Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:03, 30 May 2006

Google Censorship refers to the purposeful practice adopted by the Google search engine to suppress lists of web sites from its search results based on its political views and the lobbying effort of pressure groups.

Google has also been accused of manipulating search results to favor its own coporate ambitions and interests. Some critics have suggested that Google may be involved in yet more undected censorship of search results that have not yet surfaced.

Censorship in Germany and France

On October 22, 2002, a study was reported that approximately 113 internet sites had been quietly censored by the German and French sections of Google. The censorship mainly affects White Nationalistic, Nazi, anti-semitic, and radical Islamic websites. Because Google is a multinational corporation, with offices throughout the world in over a dozen countries, it must obey the varying laws of each country. According to American law, any copyright owner can require material to be removed via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, whereas under French and German law, for example, hate speech and Holocaust denial are illegal. Google complies with these laws by banning keyword searches related to these terms. Google's Terms of Service allow it to comply with the laws of any one country, providing information that was originated (or that Google stores) in another country.

Censorship of search results critical of the Chinese government

Some controversy has occurred over Google's decision to adhere to the Internet censorship policy in mainland China, colloquially known as, "The Great Firewall of China". Google.cn search results are filtered so as not to bring up any results concerning the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, sites supporting the independence movements of Tibet and Taiwan or the Falun Gong movement, and other information perceived to be harmful to the People's Republic of China. This is interpreted by some activists as against the, "Don't Be Evil," corporate philosophy of Google.

The People's Republic of China (PRC), whose human rights record has been widely criticized by the international community, has in the past restricted citizen access to popular search engines such as Altavista, Yahoo!, and Google. The mirror search site elgooG has been used by users in mainland China to get around blocked content. This complete ban has since been lifted. However, the government remains active in filtering Internet content. In October 2005, Blogger and access to the Google Cache were made available in mainland China; however, in December 2005, some mainland Chinese users of Blogger reported that their access to the site was once again restricted.

In January 2006, Google affirmed its intent to filter certain keywords given to it by the government of the PRC. The restrictions will apply to thousands of terms and websites. The censored content will appear on a website called google.cn. Google was heavily criticized for the move, yet it claims it is necessary to keep the PRC government from blocking Google entirely. The company does not plan to give the government information about the users who search for blocked content, and will inform users of restricted categories. Google states on its help pages that it does not censor content, but it does block pages as demanded for in certain jurisdictions, such as DMCA requests in the United States.

Most Chinese Internet users did not express much concern about Google's choice, with one blogger saying that censorship is a fact of life in China and Google could not have done any better. Also, Google offers to Chinese internet users a choice that protects their privacy better than existing search engines available in China, since Google keeps confidential records of its users outside China, unlike domestic search engines that could be compelled by the government to hand over information at any time. The following message appears at the bottom of the Google search result page whenever results are blocked: "In accordance with local laws and policies, some of the results have not been displayed." Currently, Google is the only major China-based search engine to explicitly inform the user when search results are blocked or hidden.

On February 5, 2006, google.com was banned by China Telecom in an attempt to force googlers toward the google.cn domain, however the ban was lifted shortly thereafter.

On February 14, 2006, some users on the internet participated in a, "mass breakup with google" whereby users agreed to boycott Google on Valentine's day to show their disapproval of the Google Chinese policy.

A simple test can be performed to quantify the number of pages which google.cn censors as compared to those listed in google.com. Search using this string to compare the approximate dot-com index differential: site:.com Other top level domains can be compared similarly (.org, .cn, etc.). Searches for essential html tags, such as <html> returns the difference for all domains.

Censorship of search results critical of Radical Islam

In early 2006 Google removed search results related to the news site New Media Journal from its News search engine because Muslims complained about some articles that was critical of Islam.

Examples of sites censored by Google:

• MichNews
• The New Media Journal
• The Jawa Report

Examples of pages censored by google:

• How Has Islam Enriched Your Life?
• Islam Is as Islam Does
• Islam: A False Religion

Censorship of search results critical of Scientology

In 2002 Google was found to have censored websites that provided critical information about Scientology. ,

Further reading

• Google Censorship - How It Works

• Localized Google search result exclusions

• Report examines a newspaper-led campaign to have a site removed from both its host and the Google search index

References

1. Zittrain, Jonathan; Edelman, Benjamin. "Localized Google search result exclusions: Statement of issues and call for data." Harvard Law School: Berkman Center for Internet & Society. October 22, 2002.
2. Liedtke, Michael. "Google Agrees to Censor Results in China." Breitbart.com. January 24, 2006.
3. "Google move 'black day' for China." BBC News. January 25, 2006.
4. "Chinese bloggers debate Google." BBC News. January 26, 2006.
5. DivineOmega. "Google gives in to China." personal blog entry. January 27, 2006.
6. Gunther, Marc. Tech execs get grilled over China business: Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco, facing attack in Congress, say they're doing more good than harm in China." CNN. February 16, 2006.
7. Fung, Amanda. "Midtown protest targets Google's China site." New York Business. February 14, 2006.
8. NO LUV 4 Google Website.

Eksternal links

• The Anti-Google search engine index: List of alternate and uncensored search engines

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