Google bows to Chinese authorities’ censorship demands

As Google launched its Chinese portal google.cn yesterday, defenders of freedom of expression like Chungdak Koren, right, of the Norwegian Tibet Committee, and international human rights groups protest the self-censorship regulations Google has agreed with Chinese authorities. -This is a major blow for freedom of expression and human rights in the People´s Republic of China, says Koren. -Google should never have agreed to this. (26-JAN-06)

This article, written by HRH´s Niels Jacob Harbitz, is based on the news stories of Dagbladet.no, ITavisen.no, BBC News, and Students for a Free Tibet. Photo of Chungdak Koren: HRH / Niels Jacob Harbitz.   

Until now, Chinese authorities have inserted filters in the access process to Google´s American pages, already among the most popular among China?s rapidly increasing number of Internet users, already counting more than 100 million, predicted to nearly double in the next two years. A survey last August revealed, however, that Google was loosing marketshares to the Beijing based Baidu.com. Now, to establish a full search engine within the People´s Republic of China tailored for Chinese users and the Chinese market, Google has succumbed to Chinese authorities? demand that Google builds into this search engine a strong and clear element of self-censorship.

-Google´s motto ´Don´t be evil´ is now reduced to a terrible joke
Students for a free Tibet says in their press release that the organisation is outraged at Google´s decision to join hands with the Chinese government in its censorship efforts. -Students and young people worldwide are appalled by Google´s decision to become active partners in China´s censorship apparatus, says Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. -Google´s participation in the Chinese government´s program of repression and information control renders the company´s informal corporate motto ´Don´t be evil´ a terrible joke. Google´s rivals Yahoo and Microsoft have already shown a similar willingness to co-operate with Chinese authorities. Last year, Yahoo was accused of supplying data to the People´s Republic of China that was used as evidence to jail a Chinese journalist for ten years. Last month, Microsoft shut down a Chinese political blogger´s site for ´not complying with local law´. -Political and corporate leaders constantly tell us that foreign business will contribute to a more open and democratic the People´s Republic of China, Tethong adds. -However, this is instead yet another sign that the People´s Republic of China is in fact forcing foreign businesses to be more closed and anti-democratic. 

Partners in crime
In a compromise that trades off Google´s desire to provide universal access to information, the topics now agreed to be blocked are anything to do with human rights, anything to do with the Xin Jiang province, where the Uyghur minority continues to suffer severe suppression, anything to do with the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, and of course, anything to do with Taiwan´s and Tibet´s long struggles for independence, both resulting in wide-reaching suppression and discrimination and systematic human rights violations on a grand scale. Attempts to search any of these topics will be censored. In some cases, as with the Falun Gong, the searcher will be directed to a string of purely condemnatory articles. In general, though, Google plans to inform its users that the search has been interrupted, that the results are inconclusive and that potential hits have been removed, according to the Chinese authorities? demands. The same regulations will apply to Google News, whose Chinese version was also launched yesterday, providing access only to other media authorised by Chinese authorities.

-A real shame
-With friends like this, who needs enemies, freedom of expression activists in the People´s Republic of China and around the world may ask Google today, deeply dependent as this category of human rights defenders have become on open access electronic media. In total, expert critics suggest that the limitations could restrict access to tens of thousands of sensitive terms and websites, very possibly including www.humanrightshouse.org. Another obvious blocked item is the 1989 Tienanmen Square massacre. BBC News´s website is just one among very many ordinary news sites blocked. -This is a real shame, says Julien Pain, Internet spokesman for the international campaign group Reporters Without Borders, above, about Google´s decision to collaborate with the Chinese authorities. -When a search engine co-operates with a government like this, the job of censoring what is communicated through the Internet is made a lot easier for that government, Pain further explains.

-Inconsistent, yes, but it could have been even more inconsistent
-China is the most repressive regime on the Internet, adds John Palfrey, a Professor of Law and Director of the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University, currently involved in the OpenNet Initiative, a joint university research project on global Internet censorship. Google itself avoids any comment about freedom of expression and emphasises instead that the People´s Republic of China needs its services, adding that the decision to bow to Chinese authorities´ demands was not easy, but that the company believes it was a right decision. -In order to operate from the People´s Republic of China, we have removed some content fromthe search results available on Google.cn, in response to local law, regulation and policy. While removing search results is inconsistent with Google´s mission, providing no information (or heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission, the company also stated.

-The lesser evil?
Even so, Google is holding back on introducing many of their other services to the People´s Republic of China. Email, chat rooms and blogs will not be part of the package offered by Google to Chinese Internet users, both because these applications imply that the user leaves numerous traces that may subsequently be used to trace and punish the user for what he or she has searched and / or communicated through the Internet. Since these options facilitate further communication between individual Internet users, communication that in turn may be used to spread information about, initiate and coordinate social and political unrest, Chinese authorities has agreed that email, chat and blog applications ought not to be made available. On balance, in other words, Chinese authorities have opted for rather to rule out all such communication than permitting it and thus provide themselves with invaluable information about otherwise untraceable oppositional and underground activity. Google is also awaiting the outcome of a legal battle within the US over similar issues, after its refusal less than a week ago to feed US intelligence with information on what each and every individual user of their services is searching on the net.