Google censors Google for China

[Boerseun]

I reckon it should be available, unless the name and IP adress have veen explicitly defined as 'off-limits' on all routers in China.

I think the only way Google could 'censor' themselves are to produce a different set of search results for all enquiries from computers with IP adresses starting with whatever China's IP range start with.

To actually 'censor' it to any meaningful extent, would require a bunch of chinese secret police kinda guys systematically going through each and every web page on the internet, and marking them as either 'good' or 'bad'. And the Internet is growing much faster than these guys could play catchup, by the time they'll be done with it, 99% of the info they're censoring would be outdated. So obviously they'll be automating the thing playing with keywords, but computers have a notoriously bad time understanding context. So getting around that'll be a hitch.

I think the whole issue is a storm in a teacup, and probably just a marketing ploy used by Google to appease the Chinese. Haha - appease the Chinese... jeez, Louise... there's a crease on your knees... do bees get fleas? Have you seen my keys?

[InfiniteNow]

They censor it based on key words. The search results appear (I am pretty sure anyway), but then when you click the link it says, "Sorry, this page is unavailable" in it's equivalent Chinese...

[InfiniteNow]

So, is it worth the market share when google or M$ censor themselves to be a part of the China market, or will they turn out to be only part of a larger problem?

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

So, is it worth the market share when google or M$ censor themselves to be a part of the China market, or will they turn out to be only part of a larger problem?

This is actually a watershed issue:

The vaunted 'Freedoms' the West fights for, seems to be less important than market share and profit. This will seperate the men from the boys. Where do you stand on the issue?

Google, allowing itself to be cencored, says: "We will tolerate your cencoring us, the content being criticism towards your communist government, ignoring basic human rights, as long as we make bucks outta it."

Don't tell me 'Google' is committed to any sort of values. It seems as if they're pretty flexible, moral-wise.

[gribbon]

Just how often does this occur in other ways?... just how can such a huge population of people not find away around censorship of this nature?

I heard about this ages ago. It's said to be the most advanced internet filtering system on the planet, and has been nicknamed "the great Firewall of China". It filters out all controversial news, and other communist countries (and, of course, dictatorships) have set up/ are setting up these systems, even before China got this one. Vietnam has now got a filtering system that filters controversial news. North Korea has got (has had for ages) a filtering system for all media. Burma (Myanmar), and Eritrea, Libya, Syria, Cuba, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Equatorial Guinea, and Belarus all top the list of the most censored countries.

But North Korea and Syria are probably scariest of all. In North Korea, all radios are locked onto specific government frquencies, meaning that it is not just illegal to broadcast independent information, but technically impossible.

As for Syria, well, you just have to look at the kind of cartoons and billboards that are publicised, designed to evoke Anti-Semitic hate. (And promoted by the governement). I can't imagine I'll be allowed to link to a site whcih shows it, but if you go onto google and type in "Cartoon form the Syrian Arab Daily" and look on Wikipedia's articles on Anti-Semitism, you can see that there are a number of hateful cartoons that villify the Jewish population.

There are similair problems in Iran...though Iran does not top the list for the most censored countries....

This link shows which countries are most censored:

10 Most Censored Countries

[Fatstep]

Try it for yourselves.

Google

I googled 'tiananmen square' on google china and recieved 54,900 results.

I also googled 'tiananmen square' on google.com and recieved 1,270,000 results.
But, in retrospect I googled "the great Firewall of China" in both of them and got 10,000 more on google china.

[TheBigDog]

Originally Posted by Fatstep

Try it for yourselves.

Google

I googled 'tiananmen square' on google china and recieved 54,900 results.

I also googled 'tiananmen square' on google.com and recieved 1,270,000 results.
But, in retrospect I googled "the great Firewall of China" in both of them and got 10,000 more on google china.

It is not just the number of results, it is the content that comes back. There is no mention of the massacre on google.cn. Like it never happened.

Bill

[Fatstep]

I was just putting raw statistics together.

54,000:1,270,000

I was just saying the tremendous deficit in what our google shows with an event that 'never happened' according to their government.

[Zythryn]

My understanding is that google.com is not censored. However it is slow as molasses from China. Google.cn is speedy as it doesn't have to go through the great firewall of China, or something of that sort. However, Google has stripped results that the Chinese government doesn't like.

In any event, I have no issue with Google. China censors books, magazines, news and other media. I don't see why they wouldn't censor the internet.
I do have an issue with the Chinese government censoring the media, but not with the media companies that allow this (as it is currently the price of access to the Chinese market).

[Maiqidiliwu]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

Is Hypography available in China?

Bill

YES！! The site is available in China for I am a Chinese.
Yet I admit some pages can not be directly visited by URL for some reasons, such as wiki.
Searching for information I have to use a special browser designed for wiki.I don't know why.