Tiananmen Square, Google, and the Power of Censorship

Never in my life have I seen a more powerful example of censorship than what I saw by contrasting the Google results for these two searches:

• Tiananmen via a Google search in America.
• Tiananmen via a Google search in China.

Wow.  (Via LGF.)

Comments

[Rupert]

What is scary is that while Google folded before the pressure from the Chinese government it intends to contest issue with the US government at home. Anyone recommend a search engine run by people with a little less greed and a lot more guts?

[Aaron]

What you mean is that there is publicity around Google's decision, while the other search engines which do business in China censor under the public radar.

Do you think that the people of China are better off with access to a censored Google, or without any access whatsoever?

[Rupert]

Hi Aaron. Are you a spokesman for Google? I never suggested that it was only Google who had chosen money over principle. Yahoo and Microsoft have done similar deals with the Chinese government, I believe. So rather than justify Google's action based on the equally despicable actions of the others one should perhaps lament that Google has ALSO shown a lack of moral courage when faced with the choice to compromise their principles in order to make a pot of money. So does anyone out there have an alternative to Google to recommend?

[jelena]

i don't agree with the decision google made at all. not only is censorship a bad tool in general, in this case it's even worse. just by covering up an event on google images that everyone knows took place won't make it just go away. this is bad for the people of china because they have a right to know what happened exactally and that means that they are being deprived of what they deserve. it's not going to solve anything. and not teaching people about the pst creates a very insecure future.
sorry if this makes no sense. it's midnight. i'm tired.