Posted on 02/15/2007 12:03:32 PM PST by backbencher
Internet search engine company Google has self-censored a graphic produced by three MIT researchers showing the trajectory and impact of China’s Jan. 11 anti-satellite test.
Three MIT researchers produced a color graphic [ZOOM] showing the flight path of the missile that destroyed an orbiting Chinese weather satellite by ramming it with a non-explosive warhead, officials said. MIT.edu Google excluded the graphic in an apparent attempt to avoid angering Chinese officials, U.S. officials said.
Google has been criticized in the past for appeasing the Chinese government in its search engine postings.
According to officials, three MIT researchers, Geoff Forden, Ted Postol and Subrata Ghoshroy, produced a color graphic showing the flight path of the missile that destroyed an orbiting Chinese weather satellite by ramming it with a non-explosive warhead.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldtribune.com ...
Google's old informal corporate motto is "Don't be evil."
Google's new formal corporate motto is "Obey China."
Whether google did it on their own as a favor for their business associates in Red China or not, it's just a matter of when not if Red China demands censoring here.
YaHu! has sold out too, I believe.
If they want censoring here, Google executives should laugh in their faces.
[China cannot police every website and every comment. Even if they could they can't arrest every person. The truth does filter in.]
I don't have a problem with China. It's google who is censoring the information... China only "requested" the truth be kept away from the people.
The owners/shareholders won't be arrested by China. So, the only reason for Google to oppress the Chinese people is to gain market share in China.
> it's just a matter of when not if Red China demands
> censoring here.
There is no reason that google (or any other multinational company) would ever consider complying with such a request.
I was trying to get a link to a story (which I had seen in the Austin paper) about Rick Perry and another shady deal he was involved in. I found the link on Google and clicked on it. the page wouldn't completely load so, I went back to the Google page and it was gone. Maybe China is not the only entity that has power over Google.
Fat chance. google could lose their business in Red China sooner rather than later.
Sure there is. The corporation would no longer be welcomed in Red China -- besides they've already complied vis-a-vis their operations in China and they've independently censored here; to wit, they've admitted concealing from view certain web sites dealing in gun talk for example.
It's no big deal for them, it's business and to some extent ideology.
>> Google = China's b**ch
Google knows who you are. Does that mean China knows who you are too?
> to wit, they've admitted concealing from view certain web
> sites dealing in gun talk for example.
I've seen that they've admitted not taking ads from gun dealers, but not that they've censored search results in the US in this fashion.
Can you direct me to more information on when, where and to whom this happened?
What a mess! That is going to take decades before it falls to earth I think.
I have a problem with China they are communist. If China wanted Google to shut down a web page that means information is getting into China. There are two Internets in China the old is very unstable and unregulated. China controls the state funded system and provides faster speeds. A condition is certain keywords in searches are blocked or used to produce misinformation. Take Tienanmen square for example that doesn't come up.
What people don't take into account is how easy these keywords can be bypassed. Example Demokracy instead of Democracy. China cannot police every chat room and every blog on the net. So Google shuts down one Blog site. The fact that China has to have Google shut it down means China does not have direct control of the situation. Sometimes it helps to look at the long term impact.
Actually I did not specify search results, though I can see how one could surmise that that was what I may have meant to include along with ads.
Let me start by saying that google is a private business. It's their call.
What you acknowledge is certainly censorship and "conceals from view" Internet specific ads -- many dealers sites feature "gun talk" -- and I believe that mail-order gun sales are illegal. So what's the harm in advertising them up there at the top of search results?
But I see the importance of addressing "search results." They are even more important than rejecting ads.
And today the old media's worst form of bias is the spike (a form of hiding search results) but we have the new media to find the "hidden" old media stories.
"Interesting debate on search engine censorship," Posted 10/26/2006 on
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/security/dmorrill/archives/interesting-debate-on-search-engine-censorship-12539
Yes, it ain't the NY Times, et. al and it ain't ABCNNBCBS but it has a very good discussion and links including one to a huge list of "take down" requests.
It's about censorship, in that material is not fully represented in search engines.
Fine with me -- if the search engines admit it just as the old media should admit a liberal bias and that would make me happy.
Because just as there used to be a variety of newspapers in each city, then virtual liberal control of the media, and now there are the new media, there is room for "new media" search engines.
I again say that that is google's call. They are a business.
Doesn't China now hold about a USD trillion of US Treasury debt?
I assume that gives them a lot of clout.
But I think that google, yaHu!, et. al would yield regardless. They have an overwhelming desire to profit from those 1.3 billion or so citizens of Red China. The Dummies.
They really, really think that with several hundred million poor peasants, tens of millions of unemployed, tens of millions of "workers" draining resources in wasteful state owned enterprises, huge income disparities, the appearance of massive foreign influence -- nearly all the conditions that existed in Chiang Kai Shek's day that brought Mao to power -- does anyone really, really think that the Chi-coms are going to let foreigners stay longer than is necessary to bleed the useful idiots of their intellectual property?
Besides, screw 'em. The majority of us have been through periods of recession, stagnation, inflation, stagflation -- what the hell can they do to us that's new?
To wit, "Google will provide its world class search engine technology to China Mobile to enable 'mobile search' . . . ."
http://www.google.com/press/annc/mobile_zh.html
I'd heard that democraticunderground.com is on google news but not freerepublic.com. That appears to be corect, when I search for "Bush" on google news I get two democraticunderground.com hits and zero for freerepublic.com
(I used the advance search for each of the two)
Have you seen the language on DU threads? Though the news did not link directly to a thread.
That's prima facie evidence, but I did not find a way to see the list of the 4,500 news sources.
Google will take down the Chinese Communist Party just as surely as the Gutenberg Press prevented the rise of the Nazi Party.
Uhh, oops. Nevermind.
In the long run, I suspect you are right, but saying that China can't control the internet now is like saying that the Soviet Union is doomed to failure in 1920, or Hitler won't be influential in 1930. The truth is that in the present, China is telling the internet, "dance, bitch, dance!!!"
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