New Google Search Engine Enables Censorship in China

The Internet has certainly pried some fingers from the tight grip that the Chinese communist regime has held on information and ideas since it took power. Yet Google is now promising to help them gain a new and tighter grip—while neutralizing Chinese people's ability to freely share ideas—with the filtering technology of its new search engine, Google.cn.

Searches for what the regime considers "sensitive" or "dangerous" topics, such as human rights, will no longer return the same results as they once did for Google users in China. Meanwhile, Google is struggling to live up to its mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," while meeting both the strict guidelines and vague policies of the Chinese communist government.

Previously, using the original Google.com website, Internet surfers in China could sometimes see search results for "Taiwan independence," "democracy," and "Falun Gong," but the hyperlinks to access those websites would be non-functional. At other times, certain searches might cause their Internet connection to temporarily shut down. This was frustrating to users, says Google, so their new website, launched last week, simply omits these search results altogether.

Those same keywords instead now yield more local content, primarily from .cn websites controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or pro-Party organizations. For example, if you were to search for one of the CCP's most feared keywords—"Falun Gong"—on Google.cn, you would see a list of websites hosted by China's state-run media that slander the group. Most everywhere else in the world, the same search would yield a much larger pool of search results, likely topped by Falun Gong's official website, information on genocide lawsuits against Chinese officials, and other independent reports related to the meditation practice.

"They [Google] create an apparent convenience for users, but then they put this censorship in, so I think it's even more deceiving to provide a service which works well most of the time, but in certain issues it will follow the [Communist] Party line," says Bill Xia, President of Dynamic Internet Technology, Inc., a U.S.-based company famous for products that provide Chinese users access to blocked websites.

Furthermore, Xia wonders if there might be legal ramifications if their censorship policy is found to have violated applicable U.S. law (since the Google.cn server is currently located in California). Said Xia, "I'm sure Google has hired some very capable lawyers."

It is likely that many people searching from within China will not realize their search results are being filtered. Although, to Google's credit, they do provide a message at the bottom, if applicable, that translates roughly as, "In order to follow local laws, some search results are not displayed."

Google's Senior Policy Counsel, Andrew McLaughlin, said in a statement, "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."

While the Google public relations team did grant this reporter an interview, they asked that the entire 30-minute conversation be off the record.

In a statement on Google's Blogspot, McLaughlin said, "We are convinced that the Internet, and its continued development through the efforts of companies like Google, will effectively contribute to openness and prosperity in the world. Our continued engagement with China is the best (perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there."

Google is not the first Internet company to make concessions to the Chinese government. Yahoo began modifying its Chinese search engine to provide censorship as early as 2002, says Dynamic Internet Technology's Bill Xia. Last year, Yahoo faced international criticism for providing personal information from the Yahoo email account of Chinese journalist and "political dissident" Shi Tao, leading to his arrest and imprisonment by Chinese authorities.

Google hopes to avoid this kind of messy issue, and has decided to hold off on opening up their new website to Gmail or Blogger, the latter of which is already inaccessible from within China's "Great Firewall."

In fact, Chinese authorities rely heavily on self-censorship by Western companies doing business in China, because their estimated 30,000 Internet police are scarcely able to monitor all the activity of China's 100 million Internet users. Not only search engines like Yahoo and MSN have censored themselves, but many international news media with offices in China dare not report on "sensitive" issues, for fear of having their websites permanently blocked off.

Many of these large American corporations make the argument that having a limited presence in China is better than no presence at all, and thus make major concessions to the Communist Party.

It remains to be seen what impact companies like Google will have by being in China in their modified form, and whether their presence will indeed be a catalyst for greater freedom and reform. But one thing's for sure: If you want to discuss this issue in China, don't bother trying to read blogs... and don't even think about viewing this article on the Epoch Times website.