Another gem of an article from Bill Thompson.
This time he’s ranting about Google, which recently agreed to censor search results typed into their Chinese portal - words like ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’, ‘falun gong’, etc.
The funny thing is that his article comes out in favour of this
Supporters of free speech and open societies should be supporting Google rather than lambasting it.
Obviously. This makes perfect sense.
Amidst all the fuss about Google’s decision to comply with local law in China it is easy to overlook the fact that internet (sic) content is censored and controlled almost everywhere.
Which apparently makes it okay.
He then launches into a massive rant about how companies in the UK censor online content - using the example that BT have a ‘service‘ which denies access to pages which may contain images of child abuse without letting you know that you’ve requested banned content. Google, he argues, are okay because at least they will tell you that access to the resources returned as results of your search terms are banned by local law. The technology parallels may be there, but from a social context his argument seems a little warped.
Then follows a little bit of ‘I art Googlier than thou’ (he’s been following the company for some time) and a bit of Microsoft bashing (an easy target?). But then he completely loses the plot and turns his little tirade into a call for Western powers to extend the olive branch of diplomacy to China, comparing sanctions imposed against South Africa to encourage the end of apartheid to Internet companies not dealing with China in an attempt to promote free speech.
Never mind that earlier in the article he establishes that this is not the case, by pointing out that many online based companies (Yahoo, MSN and yes, even Google) are already operating in China, making his point redundant.
As if Google or MSN withholding their search engines from China are even remotely comparable to UN imposed economic sanctions.
Honestly, this kind of egotistical technocratic drivel really irritates me. I’m surprised he didn’t manage to fit Web 2.0 into the article somewhere.
Popularity: 8% [?]
January 30th, 2006 at 10:48 am
a) It’s “Don’t be evil”, not “Do no evil,” as the photo further down the page further illustrates, Bill.
b)
That’s really taking liberties with the truth. Google.com is [u]accessible[/u] within China, provided you find the appropriate proxies, and certainly not with the government’s consent; this article in the Wall Street Journal (may be subscriber only, sorry I’m posting from work) suggests that Google’s interest in Baidu is not friendly:
So, c), Bill’s argument is basically oppressive regimes and information censorship are OK as long as we’re friendly to the governments that advocate them and it’s not bad thing if we can make some money out of it too. Well done, Bill.
: P
p.s. apologies if some of the bbCode screws up - Alex, your blog needs a preview button…
January 30th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Oof, that really took it out on the BBC parser, which could be a lot better. And you are right - a preview button would be pretty nifty..
I’m continually amazed that Aunty provides a platform for his uninformed ramblings There’s a great post over at Slashdot (in response to this article which in turn is a follow up to this one):