Google announced last Wednesday it would launch a version of its popular search engine in China, something the company has been trying to do for some time. But there’s a catch. In order for Google to enter the Chinese market, it had to create a censored version of its search engine.
According to an article by the Associated Press, google.cn “omits independent websites from searches about human rights, Tibet and other topics sensitive to Beijing. Instead users are directed only to websites espousing the government’s views on such issues.” A simple image search of “Tiananmen Square” at google.ca yields 13,500 results, with the first being images of the tanks and protesters that crowded the square, although the number of websites keeps changing. However, a search at google.cn using the exact same words yields 36 results, none of which feature any tanks but provide tourism and architectural details instead.
Google Inc.’s motto is “don’t be evil.” However, it seems that by succumbing to the pressures of the Chinese government, they have succumbed to a certain kind of evil. Despite denying the U.S. government’s attempts to acquire information about individuals’ web searches and representing itself as a company that opposes infringing on the privacy of individuals, all of Google’s credibility is undercut by the concessions it has made to China.
But ultimately, mottoes and activism aside, Google is not solely to blame for censoring its Chinese site. The Chinese government, in censoring searches, has only further perpetuated the Orwellian notion of surveillance and has stolen a fundamental freedom from the people they are supposed to be representing. If China is to have a more prominent presence on the world stage, it must first evaluate its governance and reconsider such censorship tactics.
Time seems to be slowly closing in on the Chinese government, and although it may think it has achieved some kind of victory in censoring Google searches, the publicity and outrage their decision has elicited proves otherwise.
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