Following In Bing's Footsteps, Yahoo! and Flickr Censor Porn In India

bhagwad writes "Following recent news on how Bing decided sex was too sensitive for India, Yahoo! and its associated site Flickr have decided to do the same. While it's true that this is because of India passing laws that prohibit the publication of porn, no complaint was ever launched (and never will be), and glorious Google still continues to return accurate and unbiased results. So why is Yahoo! doing this? Is it because of its tie-up with Bing? I assume this is the case. Indian ISPs have already told the government and the courts that it's not their job to restrict porn and it's technologically infeasible too. In the absence of a complaint, I can only assume that Yahoo! has decided to do this of their own volition. Given that the 'sex' search term is searched more in India than in any other country, isn't it the duty of Yahoo! to provide accurate results to its customers? It can always plausibly deny control of its results and claim that filtering porn is infeasible. Since Yahoo! already has a low search market share in India, this will drive it even lower."

Comments

Here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing!

Re:Here it comes...

[MightyMartian]

The whole subcontinent is littered with statues of stylized large-breasted women and phallic lingam. It seems a little odd to ban online porn, when sexuality lies at the heart of Hinduism (as it does for all the Indo-European religions).

Re:Here it comes...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that the ban is simple prudery at work.

However, I'd say that, rather than "seem[ing] a little odd", the connection between sexuality and Hinduism could arguably be a strong incentive for banning online porn.

Consider, for example, the matter of medieval Catholicism and vernacular bibles. The whole continent is littered with churches full of stained glass depictions of biblical scenes, and the gospels lie at the heart of Catholicism, and yet, early vernacular translators got suppressed good and hard for their trouble. This was because the centrality of the bible to Catholic practice implied acceptance of it; but also implied an established order controlling its use, dissemination, and interpretation.

Similarly, it could well be(arguing from principles, not direct anthropological evidence) that the long connection of sexuality with Hinduism means a certain acceptance of it; but almost certainly also means an established set of rules and practices concerning its use, allocation, and proper role. Pornography from all over the world, in any style you like, available swiftly and anonymously over the internet, likely stomps on the toes of at least a few of those rules and practices.

Gone downhill...

[headkase]

Remember when the Internet was all porn (1994)? Yeah, it's really gone downhill since then...

Well

[robvangelder]

Didn't the Kama Sutra come out of India?

maybe makes bussiness sense

[fermion]

If I were a search engine desperately trying to gain market share in an environment dominated by a competitor, I might look for the largest growing open market, in this case India. I might accommodate some vagaries in hopes that a positive official recommendation might help my market share. If no school allows access to google, not even colleges, if no major corporate office allows access to google, if no government office allows access to google, then one can imagine that in a generation Google will be gone as a viable entity in India. And then there is the issue of Google having offices in India(I think they do), which means that Google will not be in compliance with the law.

In this case, I don't see this as a 'Bing and Yahoo are bad' issue. If Google does not comply, that is business decision, just like Bing and Yahoo.

So are you redirected to wholesome Bollywood?

[syousef]

We all know that there is no sex in Bollywood. It is a chaste and pure place where the pixies and fairies cavort in peace, love and mung beans.

Re:Heh

[Ethanol-fueled]

Heh. I doubt it's entirely true that Indians search for sex more than everybody else, just that others are just more specific.

Hypothetical example: for every Indian who looks up "sex", there are four Americans who each look up "fisting", "creampies", "MILFs", and "jailbait" :)

Re:Heh

[mrsteveman1]

Clearly, if you have to google "sex", you already know what it is.

"Sex" you say? Let's just give that a try.....open Google and.....OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ANOTHER PERSON???

Re:Wait a minute

[mrsteveman1]

You're implying that they somehow block every single search term related to porn. Guess what? Not only are there tons of slang terms for various things they haven't heard of, but even whole genres of porn that they can't block because they've never heard of. Sure, they can block most mainstream porn, but a lot of genre-specific porn would also apply to mainstream.

2 snakes 1 charmer?

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Not nearly as paranoid as it could be. Tighten your tinfoil hats and consider the following insane hypothesis:

Microsoft, in their limitless greed and avarice, has an insatiable desire for cheap H1B and outsourced programming labour. India is a major source of this labour; but has rising incomes and standards of living, which threaten to make that labour more expensive. Pornography reduces birth rates by providing the sexually frustrated an alternative to procreation. If Microsoft(and its subservient minion Yahoo) can cut off India's porn supply, they can insure a bumper crop of future programmers. Supply and demand being what they are, the more programmers born, the less Microsoft has to pay, per programmer!

See? It's all very simple when you recognize the sinister conspiracy at work...

Just like with TV networks...

[Phroggy]

isn't it the duty of Yahoo! to provide accurate results to its customers?

You make the mistake of assuming that the users are the customers, rather than the product being sold.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[dhavleak]

There shouldn't be any bashing at all in this article.

.
India is a democratic country -- their laws are by definition reflective of their social values. If they want porn cencored, they are within their rights to want it. I don't agree with it -- but it's their call. If at some point in the future there is a change in social attitudes towards porn in India, they can vote for a government that will change their laws accordingly.

.
If you want to bash anyone, bash Google for not respecting local laws -- but even that would be stretching it a bit.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[bnenning]

It's entirely reasonable to criticize governments when they enact stupid policies, whether they're democratically elected or not. As I recall one or two foreign entities on occasion said less than complimentary things about the Bush administration; were they wrong to do so?

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[elashish14]

India is a democratic country -- their laws are by definition reflective of their social values.

This is a fallacious correlation. Just because laws have been arrived at through a democratic process does not necessarily mean that they represent social values. There are much more important driving factors for legislation in a democracy than these social values. There are many ways (for example, lobbyists/bribery) that groups can influence democratic legislation, even in directions contrary to social values. The only possible government in which your ideals of democracy would be upheld would be one that's extremely limited socially so that no one's social values could be trampled upon.

If they want porn cencored, they are within their rights to want it.

I disagree with this. This is a case where your social values are at odds with personal liberties and just because such regulations would be arrived at through a democratic process doesn't mean that it's okay to take these liberties away. You could make the same case with racial segregation, where only a few really wanted to integrate, but the views of the majority democratically determined that segregation was legal and allowable. Another example could be gay marriage, where a majority is often against it, but since it is (arguably) within a gay couple's right to marry, these social values should not influence the democratic process to take their rights away.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[phantomfive]

This is a case where your social values are at odds with personal liberties and just because such regulations would be arrived at through a democratic process doesn't mean that it's okay to take these liberties away.

The thing here is, you are making a value judgement. You're also making a value judgement when you say that racial segregation is bad. I happen to agree with that judgement, but it is still a judgement. Who is there to say that your values are correct and some other person's values are incorrect? Unless we have absolute truth, we cannot know these things.

You are confused about the point of democracy: it doesn't exist to protect what you consider to be liberties, it actually exists to avoid some of the problems we have with kings (violent regime changes), and to have government that roughly represents the will of the majority. It is hard living in a single place with a bunch of people: if you think about it, even living in a family is hard, and how many more people are there in a country? Democracy solves the problem better than anything else so far, but still if the majority decides to take away your personal liberties, they can because there are more of them than you. You may think it is 'wrong,' but once again that is a value judgement.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Indian so I can say this - Indians want porn, all classes and all backgrounds. Actually, it's only some of the uppermost class (class = money & background) that don't want or like it and it's social-suicide to 'rally' for porn or anti-censorship.

Notice how many 'Indian girl' porn vids have started coming up over the past 2-3 yrs? Yeah. And the summary already pointed out that Indian ppl (pun intended) search for sex more than any other country.

It's all very two-faced and about what you show rather than what you are. Pomp and Show are very big in India, so it's self-righteous to say you're against porn. Porn is not the only issue and India is not the only country.

On another note - seems Indian police don't know the difference between 'illegal to publish' and 'illegal to have'. If they raid you for say, pirated software, and find porn as well, that's gonna make it worse for you.