cheesemonster2005 Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 I recently wrote to Google complaining about their launch of Google.cn which I felt contravined their mission statement and showed them to be just the same as Yahoo and Microsoft who also censor Chinese information, report people to the Chinese authorities for talking about democracy and happily pass on search data. Unlike the other companies, who it's impossible to actually contact a human, I received a reply: Thank you for contacting us about Google.cn. We launched Google.cn for our users in the People's Republic of China who want to search and browse in Simplified Chinese. Making our site available to millions of users in their preferred language is a critical part of our mission to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. At first, Google.cn will serve Google Web Search, Google Image Search, Google Local, and Google News. Over time, we'll provide more Google services tailored for the China market. In launching Google.cn, we aim to balance three important values: users' interests, expanding access to information, and responding to local conditions in the markets we serve. Prior to this launch, many users in China were unable to access our site, and those who were able to access it often experienced persistent latency, delay, and time-out issues. With Google.cn, users can now access much more information, much more quickly. As you may know, to operate a web service in China, we must remove a small percentage of content from the search results available on Google.cn. The decision to do that was not an easy one for Google, in light of our mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." After a long process of study, analysis, and debate about the many technical, business, and ethical considerations, we concluded that the best available option was to provide our Chinese users with a search service that, while filtered, will be faster, more reliable, and, overall, more comprehensive than what's available today. Given the current filtering that's performed on the entire internet in China, Google.cn will provide no less information than would otherwise be available. In fact, we believe that our advanced, innovative search technologies will make a noticeable net increase in the amount of information accessible to our Chinese users. So, while removing this content may seem inconsistent with our mission, we believe that Google.cn will significantly improve the user experience and increase the overall accessibility of information in China. Our view is that providing as much information as possible is better than providing no information at all -- or providing such a heavily degraded user experience that it basically amounts to no information. Moreover, we think it's important to give users some meaningful disclosure whenever some results have been removed; in those cases, Google.cn clearly presents a message that says, "In response to local laws, regulations, or policies, one or more search results do not appear." It's also worth noting that Google.com will continue to be available, unfiltered, for all internet users worldwide, including those in China. China is developing rapidly, thanks in no small measure to the internet. We firmly believe that with Google's culture of innovation, we can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China. We appreciate your interest in Google and your taking the time to share your concerns with us. Regards, The Google Team At least I got a response even if it fails to address why they're willing to trade in China if their users won't get the same service as in other countries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 Fundamentally I think the Great Fire Wall of China is WRONG, totally wrong, but I thought this opinion piece by Bill Thompson was a measured response to Google's decision to site servers in China. Why Google in China makes sense However when you see the difference in the search results its sad to think how much information is being restricted. These images are the search results for Tiananmen on Google US and Google China directly compared. Check out A Picture Says 1000 Words About Google's Censorship In China for more information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesemonster2005 Posted January 30, 2006 Author Share Posted January 30, 2006 Equally try searching for Falun-Gong and check out the differences between the results on both versions. The Chinese version mostly contains links to hatred against the group. I'd like to see Google operate in China but they shouldn't give in to everything thrown at them like they also didn't do in the USA recently when they refused to hand-over data to the US Government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studmuffin Posted January 31, 2006 Share Posted January 31, 2006 can I ask a really stupid question, Can the chinese not just go to google.com or google.co.uk or does their internet access block that ? Apologies if im being stupid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ans Posted January 31, 2006 Share Posted January 31, 2006 When you go to Google.com, it automatically redirects you to Google.co.uk by matching your IP to their records and determining which country you're coming from. Never really looked into the Chinese firewall, but I'm assuming it's a relatively straightforward task to just tunnel over it via ssl to a remote proxy? Not outside the capabilities of anyone with enough help. Open to correction there. Interestingly, Google has only blocked the exact spelling of certain words. Try mispelling some of them and you'll see plenty of resource available through the search engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesemonster2005 Posted January 31, 2006 Author Share Posted January 31, 2006 Any new anonymous proxies that are created are blocked quite quickly I believe. Hopefully people like Chinaman can help spread the word in China and tell people to spell words incorrectly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilDDog Posted January 31, 2006 Share Posted January 31, 2006 Is it not better to start with some sort of internet access than none at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesemonster2005 Posted January 31, 2006 Author Share Posted January 31, 2006 I'd like to agree WilDDog but I think that once you start censoring internet access it'll just get worse not better. There aren't any examples of other countries following this course yet so it's hard to tell. I just wish that non-Chinese companies, who claim to be all for freedom of information, weren't doing the work of the Chinese government. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted January 31, 2006 Share Posted January 31, 2006 I'd like to agree WilDDog but I think that once you start censoring internet access it'll just get worse not better. There aren't any examples of other countries following this course yet so it's hard to tell. I just wish that non-Chinese companies, who claim to be all for freedom of information, weren't doing the work of the Chinese government. I don't think your right about that at all. Singapore has extensive censoring, as does Saudi. In the UK BT censors sites identified as holding child porn ... any user will get a site unavailable page, even if its up and functioning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ans Posted January 31, 2006 Share Posted January 31, 2006 Any new anonymous proxies that are created are blocked quite quickly I believe. Anyone with any smarts would arrange for a private one though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 I spent a couple of weeks in China just before Xmas 2000, and in some ways I thought as a nation they were in some ways ahead of us in terms of internet access, every reasonable sized city has a totally free local dialup access number, although it wasn't the fastest in the world (probably due to the filtering) I was able to access the BBC website & listen to the World Service & Radio 4 online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirdick Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 can I ask a really stupid question, Can the chinese not just go to google.com or google.co.uk or does their internet access block that ? Apologies if im being stupid It does say this in the letter from Google: It's also worth noting that Google.com will continue to be available, unfiltered, for all internet users worldwide, including those in China. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Static Posted February 1, 2006 Share Posted February 1, 2006 Someone earlier mentioned Saudi censorship. I was in Abu Dhabi two years ago and they also censor which sites you can visit based on their won criteria so it's not just "nasty red China" that censor the web. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesemonster2005 Posted February 1, 2006 Author Share Posted February 1, 2006 It does say this in the letter from Google: It's also worth noting that Google.com will continue to be available, unfiltered, for all internet users worldwide, including those in China. That's true but searches will take longer and be blocked by the great firewall of China. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinahand Posted February 2, 2006 Share Posted February 2, 2006 This topic is slightly getting interlinked with an earlier topic about the west's attitutes towards China and Human Rights. The US Congress has criticised Google, Microsoft and Yahoo for undermining free speech in China, and accused them abandoning their principles for profits. Lawmakers slam U.S. firms aiding China cyber-cops The post also has an interesting squew with US politicians saying this "harmed American interests by letting China's government define public opinion about the United States and U.S. policies." I think that is an interesting way of twisting a human rights argument around to one based on a country's self interests. Google etc say they are improving the Chinese peoples access to information; which I think is probably true. Chinese search engines have been improved via cooperation with these corporations. But the US Congress say they are providing equipment and expertise to control the internet and the information it provides to the Chinese people. Which is also undoubtedly true. Does the good they do, outweigh the bad? I worry that the fact that censorship is now hard wired into the internet will make it increasingly difficult to obtain unbiased content. Censorship and thought control is now the default in most Chinese forums, chat rooms and internet cafes. If you try to view, or type in content that the regime disapproves of, then the result will it being rejected by the software and you won't be able to. ... can you imagine what that would be like ... 90% of our posts would just be blocked ... automatically! This technology is becoming ubiquitious in China, and lots of other nasty regimes around the world are purchasing it and installing it to control their populations too ... as the article says there is "good reason to fear China may change the Internet more than the Internet will change China." That disturbs and worries me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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