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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."
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.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
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. :(
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
This is my sig.
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.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.