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Comments: 106 +- Your Rights Online: Google Suggest Disabled In China Due To Porn on Sunday June 21 2009, @03:45PM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Sunday June 21 2009, @03:45PM
from the selective-harassment dept.
from the selective-harassment dept.
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I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Chinese government has asked Google to disable Google Suggest because it has been suggesting that people search for pornography based on its analysis of the most popular search terms in China. This comes on the heels of a fake CCTV interview being used to support the government requirement that all new computers ship with the 'Green Dam' Internet censoring program, which is still in force, despite reports to the contrary." The story on the chinaSMACK site demonstrates that Chinese search engine Baidu features a comparable search-suggestion function, which similarly recommends adult-themed sites, but that the government has not attacked Baidu over the issue of porn.
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Submission: Google Suggest Disabled in China Due to Porn by Anonymous Coward
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Why Is Chinese Censorship News On Slashdot??!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's face it, the Chinese government censors and blocks whatever they feel like, the Chinese people know and accept it.
So why does slashdot post these stories anytime XXX blocks/censors anything in China? Let's face it, it's not news anymore. It doesn't affect my rights online or anybody else's outside China.
Re:Why Is Chinese Censorship News On Slashdot??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
No you are wrong. They can't do the same thing over here. We have something called the rule of law here. We have a 1st Amendment. The stuff that happens in China can't even be remotely applied to the United States. Please stop this slippery slope nonsense.
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> Have you Americans already started to pretend the patriot act doesn't exist?
For all intents and purposes, it doesn't.
It certainly does not affect anyone I know and deal with. There is no problem finding port or violent content or gambling or illegal drugs on the web.
For all the hue and cry, no one has been inconvenienced by the Patriot Act. We don't like it, and it will eventually be changed.
But it is nothing at all like what is happening in China no matter how loudly you harangue us with your silly
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It certainly does not affect anyone I know and deal with.
Prove it.
Re:Why Is Chinese Censorship News On Slashdot??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes we have the rule of law.
We have due process, yet we know of people held by our government for years without trial.
We have the Geneva conventions, yet we know people have been recently tortured by our government.
We have the right against unlawful search, yet we know the government has been listening on our domestic correspondence without permission from the courts.
We have the right against unlawful seizure, yet the government regularly seizes items (such as cash and property) it considers unlawful and without process.
Congress alone can declare war, yet we have armies engaged without war being declared.
What's one more stupid internet filter in light of all this?
If you don't act to maintain your rule of law, you will lose it.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
What's one more stupid internet filter in light of all this?
You forgot a really important one.
The customs area at entry points to the US is now declared to be "in no country". Therefore customs officers can inspect, seize and retain for an unlimited time (eighteen months and counting, in at least one case) any object they care to.
You would think that "in no country", your rights as an American citizen would follow you. Not so. Some who are familiar with the New Testament may remember that the apostle Paul
Re:Why Is Chinese Censorship News On Slashdot??!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Due process only applies to citizens.
False. The 14th Amendment reads, in part, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Any person, not any citizen; the writers knew the difference.
Parent
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Oh really? [slashdot.org]
Surely your slippery slope [slashdot.org] nonsense could never be considered here. [slashdot.org]
Especially nothing involving '...an "Advanced Electronic Surveillance" project, and $97.6 million to establish the Biometric Technology Center.' [slashdot.org], or maybe the FBI's "Everything Bucket" [slashdot.org], not to mention the FBI's spy trojan [slashdot.org], or maybe the 'FBI and States Vastly Expand DNA Collection, Databases' [slashdot.org], and lest we forget, the warrantless wiretapping [slashdot.org], PATRIOT Act, and others.
Please stop this slippery slope nonsense.
We will do so when the gov't. stops greasing the slope, spraying
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To hell with China.
Unfortunately I suspect that the billions of people in Chine will be too big a market for a company like Google to pass up. A non-profit company like wikipedia may refuse to censor [slashdot.org] but I doubt you will get a similar response from a for-profit business. That big a market is too big to pass up.
Baidu benefits from being Chinese (Score:1, Insightful)
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Perhaps I am completely wrong but it seems like China is giving preferential treatment to the Chinese owned competitor to Google, Baidu, by not taking it to task for the same offending practices, even though it holds a lead over Google in searches in China. I certainly would not put it above China to be using government intervention to give favor to Chinese company.
Holy shit, a country is actually protecting itself from the US! Now, if only the EU had a search engine to push...
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Perhaps I am completely wrong but it seems like China is giving preferential treatment to the Chinese owned competitor to Google, Baidu, by not taking it to task for the same offending practices
Do you know for a fact the Baidu search has the same characteristics that Google is being brought to task for? Maybe not...
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This is likely a part of the issue.
China has a history/tradition of being isolationist and xenophobic of other cultures and societies, with an a
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"ship with" or "must use"? (Score:2)
All the reports about Green Dam I have read have said that computers only need to "ship with" it. In fact, some reports said that it was OK for manufacturers to just stick a CD in the package. That doesn't mean people are required to use it, merely that they have the software available if they want to.
So, what's the deal? Are PCs merely required to "ship with" the software, or are they required to install it? Are are people required to use it?
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miibeian.gov.cn (Score:3, Funny)
That site must have some freaking amazing pagerank, since every single site hosted in China is required to register and link to it.
Not news (Score:1, Informative)
It isn't a big news and it is not new [cnet.com] for sure.
Caucasian porn? (Score:2, Funny)
So, in China, do they look for caucasian porn?
The cutest Oklahoma schoolgirls! Now with all their teeth!*
*schoolgirls is 18 in America, so tough, you caucasian fetishists you.
Unusual circuitry (Score:2)
Protectionism (Score:5, Informative)
China is just doing this to give its own search engines a competitive edge. It does this with the film industry by only allowing 10 foreign films to be shown in China per year.
Re:Protectionism (Score:4, Interesting)
That's generally correct. And we can't do anything about it because China is our largest bank that gives us the biggest credit lines. They are now too big to fail as well. Before they became our Big Bank; they were our biggest allied fighting the Soviets in the 70s and 80s, and so the US had to give in to their demand as well. That's called deals.
For companies like Google, the easiest solution is just to buy up some right officials (via hidden means,) then everything will be fine. China has their weak spot too. In China, you can accomplish anything big by bribing some officials; illegal but doable. In the US, you can accomplish anything big by contributing to the campaign of some politicians, legal and doable.
Parent
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... were our biggest allied fighting the Soviets in the 70s and 80s...
Insightful?
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Limiting the competition doesn't give a competitive edge, it creates a monopoly mentality.
Baidu won't get better as quickly without that competition; and lowering the bar doesn't make competition a driving force.
This is akin to saying "lightbulbs only have to be this good; and because this brand is local, we're removing the competition."
If they want to give Baidu a competitive edge, I'd suggest limitations to the thoroughput that Google can attribute to Google Suggest. This would be like putting import res
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When you have a market of 1.5 billion potential consumers, a monopoly works just fine; you don't need competition to thrive.
Re:Protectionism (Score:4, Interesting)
In the process of replacing the USA, china will go thru all the same step.
All you America-bashers out there should listen to this particular A.C. Ask yourself this question: will the world be a better place when America is dead and gone and the Chinese government is running the show?
... if you're not, your successor destroys you or occupies you. Whatever, I'm just annoyed that it's likely to happen in my lifetime. I was kinda hoping that I'd be dead and gone before we go the way of the Dodo bird, but due to the three most basic human emotions exhibited by our government and corporate leaders (e.g., greed, greed, and, well, greed, with a healthy helping of shortsightedness, treason and general stupidity) the process is happening far more quickly than I'd prefer.
I know a lot of you hate us, but be very, very careful what you wish for. Not that it matters: all empires, whether they be military or strictly economic (like ours) eventually disappear. If you're such an empire, if you're lucky you just fade away
Do I blame China for what's happening to us? Nope. I blame us, because we're too goddamned STUPID to protect what our ancestors built for us, to protect our own interestes. We set up a free candy store, and the Chinese (and everyone else who wanted a free kickstart into the 21st century) just came in and took whatever they wanted, and when that wasn't enough, we gave them everything else. Now, most of us don't actually like that very much, but since we've elected an entire generation of fools and sellouts, we're kinda screwed now. Our Native American friends made much the same mistake. Huh, I guess history does repeat itself after all.
Parent
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We gave them Opium. We gave them Hollywood. We gave them cigarettes. But the candies, no, I'm pretty sure that's all Chinese nowadays (at least the Cadbury ones anyway).
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Your entire post leaves me wondering.
China as a whole seems to keep to itself. It will regulate inself, and any outside interferance. So the idea of china ruling the world could only really happen economically, in which case we won't be a state of china, just a trading partner. (In fact New Zealand already is the first trading partner to china).
So the world being better if china took over is such a pear shaped world, i can't see what could cause it. I'm not happy with how china censors everything inside its
Filtering is the Hijab of the Internet (Score:2, Interesting)
The day that government's and people in general get over their neurotic reactions to pornography is the day when you will see Authoritarianism die and Civilization flourish. Pornography, like it or lump it, is a signpost of Civilization and Freedom.
Re:Filtering is the Hijab of the Internet (Score:4, Insightful)
And from their point of view, pornography is the symptom of undisciplined actions, as well as overextending the activities of people in ways that are ultimately futile.
Both oversimplified points of view are the result of popularized culture.
The day when people in general get embrace moderation (the old definition; the kind that keeps things from becoming a controlling factor) and education (not institutionalized, but the uninhibited growth of the mind) will be the day when you see civilization truly start to flourish.
Our own propagandized signposts of civilization or authoritarianism often serve to cover up the ugly truth.
Parent
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Agreed, but pornography doesn't make a culture intelligent or better than another culture, only different from another culture.
By the way, there was no slight intended; I was only stating one thing does not necessarily precede another. Just because a society is liberal enough to either ban or embrace pornography (i.e. nude colonies) does not make them more enlightened, if anything it only changes the circumstances of the never-ending pissing contest.
Our own cultural dual-mindedness concerning pornography i
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Dual-mindedness is a very human trait. Why do we lie when we know the truth? Why do we cover up what is shameful to us? Human psychology is funny like that.
Is it funny? It seems pretty straight-forward, to me. Self-control is necessary for a functioning society. Exerting self-control is far more difficult when tempted. Thus, some people may seek to ban temptations to help themselves (and, secondarily, their societies) maintain self-control. Attempts to ban "pornography" are one example of this.
Societies more accepting of pornography could, indeed, be considered "more intelligent," if the reason they're more accepting is that they have more self-control (a
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how does one 'lump' pornography? - no wait, on second thought....
You don't. What the GP is saying, I believe, is that civilization has to get over the hump of worrying so much about it.
New name suggestion? (Score:4, Funny)
Google Suggestive.
Who you know (Score:2)
China was a rule by decree country. Who you know is very important in China. Laws are considered by many Chinese to by somewhat flexible if you know the right person. Laws are administered at the local and provincial levels of government. This means consistency
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Fighting their culture would serve mostly to alienate us from them. However, politeness and kind words often go farther to allow relations to happen.
Kindly saying "we'll turn this off if everyone else does too" wouldn't be such a terrible PR thing to do (in Chinese eyes), right?
Accurate? (Score:3)
Sir! Sir! I type "hot naked" into google and it suggested girls! We must stop this monstrosity!!!!
it's google.cn, not google.com (Score:2)
Just a point of clarification that this applies to google.cn [google.cn], and obviously does not apply to google.com [google.com], which those of us in Beijing can also see.
My favorite Google Suggest search terms (Score:3, Funny)
Try typing that in.
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What I don't understand (Score:2)
What I don't understand is why anyone would want to ban sex related sites in the absence of religion.
You would think that of all nations, China would be encouraging as much private sexual release as possible given their male:female ratio and large population. Honestly; I am baffled.
Green Dam is not mandarory to run (Score:2, Informative)
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Parental control? Does the state act in loco parentis?