I am loving Google's new search service based in China. It's faster and brings up only the most relevant results without having to be some kind of search engine algorithm enthusiast.
To see the new Communist regime friendly tools in action calls for a bit of compare and contrast. For example, lets search for the word Tianamen using the liberty ridden, freedom-of-speech-top-heavy American version against China's lean, ultra fast and filled with only the most relevant results that censors can provide — each and every result reminding us that living under communist rule is clean, comfortable, and good for business.
The American version is filled with the same picture of some strange person admiring a group of parked tanks (I found similar results using Google for other NATO member nations and others, bah). Whlie the Chinese version displays fewer results, all of the images are of happy and healthy Chinese people posing together, smiling and having fun in front of the Imperial Palace Grounds.
Now I ask you, which search engine results would you prefer? The one that results in hundreds of redundant and silly images of a military armor enthusiast looking at tanks, or pictures of happy people having a good time in the ole' People's Republic?
Simply put Google China goes way beyond other versions and takes out all the bad search results of the world so that you don't have to worry about what's Yankee propaganda and what's a Sailor Moon fansite. It certainly makes knowing what to click on a whole hell of a lot easier.
I've heard rumor that upon using Chinese Google, the great Shahs of Iran have asked the search engine giant to come and index their Internet too. They are tired of searching with the word Jews and being bombarded with thousands of results about a "Holocaust" in the 1940's.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
The same search for Yahoo! in America and Yahoo! in China (translated).
Yeah but everyone knows that Yahoo! is just a big sell out whereas Google is pure and only cares about bringing the best of life to people via the Internet. I think President Bush Sr. said it best: "Yahoo, bad. Google, good."
Great post Greg. It's pure capitalism and Google can't spin their way out of it.
As a public company, they are now legally bound to be evil when that evil contributes to the shareholders' bottom line.
Sometimes it just looks like humanity is totally freakin' broken.
Humanity is ' totally freakin' broken'.
Good post Greg. Tanks... 'er Thanks.
Intense. I'd say 'they should protest this' but then some horrible stuff would go down and their governments would just censor it from their search engines. I'd live in the bushes before my search engine was censored!
In trees!
Ooops, I just flipped my Logitech keyboard and Altech Lansing speakers over and the Made in China stickers changed everything... though I'm sure these companies and retailers like Wal-Mart maintain far higher ethical standards in their Chinese business relationships than that devil Google.
Of to check the origins of the rest of my gadgets.
Shaws of Iran? They made a comeback?
Waiting for the Australia google site to link to nothing but picutres of beer.
Wow, that's pretty amazing. Sorta makes me wonder how slanted other search results might be. Darn, I was going to link to how George Bush's biography came up when searching for "failure" on Google.com, but it seems that the joke's over and they've taken ole' dub-yah out of the #1 result spot. :)
ZING!!
You should try Free Tibet in both.
Sickening.
Anyone try "Airbag"?
#1 American
#3 Chinese
I am scared...
I guess you have to consider that from the American perspective, Google is 'accurate', in that the results are relevant because perhaps that is really the only context in which we've ever heard of or know about Tieneman Square. It's more historical, but it isn't wrong. Conversely, since Tieneman is in China and for Chinese folks to look it up, their relevance is different. I don't think it's censorship as much as their query results as it relates to them TODAY.
Sure, a picture says more than a 1000 words, but if you switch back to web-search from picture-search and enter "free tibet" for instance you get many relevant suggestions.
This issue recently came up in the TextDrive forums, and was fiercely debated. A colleague, James Bennett (aka ubernostrum), made some really good points illustrating why Google's course of action was the correct one:
http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?pid=74808#p74808
http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?pid=74864#p74864
An excerpt: "Google is taking the same stance with censoring the Chinese results that they take with censoring in the US due to the DMCA -- in both cases, a message is displayed telling you that due to local laws or regulations, results were removed from your search. Sure, in the US you get a bit more information because they can link to the DMCA complaint, but the principle is the same -- when the law requires you to remove information, you let people know that."
I agree with him.
Nice post Greg, its amazing at what kind of system China has set up to censor the world to their population. Check out this artical on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China
Well written. There's a simple truth in this post that runs on a few levels Ha ha. Heaven help us if we start getting every government getting down and dirty with Google for separate indexing too - can you imagine that fiasco.
Searching for Gough Whitlam in Australian political history should always return - our first prime minister sacked by a foreign power! The new google would just show us results for the band The Whitlams no doubt singing "There's no aphrodisiac like loneliness".
Seriously, I get good hits from China and I'm wondering how easily it is to offend them and to have them shut that door. I'm not sure any of this is a good thing for the 'big picture' world beyond China.
The article a few days ago - FAQ: When Google is not our friend - http://pigpen.info/2006/02/07/faq-when-google-is-not-your-friend/ - was concerning.
It's worth noting that "google.com" is still available in China, and that "google.cn" is just a faster, more reliable, censored alternative. So I can still see pictures of tanks from China if I want. :)
This aspect of the story doesn't seem to have been reported much in the press.
Interesting, John. Doesn't google.com redirect to google.cn if it detects your location by your IP address? Here in Japan, typing google.com takes me to google.co.jp.
Of course, none of the country-specific Googles do that re-direct, so I can still go to google.ca (for example) easily enough.
I wonder if google.cn, censorship notwithstanding, uses a better search algorithm or different page-rank when searching in Chinese.
Check this side-by-side comparison tool out if you're interested in looking for more results without bouncing back and forth between tabs/windows: Google Censorship Viewer.
Looks like capitalism blends well with communism... And that capitalsim does not necessarly brings democracy.
Try: http://images.google.cn/images?q=Tiananmen&svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&lr=&cr=countryCN&start=80&sa=N
I only had to go a couple pages in to find the famous tank picture. I think cultural differences might have a bit to do with it. Tianamen Square is like our Washington Mall. If you do a seach on it, how many pictures of the police or army cracking heads will you see?
Compare
http://images.google.com/images?q=washington+mall&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=bonus+marchers&btnG=Search