I only heard brief bits about this. Is it true that they are helping china set up an internet system wherein it makes it very difficult for chinese people to search for anything that paints China in a bad light or violates the Chinese "system of beliefs"?

http://www.obner.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t ... ogle+china

we had a little bit of discussion about it

Getting into the largest market in the world = capitalist bastards

its worth noting that the sites that turn up in an uncensored google search are still blocked

maybe the chinese will learn how to g00g13 proof

what do you mean by that?

if anyone cares, a (republican!) congressman is drafting legislation that would keep google et al from installing servers in "repressive regimes" (as categorized by the state department), and keep US software vendors from exporting filtering software to the same.

So, I guess that congressman is hell-bent on repressing the repressed.
A double-negative does equal a positive, you know.

But wait. isn't the manner in which China wants the Google system to be set up the real repression? For instance, say you, as a chinese person, wanted to search on Google for information on Tiennemen(sp) square, all you would come up with is that it is a place in Beijing. You find nothing of the massacre of the people that took place there. From what I understand, the issue for me is that a company will help a country repress the rights of their people, not whether or not google should go international or sell its product to a communist country.

i agree, joe. it's pretty doubtful that allowing US software makers into china to play by their rules is going to add substantially to the freedom of the chinese people. on the other hand, sanctions such as this could force the chinese government to choose between the economic growth associated with participating in the world information economy and total information control.

well, I still think Iran and China are going to join forces and blow us all up.


edit: sorry for reducing this topic to silliness. In reality, I hope that too. I just don't really think it is likely to happen that way.

say it wasnt censored, and i search for Falun Gong

results come up

i click one and it will be inaccessable, because the sites themselves are blocked by the government firewall

right, gotcha. that is true, but i don't think it's a good justification for google to help out.

oh i disagree with google doing it, i just mentioned that its worth keeping in mind

More importantly, what about pron? Will the Chinese have access to pron????

39% of porn sites are blocked

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/#toc4c