Google, Bastion of Oppression

bulldogg

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13 April, 2006
CHINA
Google and Beijing together to turn screws on open information
Communist Party propaganda department bans use of foreign news services or channels as sources. Google says it had no choice but to accept restrictions, including censorship.

Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) – China is putting the screws on the media. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television today told local stations not to use international news material from foreign news services or channels a day after Google announced it was accepting government censorship and reset its search engine to intercept unwelcome words such as ‘democracy’, ‘Tibet’ or ‘Taiwan’.

In a notice on its website, the mainland's media watchdog reminded regional television stations to restrict their coverage of overseas events to reports by China Central Television and China Radio International, which are controlled by the Communist Party propaganda department. It also warned news broadcasters to “strengthen their political sensitivity” to “ensure a healthy and orderly development of international TV news reporting and maintain a correct propaganda direction”.

Google yesterday took the wraps off its Chinese service named ‘Gu Ge’ or ‘Valley Song’ answering its critics by saying that it had no choice but to accept restrictions if it wanted to have access to China's internet market.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that the search engine will exclude words like Taiwan, Tibet or democracy considered too sensitive for Beijing.

“I think it's arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning to operate and tell that country how to operate,” Mr Schmidt noted. Instead, “it is important to operate Google's worldwide service based on local law and local custom,” adding that censorship was a more widespread phenomenon.

None the less, he said he did not “know where (Chinese) revenue growth will be, but it will obviously be large”.

Currently, China constitutes the second largest internet market in the world with 111 million users—expected to become 126 million by the end of the year—and should overtake the United States in two years time.
What ever happened to the US Congressional action on this??

How many of you which are so quick to criticise China's censorship are still using google and thus supporting the very thing you so vocally denounce??
 
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060131-144050

Google, Microsoft Say No To US Congressional Briefing On Chinese Censorship

Google won't talk to Congress about China from the San Francisco Chronicle covers Google declining an invitation to appear before the US Congressional Rights Caucus to discuss Chinese censorship. Microsoft's not going either; Yahoo's still debating. A different hearing in congress also scheduled for later this month. So far, Yahoo is the only company that's agreed to attend that one.

No wonder Hu Jintao's first stop on this trip is dinner with his friend Bill Gates. :roll:

Have we entered a time in our history during which money and big business can work in open opposition to the demands and laws of the very countries they are resident?

See you on Lycos, Marine.

Other options which are not joining the censorship bandwagon are...

www.askjeeves.com

www.teoma.com

www.altavista.com

www.gigablast.com

www.looksmart.com
 
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Seriously. Let's try another search engine. Which one is better in your opinion? I'd go for Altavista which I used to use before Google but tell me something about this Lycos.
 
I just checked out on the web and apparently lycos is powered by google but altavista is not. If enough people vote with their feet we can make a difference just like small communities have done with Wal-Mart in the last few years.
 
Yeah I'm not a boycott-lover but it costs nothing to change engine. I'd go for Altavista. Is it two of us already?

P.S. Going to start a new thread on this.
 
I cannot tell you just how sick this makes me. American companies actively cooperating with the Chinese government in censorship. It should be a crime if it is not already. To me it is no different than the DuPont and Rockefeller's doing business with Nazi Germany in the 1930's and 40's.
 
http://committeetoprotectbloggers.civiblog.org/

Apparently so but it in no way excuses the behaviour of these American companies. I say its time to send the Russian immigrant who started Google BACK to Russia since he seems more ideologically suited for his former country than his adopted one.

People are losing their freedom and their lives as a DIRECT result of their actions and they are NOT being held accountable.
 
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tomtom22 said:
Money talks.

Apparently stocks shares at $350 per isn't enough for these greedy sons of..... Now they've gone against their own slogan and sold their dignity and self-respect...
 
every country has its own law. in china, you may not have the freedom of disrepecting the elder or teacher or president. or breaking law, disrupt social harmony and stability. but you enjoy greater freedom in some ohter area as long as you were abide by law.
 
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bulldogg said:
http://committeetoprotectbloggers.civiblog.org/

Apparently so but it in no way excuses the behaviour of these American companies. I say its time to send the Russian immigrant who started Google BACK to Russia since he seems more ideologically suited for his former country than his adopted one.

People are losing their freedom and their lives as a DIRECT result of their actions and they are NOT being held accountable.

I agree, i don't know how these people could sleep at night.:-(
 
I agree, its sickening. Though I find the fact that Yahoo discloses information about journalists much worse than the google thing. I mean, they don't make censorship any worse than it already is, they're just making business in such an environment. Not very noble though.

Anyway, it will always be possible for the computer-literate to circumvent such mechanisms. People who publish their opinion just need to take security measures so they don't depend on the goodwill of those folks at google or yahoo.

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." John Gilmore (EFF)
 
achinese said:
every country has its own law. in china, you may not have the freedom of disrepecting the elder or teacher or president. or breaking law, disrupt social harmony and stability. but you enjoy greater freedom in some ohter area as long as you were abide by law.

as i have said earlier, china is confucious socioty who put more emphasis on social harmony instead of wild freedom like anarchy. even in america, someone get arrest for only blaming bush or anti-war compaign,in this sense, american is like china. in economic sense, china still enjoy greater freedom than other.
 
achinese said:
as i have said earlier, china is confucious socioty who put more emphasis on social harmony instead of wild freedom like anarchy. even in america, someone get arrest for only blaming bush or anti-war compaign,in this sense, american is like china. in economic sense, china still enjoy greater freedom than other.

Anarchy in the US?!! When did this happen?! i don't remember martial law being declared on any city or town in the US for the last 100+ years. I don't recall any event in US history where the Army was sent in to massacre innocent students protesting peacefully... As for anti-Bush/government/war statements/campaigns, heheh even the late night talk show hosts do that and yet I still see them in the air...
 
achinese said:
as i have said earlier, china is confucious socioty who put more emphasis on social harmony instead of wild freedom like anarchy.
Ok, but would you say that it is the confucian way to put people in jail because they pointed out problems in their homeland? Do you think forbidding people to speak their minds is a good way to propagate harmony?

I would think in a harmonious, confucian society the state doesn't rely heavily on forbiddance and punishment. I read the following in an article about confucianism: Confucius believed formal laws were only used to oppress people by régimes, while moral principles depended on each person's free will. The use of penal law, reasoned Confucius, would lead to people avoiding punishments and lacking a sense of shame. Leadership with virtue and morality, practised and preached, would have the opposite outcome, leaving people get on with life in an orderly fashion and staying within what is accepted as moral and decent.
 
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