do everything I want. But I don't think Microsoft is a bunch of clowns that can't innovate and if someone wants to say they are, they should back it up. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Regards,
H.

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[MadFarmAnimalz]

I see your point. But think about this: if Google or Bing were filtering English language results at the request of the American government, would you be happy to swap over to Mandarin?

How to frustrate the Chinese firewall

[Anonymous Coward]

List of what they're censoring here: List of words censored by search engines in the People's Republic of China...

If you'd like to frustrate the censors a little, take some of the words from that page and embed them into every web page you write. (preferably embedding the simplified Chinese characters).

Trick question [Re:contrast]

[Geoffrey.landis]

So who speaks simplified Chinese?

Is that a trick question?

Nobody speaks simplified Chinese; it's a written language.

It's the writing system officially adopted by mainland China, and you can write many different languages using it.

Of the dozens of languages that are written in Chinese characters, the one that people usually call "Chinese" is Mandarin (known in China as "Common Tongue").

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[Hatta]

How long does it usually take before the boots are at your door?

It's all about the code

[ClosedSource]

"The Microsoft solution strikes me as the quick-and-dirty solution, while the Google method shows more advanced programming."

I know I prefer a more sophisticated implementation when I am censored. Perhaps Google could add another advanced feature like logging the IP for "suspect" searches for the Chinese government.

JEE

[ClosedSource]

"Just Enough Evil"?

I just did a search for " "

[crovira]

and Google is no better than Bing.

Doesn't seem to be true

[Anonymous Coward]

I searched Bing for Tiananmen and the first thing that came up was:

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There were also several other hits regarding the protests. I'm not sure if this is something they changed just today or if the statements that Bing censored it is unfounded.

Utterly spineless

[Brummund]

This is really disgraceful:

http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=Tiananmen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
http://images.google.com/images?hl=no&source=hp&q=Tiananmen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

So much for "Don't be evil" :-/

But interestingly enough, add a typo to the name and "square massacre":

http://images.google.cn/images?gbv=2&hl=zh-CN&sa=1&q=tianamen+square+massacre&btnG=&%2332034;&%2322270;&%2329255;&aq=f&oq=&start=0

Morallity

[earnest murderer]

Fact is morality goes out the window when board members look at the dollar signs. Rationalization fully takes over and we get what we have today. There is no leverage won here, just cash.

Re:Morallity

[phiwum]

Fact is morality goes out the window when board members look at the dollar signs. Rationalization fully takes over and we get what we have today. There is no leverage won here, just cash.

Maybe that's how things are, but that's really irrelevant to how things should be.

Lest we forget

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what the Chinese authorities do not wish Chinese people to see.

http://www.boxun.com/hero/64/52_1.shtml (WARNING: not for the squeamish, contains images of actual atrocities commited in Tianamen Square).

It's been twenty years, and they still can not admit what happened.

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[oDDmON oUT]

Correction:
OP: Lets see you write an operating system and an Office suite with programs like Excel. ;)

OP said nothing about Windows 7, and Office was created for the Apple Mac, as was Excel, long before there was a version for Windows.

My comment was meant to meant to show several things:

• The mendacity of MS marketing, and as such doesn't demonstrate a lack of "more up to date knowledge", any more than your "I see Apple as merely Saruman to MS's Mordor. They don't want to overthrow MS, they want to be MS" shows a lack of insight into how MS would really like to be Apple.
• That the track record of crappy business practices and revisionist tendencies is deeply ingrained in MS corporate culture.
• That those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to be run over by them again. '^)

"I've gone off on a tangent, haven't I?"

Just a wee bit, but it was entertaining nonetheless. : )

Now, am I offtopic on the Bing thing? Ya, probably some.
On MS as a company? Na, probably not.
On the original comment I replied to? Not at all.

MS didn't write anything to begin with, and even though they do so today, it's not the product, but the marketing, that's ensured the survival of the company into the 21st century.

If you want to see something interesting try baidu

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to baidu.com, it's a Chinese search engine.
Write "falun gong" to the box. Hit enter.
Watch your connection die. Even the front page won't work.

Enjoy!

Same for Americans?

[hackingbear]

The American "democracy" is in a pretty bad shape, controlled by a duo-poly, money, and the Big Businesses. Have the Americans stand up and do anything effective. We have seen only lip-services so far, just like what Chinese people see in China.

You can't never hope a large group of people to make major, fundamental, systematic social changes! Rather, it usually depends on a few -- often one -- extremely skillful leader(s) -- politician(s) -- to wave a flag of some sort of Ideal and attract larger and larger group of people around him until they attain the power to overthrown the existing system. And then these politicians and their allies would turn their back to you and created another social system that is not much better.

One thing that the Chinese people get fed up is the political ideals. They have seen plenty of such promises by leaders of different times and they are mostly unrealistic. They no longer believe in any political ideals -- including the so-call democracy as it just inevitably turns into corruption of different well-packaged form of marketing.

Newspeak

[Jeremy Erwin]

If you want the truth, you'll just have to put away your toy symbology, and learn a proper character set.

To see how search varies depending on where you ar

[bruguiea]

To see how search varies depending on where you are: https://adwords.google.com/select/AdTargetingPreviewTool

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[h4rm0ny]

Hmmm, well, it's been a couple of hours and he's not replied... I'd say "not long".

I'd join the boycott of Bing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd join the boycott of Bing, but I never used it to begin with. Is there something else of Microsoft's I can boycott?

Re:Durrrrr

[GrumblyStuff]

Being my foe doesn't make you my mortal enemy. It just means your comments need to be exceptionally good for me to end up seeing them.

Microsoft's response to this

[Osrin]

http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/21/committed-to-comprehensive-results.aspx

Bing admitted a bug - will be fixed

[Ececheira]

Bing just repsonded to the issue here:

http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/11/21/committed-to-comprehensive-results.aspx

They've found a bug in their image search algorithms and promise a fix by the end of the week.

Re:Google maps and satellite images for TS

[j-beda]

Unless someone actually knows the lat/long for TS, I don't know how we can say which is "correct". The search puts the dot for TS at the correct point on the map, and at the wrong point on the image, but that would be the case if they do the placement of the dot via the map data rather than the lat/long data - regarless of which (map or image) is more accurately placed on their virtual globe representation.

Re:If you want to see something interesting try ba

[siddesu]

I have no problem getting results: (not a goatse, copypaste):

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/6613/falunsrch.png

Greed

[bvt]

It's all about money and greed

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

So Microsoft is proactively censoring information, even where Chinese law doesn't govern? What the fuck.

Re:morality

[jc42]

For those agonizing over the morality issues, note that there's an excellent Doonesbury Comic today on the topic. It's about torture rather than censorship, but it's probably good enough to apply to most moral and ethical quandaries.

Re: Message to MS read and do as said

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft this a message to you

Bing was the worst search engine mankind has ever seen please do the world a favor, hire a real profesional commercial writer, and do yourself a favor, save millions while your at it, take it off line, Don't embarasse your self more than you already are, work on somthing that will actually make users happy to buy your software, instead of wishing to have a root canal rather than having to upgrade their software As I've heard that Vista was one of the worst mistakes the company has ever produced.

Maybe take a lesson from apple who actually did somthing right for once, or get some new ideas from the public, instead of sticking to the same old things, People will actually like it maybe,someday,All vista users either deserve money for personal damages, a replacement for an apple, free upgrades, or some apology for the utter disasters, so far you have made.
How many people will agree that Bing was a bit of a joke, "decision engine" I mean come on is that the best you could really do? Ask yourself how many microsoft employees use an apple and their software, rather than your own? How could we change this.

How can you live knowing that people dread to have to constantly upgrade their microsoft software, and get attacked on a daily basis. rather than apple users who don't have to get pounded by a tidal wave of attacks.
Please do everyone a favor and please create better software. Every person I know dreads pc's and prefers apple's computers.

Please please, destroy bing, and vista, do your "loyal customers" who have no choice but to constantly upgrade by new versions, and pay loads of cash to software they are forced to use. Windows 7 was an improvement but still could use some serious work, Use all the man power your company has and resources to make a program better than what is on the market. Don't get me started on all the files which your hardware has.
You are probably asking but we do take your input- I almost forgot about that obviously there must be a break up on your end, or its more of bunch of bogus, it obviously never helps and it never reaches you. you can obviously answer your own questions. Maybe you will discover why apple is a hot ticket item.

Best reguards,
unknown annoyed and frusturated user

P.S. if you ar angry yell at your computer like we all do now you understand how we feel
take a base ball to it when the blue screen of death occasionly pops up like the rest of us, when are completely fed up with it
after all its just the human factor of testing the reactions people get because of the failures you have so graciously given us.
Chears and Happy holidays hope santa gives you a large smelly lump of coal and

p.p.s. don't take this letter personally
p.p.p.s I wouldn't write the letter unless i'm completely disappointed with the software i have to deal with

Re: Message to MS read and do as said

[h4rm0ny]

Microsoft this a message to you

Bing was the worst search engine mankind has ever seen please do the world a favor, hire a real profesional commercial writer, and do yourself a favor, save millions while your at it, take it off line, Don't embarasse your self more than you already are, work on somthing that will actually make users happy to buy your software, instead of wishing to have a root canal rather than having to upgrade their software As I've heard that Vista was one of the worst mistakes the company has ever produced.

Maybe take a lesson from apple who actually did somthing right for once, or get some new ideas from the public, instead of sticking to the same old things, People will actually like it maybe,someday,All vista users either deserve money for personal damages, a replacement for an apple, free upgrades, or some apology for the utter disasters, so far you have made. How many people will agree that Bing was a bit of a joke, "decision engine" I mean come on is that the best you could really do? Ask yourself how many microsoft employees use an apple and their software, rather than your own? How could we change this.

How can you live knowing that people dread to have to constantly upgrade their microsoft software, and get attacked on a daily basis. rather than apple users who don't have to get pounded by a tidal wave of attacks. Please do everyone a favor and please create better software. Every person I know dreads pc's and prefers apple's computers.

Please please, destroy bing, and vista, do your "loyal customers" who have no choice but to constantly upgrade by new versions, and pay loads of cash to software they are forced to use. Windows 7 was an improvement but still could use some serious work, Use all the man power your company has and resources to make a program better than what is on the market. Don't get me started on all the files which your hardware has. You are probably asking but we do take your input- I almost forgot about that obviously there must be a break up on your end, or its more of bunch of bogus, it obviously never helps and it never reaches you. you can obviously answer your own questions. Maybe you will discover why apple is a hot ticket item.

Best reguards, unknown annoyed and frusturated user

So what search terms are you using that give markedly better results in Google or Yahoo, than in Bing?