Google accused over China censorship The Chinese government has reacted angrily to Google's decision to stop censoring search engine results in the country. From last night visitors to Google.cn found themselves redirected to Google.com.hk, based in Hong Kong, and a less-censored selection of search results - more details on the move here. The company has been …
Like - Tiananmen Square, Tibet, suppression of religious freedom, lack of human rights, "re-education labour camps, poor treatment of rural workers and no freedom of speech.
There is no honour, culture or values with the crap China peddles.
I'd amend that quote to say "There is no honour, culture or values with the crap the Chinese Communist Party peddles."
I think it's important to make the distinction between normal Chinese people/culture, and the nasty bastards currently in charge. After all, not everybody in the UK agrees with everything the UK government does!
In principle you're right, however. All dictatorships have to co-opt the native culture in order to appear legitimate. (The East Germans did it too, for example, making out that Bach was one of their own.)
"politicalizing"... hmmm i dont believe this is an english word but i have no doubt that it will now become the new "cool" word for politicans everwhere...
On a serious note - you have to give kudos to Google for stopping the censorship. Whether it will have any affect remains to be seen because i can guarantee that there is no internal coverage within China about this - so the chinese people wont know that Google has stopped censoring (probably dont even realise there has been any arguments going on), and so they wont go and look at the things that there not currently supposed to.
Unfortunately from my experience, the main problem is that Chinese people do not realise just how much is censored, many dont believe there results are censored at all. Until the majority begin to realise the level of control that theyre internet is under, there can be no desire for grassroot changes. So hopefully this will have some affect, but i wont hold my breath...
I have seen what the chinese government do to dissenters. It involves a large field, a long stick tied at the wrists behind the back and a firing squad. Or was that the old china, and new china loves everybody and want's its people to feel free and unoppressed?
Redacted answers on a postcard please.
Not satisfied with snooping on everyone and riding rough shod over some countrys privacy laws they are now trying to insitigate a regime change.
Who do they think they are? The Bush administration?
China was here a long time before google and I suspect it will be around a long time after google has gone.
Why do westerners think they know what others want and then insist on imposing their mis-guided good intentions upon them when they can't even keep their own house in order? It appears we haven't learned anything from the monumental cock-ups made in Vietnam, The Bay of Pigs, Afghanistan and Iraq where, in all cases, expected mass defections and insurrections failed to appear.
Imagine that, the US can't even overthrow Castro on their doorstep and yet they embark on a vote winning war against a country four times the size of Cuba on the other side of the world.
The UK is no better, time and again we hear of people being denied life saving medical treatment because of the cost of medication yet UK Gov Plc have spent billions on a war in Iraq that they can't completely agree was started legally and one which they can't get themselves out of.
One possibly redeeming feature of sending troops to Iraq is that the basis for doing so was such a work of fiction they might break even when they sell the film rights to Hollywood.
The almost universal result of such meddling is increased hostility and resentment from the local population towards the aggressors. This hardly makes the world a safer place but does give our own governments justification for the ever increasing restriction of our personal freedom and never before seen levels of surveillance imposed upon us which is probably the real reason for them sending other peoples children to a fight an unnecessary war.
You ignore abuse elsewhere you condone the principle of abuse even if you don't care about victims of other governments. And that doesn't even start to address long term consequences of letting the most populous nation on the planet, that is shaping up to control the majority of manufacturing worldwide do what it likes unopposed. Your points about Western Govt. and business are valid but if the whole argument is what you believe as opposed to playing my advocate, you argue like someone with a brain injury.
We all know what's best for everybody else and when others disagree we descend to veiled insults.
I was always taught that if we have to resort to insults to win an argument then we have lost it.
>You ignore abuse elsewhere you condone the principle of abuse
I don't recall writing that we should ignore abuse, maybe you could correct me. However, I could equally argue that by buying products which help support a certain regime then we are condoning that regime. Or by accepting investment from a regime we are condoning it, China is the largest foreign investor in US securities. What I actually wrote was, we should get our own house in order before preaching to others.
Let me also make clear that the western intervention in Afghanistan is not limited to the overthrow of the Taliban, which hasn't been fully resolved, but also to the funding and training of Al Qaeda by the US. What a monumental cock-up that was, help overthrow one puppet governemnt to install your own only to have it bite your hand. If that doesn't illustrate what interefering achieves then I can't think what will.
Diplomacy works, there was no heavy handed approach to bring down the Berlin wall. Russia is moving towards greater democracy, so much so that I understand a Russian company is bidding for a US defence contract.
"Riding rough shod over some countrys privacy laws..?" What are you smoking? The only 'privacy laws' being flouted, here are the laws that forbid privacy.
You don't have to go looking for some Big Corporate American Boogieman, to find the sort of 'snooping' you rail against, here - the Chinese government openly engages in this sort of activity, and are publicly complaining about Google's unwillingness to cooperate.
You sound like someone who won't be satisfied until you find some sort of duplicitous and underhand Western behaviour, however... so why don't you take a look at all of the 'network security' firms that are making a fortune from selling network monitoring equipment and DPI routers, to people like China Telecom, to help them fulfill their government requirements? You may even find that these are the same firms which do everything they can to get people like you to focus all your attention on the 'threat' from Google.
The censorship of peoples right to " Free Speech " is wrong and everyone was given a voice to express their opinions and the Chinese Government were blocking their right. We live in a democratic country and have the right to free speech and can either veto a political system or boycott it all together. We also have a right to vote for a political party of our choice and we are not oppressed into voting for a party that is government controlled.
I heard a comment the other day made on-line and it was what would Jesus think of Stalin and my answer is that he would treat him the same as we should treat the Chinese people with respect and nothing else.
So good for you Google and l am fully behind your actions - people before profit.
I am sure that there are grounds for compromise in this that respects the interests of all parties but hey ho.
I recall when "Eastern Europe" was perceived as the 'enemy' and a visit there required scritiny by UK police and also police in destination country. Yet visiting there is oh so easy and the places oh so beautiful.
Whatever the reasons for myopia, they can be cured?
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