Google Inc’s recently launched China portal was inaccessible in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Beijing on Friday, although the US-hosted Google.cn site could still be reached from outside China.
Google’s launch of the portal has been the source of controversy due to the company’s decision to censor its search results in line with the wishes of the Chinese government. However, preliminary tests from Shanghai indicated that the service is inaccessible due to blocking by the government.
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Bad Behavior has blocked 5518 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Too bored to make a decent joke…
They cracked me up on the website, because it used to say when you clicked the link “Google never censors their search results, We believe in freedom”
Or something to that effect, then once they opened up in China
BAM
That sentence is gone.
What big business will do for cheap labor with a lot of consumers.
Hmmm. I entered “democracy china freedom repression falun gong” into google.cn, and got about five pages worth of hits. what exactly is it that they’re censoring?
That’s got to be the funniest article I’ve read all week.
Steve, the article says that the ENTIRE SEARCH ENGINE is inaccessible from Beijing and Shanghia. It was my understanding that the general bitching and moaning and picketing at Google’s doorstep was due to the site being ACCESSIBLE, but CENSORED in other cities. Like those in Minnesota. Or Hong Kong, or Guanzhou. Lotsa stuff making it through the censoring filter, if so.
Good cartoon. Take the “Damned if you don’t” door. It’s win-win.
I think it’s pretty ignorant to critisize Google for censorship. The question ought to be, is it better to have some results than no acessability to any results? They tell the searching that the results are filtered. There’s no secret there. Sometimes you have to work within another culture’s value system. Every place is not North America.
I value my freedom of speech greatly, and would fight for it. But societies evolve in their own time, so do you work with them, or do you simply ignore them because they do not conform to your rules? Feel free to critisize the Chinese government all you want for this, but the issue is theirs, not Google’s.
And as far as China still blocking the site, well, obviously the two would have to come to some sort of agreement and I would imagine there would be a few kinks to work out.
Being Chinese, living in Hong Kong and frequently travelling to China for business, I can say it is much more convenient to be able to use Google inside of China, it is by far the best search engine
However, I do not like the idea that the Chinese gov’t tries to censor so much. I see their reason for it, but I don’t likely agree with it. Sadly, I have to accept it
It is unlikely that I will be searching for falun gong, or free tibet when I am in China anyway, so if the choice is between no Google in China or a censored Google in China, I would have to choose a censored Google
Terrific Blog you have. Peace Out.
TreeFrog