Google - Don’t Be Evil

Google recently came under fire for self-censoring search results, such as those dealing with Falun Gong, Dalai Lama or Tiananmen, under its google.cn domain. For those not in the know about China’s government, Beijing controls almost all internet access, whether it be a personal internet connection or the information posted on a news website.

For years, users in China accessed a Chinese language version of Google.com; however, according to Google, the site is unavailable ten percent of the time, Google Images is unavailable half of the time and searches will, at times, lock up a user’s browser. Rather than let Beijing do the censorship, and in turn, degrade the user’s experience, Google decided to enter into the country, placing servers to afford its users better performance & results.

However, those results are shaky at best. Many sites, such as savetibet.org and news.bbc.co.uk, are currently blocked, while others, like collegehumor.com and teenpregnancy.org, just recently escaped the censorship hammer. Little is known of exactly how Google complies with Chinese regulations, whether it be through a government-supplied list or a self-created filter system.

A government list? China keeps their list of censored terms close to the vest, but a hacking group, who garnered an example from the popular QQ messaging client (similar to AIM), revealed that the list comprises 987 words. The list isn’t limited to just websites, it’s also for e-mail & text messaging. Nor is it static - it’s ever changing to encompass even local stories. A Google-created filter system, similar to a NetNanny for parental control, would work along the lines of this list.

In addition to the state-of-the-art computer banks & firewalls, existing purely to censor, that all traffic must pass through, Beijing employs a staff of thirty-thousand, a number which easily surpasses the entire workforce of our vaulted CIA, to monitor chat rooms, individual blogs and the like.

Bottom line? According to China’s “Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry,” companies must promise not to propagate information that “breaks laws or spreads superstition or obscenity,” or that “may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability.”

Why did Google subject itself to such blatant Communist “regulations”? From the official Google blog, “Filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission. Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world’s population, however, does so far more severely.” Yes Google, you did compromise your mission. The one that brought you up into Western-world ubiquity, but not in China, where you have little market share. So why?

China’s Ministry of Propaganda, the organization that screens all publications within the country, is known more for fear & intimidation, and being the puppet of the closest ticked-off Communist party leader, rather than offering impartiality & enforcing the law of the land. However, times are changing. The media & journalists have begun to more vocalize their displeasure with the ministry, organizing protests, strikes & garnering publicity. Former Communist party leaders stated, “At a turning point in our history from a totalitarian to a constitutional system, depriving the public of freedom of speech will bring disaster for our social and political transition and give rise to confrontation and social unrest.”

If a group of journalists, subject to any wrath Beijing feels like dealing out, will stand up, why won’t Western companies?

Dollars & Benjamins, oh my! Behind the US, China is the second largest internet market - and it’s booming. That’s why many companies, both domestic & foreign, have bowed to the Ministry of Propaganda. AOL has censored searches, Yahoo admitted to providing info which led to a 10-year jail sentence for a journalist, Microsoft has taken down a dissident blog, and US networking firm Cisco provides the People’s Republic with routers & switches used to create China’s great firewall.

While all the companies take a small publicity hit, the general public isn’t willing to boycott. After all, who wants to go back to the altavista days? Legislation is in the works to disuade US internet companies from locating servers in China, thus removing the ability of the government to seize personal data.

While such a bill is a good step, a Code of Ethics, subscribed to by internet & technology firms, provides a better solution. Such a code would not only provide a definitive statement and a far greater chance for free speech to succeed in China, it would address many ethical issues facing the information technology field. One hopes that Google will take the lead again, and truly live up to it’s credo, “Don’t Be Evil.”