On The Road In The Kingdom Of Fear

Google Whacked

Google has recently blotted it’s “do no evil” image, following in the footsteps of Yahoo and Microsoft by conceding to censorship by the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship. Ironically this surrender to the totalitarian Chinese Government comes in the same week that several of the ‘old guard’ in the regime have called for a lifting of censorship. This call would appear to suggest an age of Chinese Glasnost is beginning. It’s a tragedy then, and an insult to the millions of Chinese hoping for reform, that this bastion of the free market has complete contempt for freedom of speech.

In a search on Google.cn the extent to which the company has crawled to submit to the Chinese authorities is plain for all to see. Typing in the Chinese characters for Falun Gong, the spiritual movement China brands an evil cult, brings up results such as the official Chinese media’s “Expose” of the Falun Gong campaign. Type Falun Gong into the English search engine and, in contrast, the movement's homepages and information centre are top of the results. Similar treatment is given to the Taiwanese independence movement, Tibetan human rights, and even the BBC is censored with only links to politically neutral sites, for example the BBC’s language learning schemes. Needless to say, no links are provided to the BBC’s news output.

The most disturbing search I carried out was on Google.cn images. Searching ‘Tiananmen’ on the English version brings up the iconic image of a young man standing in front of a tank during the student protests of 1989. On Google.cn we see groups of smiling children and brightly lit buildings.

Google has spun its bad press by stating that as the Google page lets people know their search results are being restricted, something that doesn't happen if the filtering is done by the government, then the censorship is somehow not as bad. This stance is ridiculous. What if Chinese users know their searches are being restricted? I would imagine the disappearances of their friends or the closing down of their online forums is evidence enough of government control.

Yahoo has also stained its reputation by colluding with the Chinese, helping them jail democracy advocate Li Zhi. Li was given an eight-year sentence in 2003 for trying to join the Chinese Democratic Party. He had also been critical of corruption in local government officials in online discussion groups and was convicted on the basis of information Yahoo provided about his email account and Yahoo user name activity.

Information provided by Yahoo to the Chinese government was also used to put journalist Shi Tao in jail for ten years. In its 2005 world press freedom index, Reporters Without Borders ranked China 159th worst out of 167 countries. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists 32 reporters reside in Chinese jails.

As I write over 45,000 emails of complaint have been sent to Google’s senior executives, and over 4,300 to the top management of Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco. This is hardly going to change the behaviour of these corporations but every protest can help. If word is spread, and indignation abounds, then perhaps we can make a difference to the people subjected to the totalitarian dictatorship in China and their sidekicks and supporters at Google and Yahoo. The refusal to buy South African goods and the diplomatic sanctions imposed on their country lead directly to the fall of Apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela. In short, protest does work.

It’s tough to break the addiction to Google or Yahoo. I, like everyone else, hardly thinks which search engine to use while surfing the net. There are, however, alternatives for those who wish to search with a clear conscience. I am informed by ‘Students for a Free Tibet’ that www.alltheweb.com is an ethical search engine. Unfortunately it is impossible at present to argue that ‘alltheweb’, or any other competitor for that matter, is better than Google. If you can’t stop using Google then at the very least I would urge you to send an email to Google’s head honchos to put some more pressure on them. Google has put its financial bottom line over the most basic human rights.

posted by Alexander Try @ 7:56 pm