Google to block some searches in China

[Malodorous]

@John Mace

Are the Chinese people better off, wrt freedom, with the censored Google than they would w/o any Google? I think they are. Good luck to the Chinese gov’t in trying to censor the internet. There have to be holes the size of houses in their nets somewhere.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think Googles in the right here. If they (and other search companies) didn’t do this, then the Chinese gov’t (or a native company they control more closely) would probably create a similar service, since they seem commited to giving their people access to the internet. I mean, I can’t imagine it’s that hard to come up with a decent search engine, but thier version will no doubt be written from the ground up with censorship in mind, while Google et al. will probably be far less enthusiastic about kludging on some censorship onto their already existing service.

Also in my last couple posts I refered to Google as a web browser provider. :smack: Pretend that didn’t happen and I said search engine instead.

[Revtim]

@John Mace

Are the Chinese people better off, wrt freedom, with the censored Google than they would w/o any Google? I think they are.

Everybody seems to be postulating that, but not supporting it. I’m ignorant of what the situation is like in China now, what benefit will this hobbled Google bring that they don’t have now? Are they completely cut off from search engines altogether? What will it bring wrt freedom that they do not have now?

[BrainGlutton]

@Revtim

Everybody seems to be postulating that, but not supporting it. I’m ignorant of what the situation is like in China now, what benefit will this hobbled Google bring that they don’t have now? Are they completely cut off from search engines altogether? What will it bring wrt freedom that they do not have now?

And will they have access to dwarf porn?

[fortytwo]

@Revtim

Are they completely cut off from search engines altogether? What will it bring wrt freedom that they do not have now?

According to the Beeb they do have a search engine facility Baidu.com but it seems that Google are losing out to them.

[ISiddiqui]

I find it amusing that this provoked such reaction but the fact that Google self-censors itself in Germany to deal with their hate speech laws doesn’t really matter to anyone.

[Revtim]

@Vetch

According to the Beeb they do have a search engine facility Baidu.com but it seems that Google are losing out to them.

Thanks for the link, it also says Yahoo and Microsoft operate there under censorship.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

@Revtim

Hopefully we’ll be able to access it (www.google.cn?) and see how it works ourselves. Well, those of us who know Chinese, which excludes me.

You can type in a word and hit the second hyperlink over the search box (images) and see what comes up. Try some hot button words like “protest” or “tiananmen square” and see what comes up (68 images). Then, go to regular Google and do the same thing (14,000 images). Notice the distinct absence of army tanks in the Chinese search results.

[Revtim]

@ISiddiqui

I find it amusing that this provoked such reaction but the fact that Google self-censors itself in Germany to deal with their hate speech laws doesn’t really matter to anyone.

Maybe some people become more upset about political and freedom information being censored than hate speech being censored.

Or maybe even a lot of them are like me, and didn’t know Google censored anything in Germany. FWIW, I’m against hate speech censorship as well, but IMHO censoring “why all niggers should die” isn’t as evil as censoring opposing political thought.

[electrozion]

@ISiddiqui

I find it amusing that this provoked such reaction but the fact that Google self-censors itself in Germany to deal with their hate speech laws doesn’t really matter to anyone.

Well, living in Germany it certainly matters to me.
I can still use international (American) Google if I don’t want “censored” search results. The Chinese can’t as far as I know.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

Quite a few pages in English do come up when searching at google.cn. I tried searching for “benzene Songhua river” and got numerous results. The first few hits look like “Chinese Intranet” sites (caijing.hexun.com/english/…) it will be interesting to read through them and see what kind of spin exists, if any.

[Revtim]

@Patty O'Furniture

You can type in a word and hit the second hyperlink over the search box (images) and see what comes up. Try some hot button words like “protest” or “tiananmen square” and see what comes up (68 images). Then, go to regular Google and do the same thing (14,000 images). Notice the distinct absence of army tanks in the Chinese search results.

Good thinking! Yes, that’s a very noticable difference.

[sailorspook]

So having monitored access to restricted censored material is somehow some sort of intrinsic metaphysical good? Being able to get a phone number to a hotel in Shanghai or mapquest directions to a new restaurant will stir those inborn pangs of democratic impulse and shake free the opressed masses? Really? This, along with Yahoo diming out a journalist stinks of guilty corporate temporizing after the fact. They neglect to notice that today’s savvy Evil Overlord, having the example of Solidarity, can welcome technology and consumer goods as instruments of control.

The absolute ambition of the ruling party runs a little further than preventing some Uighur separatist from publishing a call to jihad online. The New York times today (“China Shuts Down Influential Newspaper in Crackdown on Media” [I’m posting from a Navy network, so I can’t paste a link.]) cites a case of criticizing the Qing Dinasty as the cause of repressive action. The Chinese have shown that they’re willing to change ideology and behavior in a second if it will benefit political control or national prosperity. Why shouldn’t they seize upon any modern innovation to keep a moderately wealthy and passive populace? In fact, encouraging access to acceptable information makes it more likely that citizens will accept it as the only extant information.

[/rant]

[drewbert]

What happens when a web surfer in China tries to access a censored site (regardless of Google)? What comes up? A 404 message? A patriotic picture and a redirect to a Chinese gov’t site?

[Chronos]

If operating restricted in China is kowtowing to censorship, then surely, so too is not operating there at all. I can’t see anything to fault Google for, here.

There have to be holes the size of houses in their nets somewhere.

And I think I just found one. A hole put there by Google.cn, in fact. Use the translation service on www.google.cn to translate the page www.google.com. Presto, you now have access to the American Google.

[Richard_Parker]

How does this sort of censorship work (technically speaking)?

When I was in China last, I was able to use American search engines (including Google). Certain search terms got re-directed to the site reminding one to follow the law, but it was easy enough to circumvent.

Is it a matter of Chinese ISPs restricting certain addresses, or what?

[thirdname]

@Revtim

I guess they might need to change it from “Don’t do evil” to “Don’t do evil, unless not doing evil prevents us from entering valuable enough markets.”

Censorship is evil, and it is immoral to support it. If any company on Earth could afford to say “fuck you” to a market over a moral issue, I would have thought it was Google. Guess I was wrong. This is big black on them in my view.

I was under the impression that as a publically traded company they don’t really have a choice and they have to go after the profits.

[Revtim]

@riker1384

I was under the impression that as a publically traded company they don’t really have a choice and they have to go after the profits.

I’m no financial expert, but I don’t think just because a company is publicly traded they must go after every dime possible, damn the ethical ramifications.

[puggyfish]

@JThunder

As I understand, the Chinese government currently blocks Google altogether. I’m sure that Google is complying because otherwise, the poor folks in the PRoC would have no Google access whatsoever.

Having been in China recently, this is not true. I was there before Google’s announcement and Google.com was fully accessible from a hostel, school and Internet cafe in Beijing and from a hostel in Xi’an. However, many of the links it returned were blocked, as was the Google cache.

Google’s recent decision seems to be about operate a Chinese language search engine accessible from within China - a greater risk for the Chinese government than an English language one.

[Polerius]

First, off, for those espousing the “flashlight is better than total darkness” idea, I would say that, since the Chinese already have Baidu, MSN, Yahoo et al, I don’t think Google is a shining beacon that will bring the country out of darkness and help bring democracy to the people.

Google is doing it for their own profit. Not much extra benefit will go to the Chinese.

Of course it should come as no surprise that a corporation wants to make a profit. Corporations are amoral (neither moral nor immoral) entities and will do whatever is within the law to increase their profit.

However:
a) Google should drop the stupid and insincere “Don’t do evil” motto, since they are just another amoral corporation.

b) Even though corporations are amoral, that doesn’t stop us from being able to complain about behavior we don’t like.
And this is not only about Google. For example, a couple years ago I think it came out that CNN was allowed to report from inside Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as long as they did not report any of the bad things that were going on. I think that was despicable too.

Finally, for those bringing up the issue of obeying the laws of the country you are doing business in, and the fact that there is censorship of child pornography in the US and Nazi material in Germany, I think the issue is a matter of degree.

There is a range of things that we wouldn’t mind complying with, if they were the law of the land, and then there are certain things that we consider so bad that we would rather not do business with that country.

Each of us just has a different threshold. For example, if you were going to open a search engine and were required by local law to ban one of the following:
(1) Ban child pornography (US)
(2) Ban certain forms of hate speech (Present-day Germany)
(3) Ban any criticism of the Government and mention of democracy and the imprisonment of political dissidents (China)
(4) Ban any info on the concetration camps and the murder of millions of Jews (1940’s Germany)

where would your threshold be?

Mine would be around (2). That is, I don’t mind doing business in a country that requires (1), and I might end up doing business in a country that requires (2), depending on the specifics. However, I would not do business with any country that required (3) or (4).

I suspect most people, even people who would do business in a type-(3) country, would not do business in a type-(4) country. The reason is that even though we all are enamoured by the mighty dollar and the profits that can be made, we still have limits on what we would do for those profits.

[DanBlather]

I started out supporting Google, but have changed my mind. The fact that Google would not do business in China would have spread created lots of questions. The Chinese would feel cheated and deprived and ways around it (like using proxy servers) would have spread quickly.