Google Censors Its Results in China
Google now works together with the Chinese government in censoring the web for Chinese users. According to Reuters, Google removes some of the search results available from Google.cn, Google's new foray into the Chinese market. Typically, anything connected to such things as the Tiananmen Massacre or Falun Gong is censored in China. And now, the Googleplex engineers deliver further building blocks to this Great Firewall of China, as it's called, thereby indirectly strengthening the politics of the Chinese government. AP writes:
"To obtain the Chinese license, Google agreed to omit Web content that the country's government finds objectionable. Google will base its censorship decisions on guidance provided by Chinese government officials."
CNN posts this statement straight from Google:
"In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn, in response to local law, regulation or policy. While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.
As an emerging economic powerhouse, China is developing rapidly, thanks in no small measure to the Internet. We firmly believe, with our culture of innovation, Google can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China."
Yes, Google argues their decision is the lesser of two evils... yes, China is taking off fast, and Google wants a piece of the huge market... and yes, there won't be more Google results when Google is banned completely itself. So, Google, if everything is shiny and happy in the Googleplex, please hand over the list of banned words for every country. Put them on a public server in the US, where freedom of speech prevails. And please, offer every other country in the world – never-mind its economic size or internet market share – an easy chance to ban their own search words too in Google. That would be fair, and algorithmically balanced, wouldn't it? This would allow every dictator, every repressive regime, and every government restricting human rights to work with you. And your market share would be growing even more. And, by your argument, you'd be making positive contributions at the same time. Words banned in China
Now, can we test this censorship? I can't test it from here, as possibly Google was sneaky enough to force-forward Google.cn to Google.com if you look for it outside of China (this doesn't happen when you enter e.g. Google.ch for Switzerland). I don't know for sure why this redirect happens, and it could have other reasons – I appreciate if some of the Chinese readers could give me their feedback. Here is a list by Xiao Qiang of censored words which circulated in 2004; whether or not the terms still are or were correct, I can't tell, but it might be a start (note these might need to be entered as Chinese, not English). Strong language ahead:
Bitch, shit, falun, sex, tianwang, cdjp, av, bignews, boxun, chinaliberal, chinamz, chinesenewsnet, cnd, creaders, dafa, dajiyuan, dfdz, dpp, falu, falundafa, flg, freechina, freedom, freenet, fuck, GCD, gcd, hongzhi, hrichina, huanet, hypermart, incest, jiangdongriji, lihongzhi, making, minghui, minghuinews, nacb, naive, nmis, paper, peacehall, playboy, renminbao, renmingbao, rfa, safeweb, simple, svdc, taip, tibetalk, triangle, triangleboy, UltraSurf, unixbox, ustibet, voa, voachinese, wangce, wstaiji, xinsheng, yuming, zhengjian, zhengjianwang, zhenshanren, zhuanfalun.
Other sources report the list of terms given to net companies who want to work in China are changing depending on current news. (Read: whenever the Chinese government screws up or disrespects the human rights of its citizens, the keyword connected to this even could end up on the blacklist.) The Wikipedia offers a list of banned terms as well.
When I was in China last year, I had to hand out my passport in the internet cafe. My passport number was carefully written down by the operator of the cafe. I assume this was to either actually connect my surfing to my passport number, or to just scare me by pretending this would happen now. Many websites, consequently, I couldn't access in China (at least not by taking the normal routes); while this blog for example was working, Nathan Weinberg's blog wasn't. All of Blogspot was censored as well, and many news sites too.