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Censorship Businesses Google The Internet Your Rights Online

Google Suggest Disabled In China Due To Porn 106

Posted by kdawson from the selective-harassment dept.
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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Google Suggest Disabled In China Due To Porn More

Google Suggest Disabled In China Due To Porn

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  • Why Is Chinese Censorship News On Slashdot??!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21, 2009 @03:48PM (#28413417)

    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)

      by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Sunday June 21, 2009 @04:03PM (#28413555)
      ...Its Google, its an American company. They can do the same thing over here. When you think about it and the recent "block everything" mentality from both democrats and republicans, soon China's internet might just be your internet.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        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.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by delta419 ( 1227406 )
          Can I sell you my tinfoil hat?
        • Have you Americans already started to pretend the patriot act doesn't exist? It's not about the Internet per say, but sure as hell went against half the constitution!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by icebike ( 68054 )

            > 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

            • It certainly does not affect anyone I know and deal with.

              Prove it.

              • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

                by Anonymous Coward
                Burden of proof is the other way around here.

        • Re:Why Is Chinese Censorship News On Slashdot??!! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by tchdab1 ( 164848 ) on Sunday June 21, 2009 @07:43PM (#28415055) Homepage

          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.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Anonymous Coward

            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: (Score:2)

          by rts008 ( 812749 )

          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

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mdwh2 ( 535323 )

        I agree. Also, even if Google aren't going to do the same thing in the US - it's still relevant interest if a US company is complying with censorship requests for China.

        Not to mention that there are other countries besides China and the US, that don't have freedom of speech in the way that the US has, e.g., there are many readers from Europe (including myself).

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The world is bigger than your backyard. Come out of your cave already.

      Send a mail to Taco to give you some stats on non-US page views of this site.

      and FYI, I am in China atm, you insensitive clod!

  • Baidu benefits from being Chinese (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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. But I must admit I really don't like China, The chinese are great people but their government is scary.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Jurily ( 900488 )

      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...

    • 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...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rts008 ( 812749 )

      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.

      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

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Uber Banker ( 655221 )
      And sadly it's nothing special. When typing a URL that doesn't resolve on a mainland China ISP a Baidu-sponsored search page (full of ads, no simple search box) appears. It was only in 2006 when google.com itself was redirected to baidu.com by some ISPs some of the time. Some of the country (in major cities, forget the countryside) has the facade of development, but with basic corruption endemic at the bottom and top levels, it has a whole lot further to go.

  • 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?

    • I guess this is the same "shipping with" deal that you have if you buy a computer in the US or in Europe nowadays.. You can be sure you have all the finest Crapware(tm) pre-installed. And i am not only talking Microsoft here, there is nearly anything you can imagine, from Demo-Versions of crappy tools up to Trial-Versions of other Stuff that happily asks you to buy when you fire up that PC. In multiple cases there is not even a single CD shipping with these CDs, the "Crapware Welcome Assistant" helps you t
    • Even if Beijing required every computer to be installed with filtering software, the typical consumer can just take his pirated copy of Windows XP and use it to do a fresh installation of the operating system, creating a clean, blank slate without any censoring software. China is, after all, the software piracy capital of the world. If a Chinese customer has the intellect to overcome various anti-piracy mechanisms and to rip DVDs, then he surely has the intellect to install a fresh copy of Windows XP.

      Gi

  • miibeian.gov.cn (Score:3, Funny)

    by sakdoctor ( 1087155 ) on Sunday June 21, 2009 @03:58PM (#28413509) Homepage

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It isn't a big news and it is not new [cnet.com] for sure.

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by vampire_baozi ( 1270720 )

      Yes, they do. Posting from Beijing, I can verify that Western Porn and Japanese porn is very much in demand. More than one Chinese friend has asked me to introduce him to well-endowed Western girls.

      Not a trend, by any means, but men will be men, the world over. And let's face it, Japanese porn is WAY too fucked up to survive on.

      But on the actual subject, yeah, it sounds like they're just picking on Google China. Baidu's image search also has a "suggestion" function, where after you search it lists simil

    • Every now and then I see posts like yours, and can't help thinking "another lunatic with wierd-ass thought process like mine".

  • Protectionism (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21, 2009 @04:08PM (#28413589)

    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)

      by hackingbear ( 988354 ) on Sunday June 21, 2009 @04:30PM (#28413753)

      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.

    • 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

      • When you have a market of 1.5 billion potential consumers, a monopoly works just fine; you don't need competition to thrive.

    • Exactly. Consider Baidu.com (Google China's largest competitor) donated 40 million RMB to CCTV (who has been doing substantial exposure on "Google's key role in spreading pornography"). So it's likely there is econimical reasons as well as political ones behind this one.

  • 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: (Score:1)

      by patch0 ( 1339585 )
      how does one 'lump' pornography? - no wait, on second thought....

      • 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.

    • Re:Filtering is the Hijab of the Internet (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Celeste R ( 1002377 ) on Sunday June 21, 2009 @04:50PM (#28413891)

      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.

    • No, filtering and the hijab are not the same at all. The hijab is a something which many women freely choose to wear because of their religious and cultural beliefs. The fact that some women are forced to wear the hijab does not make it analogous to filtering.

  • New name suggestion? (Score:4, Funny)

    by 427_ci_505 ( 1009677 ) on Sunday June 21, 2009 @04:15PM (#28413637)

    Google Suggestive.

  • 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.

    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

    • 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)

    by supernova_hq ( 1014429 ) on Sunday June 21, 2009 @05:27PM (#28414153)
    My guess is that if google is suggesting porn, then it is probably for a reason...

    Sir! Sir! I type "hot naked" into google and it suggested girls! We must stop this monstrosity!!!!
  • From TFS : all new computers ship with the 'Green Damn' Internet censoring program. Is that a typo or the reaction of Chinese men, when they discover, that they can't surf porn anymore?
  • Google should disable the internet in china.

  • 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)

    by MillionthMonkey ( 240664 ) on Sunday June 21, 2009 @08:44PM (#28415415)
    why is everything

    Try typing that in.
    • I like that when you typi in "why is" the first suggestion is "why is the rum gone". Apparently this is a very pressing issue in the English-speaking world.
      • Well that's a song in Pirates of the Caribbean... If you extend it to "why is your", apparently a lot of people are seeing funny colors before they flush.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The software is required to be delivered with by manufacturers on harddisc or one CD. It was never intended to be required to run as a user [wikipedia.org]. The scope of the software is mainly parental control. This hole thing in the media about censorshipware sounds like yet another propaganda campagne by the West.
  • Funny how every repressive regime from the extremely non-religous to the extremely religous are obsessed with contolling their captors' sexuality.
  • Has anyone considered that they have not pressured the baidu search engine because it points to CHINESE porn sites and doesn't display sex acts by these barbarian round eyed animals like Google does??

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