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This Isn't the First Time Microsoft's Been Accused of Bing Censorship

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-can't-find-that-right-now dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft has censored Chinese-language results for Bing users in the United States as well as mainland China, according to an article in The Guardian. But this isn't the first time that Bing's run into significant controversy over the 'sanitizing' of Chinese-language search results outside of mainland China. In November 2009, Microsoft came under fire from free-speech advocates after New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof accused the company of 'craven kowtowing' to the mainland Chinese government by sanitizing its Chinese-language search results for users around the world. Just as with The Guardian and other news outlets this week, Microsoft insisted at the time that a 'bug' was to blame for the sanitized search results. 'The bug identified in the web image search was indeed fixed,' a Microsoft spokesperson told me in December 2009, after I presented them with a series of screenshots suggesting that the pro-Chinese-government filter remained in effect even after Kristof's column. 'Please also note that Microsoft 'recognize[s] that we can continue to improve our relevancy and comprehensiveness in these web results and we will.' Time will tell whether anything's different this time around."

8 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Bing? by niff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does anyone actually use it?

    1. Re:Bing? by Your.Master · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You searched for the manuals, but not the pages inside of them, so your counterargument is irrelevant.

      To be fair, I am not able to confirm or deny this about these manuals, but I've had similar problems with other technical documentation. If I were just looking for the main site I'd be fine, but the main site has 100 MB of data and bizarrely, every site in the world seems to be significantly worse with its inline search than either Google or Bing, even if they are theoretically powered by Google or Bing (not clear on why). The sybase one seems to roll its own internal search, which has awful presentation at least, and I didn't see an inline search on IBM either.

    2. Re:Bing? by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As much as I'd like to see MS die a slow painful corporate death due to its past greedy manipulation of "standards", we don't want a search monopoly either (in Google).

      I hate to say it, but I hope Bing stays alive in some form.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:Bing? by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To have an unbiased opinion, you really should have your search plugin randomized. Organically, you will notice one is better. Or maybe they have different strengths depending on subject.

      I don't know anyone who can speak to that honestly, and usually people who say one search is better are just better trained to use it vs. others.

      I know how to modify a Google search with "wrong" words to make it find what I'm after, so it works better. Bing is at least slightly different, so if my search didn't work I'm stuck. That means I'm better at Google, not that Google is better at me.

      And the more they tweak, the less of an edge I have. Some day I expect it will be a tie, especially when they track which results get clicked to determine which results to show. People don't know if it is worth clicking until after, not before the click.

    4. Re:Bing? by bberens · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I find Bing is quite adequate and sometimes better for random queries about facts for non-technical questions. As a general rule if I'm querying about something technical I will find the results faster on Google. I fully recognize that this may be learned behavior on my part.. that through experience I know exactly the key word combinations I need to feed google to get the results I'm looking for. Additionally, I find Bing Maps to be equally good for the user and much better as the developer. However, based on the other "stuff" in the Google ecosystem I can't be fussed to switch. I use Google maps on Android, therefore I use Google maps on the desktop. I use Google Docs because it's free (and cheap for my business). I buy all my music through the play store, I watch lots of youtube content, etc. Even if Bing search was better than Google search in every way, it would have to be better *enough* to get me to break outside of the Google ecosystem. It's definitely not.

      --
      Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
  2. Bing? by msobkow · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why would anyone use Bing in the first place? It's results are very poor and scattered compared to Google, even on technical term searches that it should be able to do much better at.

    Google stays ahead of the pack because they do a good job of search, not just because they're the most familiar name. Until Bing and others can do at least as well, I'll keep drinking the kool-aid.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  3. No, not just training by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't know anyone who can speak to that honestly, and usually people who say one search is better are just better trained to use it vs. others.

    Every now and then, I switch to Bing for a few weeks.

    I don't really want to use Google, I like to even things out and not give Google all of the valuable data about search and search results preferences.

    But, I can say with certainty, Google is simply better. At least a few times a day when I've switched to Bing as a default engine, I have to load Google to actually find what I want.

    It's true of programming (as you'd expect) but also true of photography, travel, and random other categories of things.

    At the moment, Google simply is noticeably better than anyone else. Which is why I switch back, because at some point you just need to use tools that work well for a while.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  4. A few facts ... by jamesl · · Score: 3, Informative

    There has been discussion over the past day or so that Bing results for Chinese language queries done outside of China are somehow intentionally edited or incomplete for political censoring purposes. We can emphatically confirm that they are not. The only time Bing adjusts search results is to comply with local law or for quality or safety reasons such as child abuse or malware. Bing search results outside of China are not subject to and are not modified in any way based on Chinese law.

    The error we referenced yesterday was one where we incorrectly showed a Chinese âremoval notificationâ(TM) message outside of China to users who have selected to view Bingâ(TM)s People Republic of China version. This message was displayed outside of China with this PRC version of Bing where results were suppressed for any reason (child abuse content, spam, etc.). Again, the search results outside of China were unaltered, and were not censored.

    We understand that with casual inspection, users may be concerned about censorship when seeing the âremoval notificationâ(TM) message intended for users in China and some difference in results between Chinese language and English language searches, but again we can confirm this is not the case. The wrong notification message is simply being displayed in limited circumstances, and we are in the process of fixing that issue.

    It has been noted that some popular sites such as Facebook are at times not shown in China. The fact that results from such sites are shown in Bing outside of China when using the Chinese language is an easy way for anyone to quickly reassure themselves that the results are not being censored.
    The reason results are different for Chinese and English queries however, is because searches in different languages are fundamentally different queries. A result may show lower in one language versus another for a variety of reasons, such as fewer users choosing that link in English results compared to users who searched in another language. As always, however, we are constantly evaluating how to deliver the best results to our customers around the world.

    - Stefan Weitz, Senior Director, Bing

    http://www.bing.com/blogs/site...

    And no, I don't work for Microsoft.