Yahoo China has the Worst Filtering Policy 184
rmunaval writes "Reporters Without Borders has an article on search-result censorship in China by different companies. The conclusion was made based on six politically sensitive keywords. A search on yahoo.cn resulted in 97% pro-Beijing results compared to 83% on google.cn and 78% on msn.cn." From the article: "[Yahoo!] is therefore censoring more than its Chinese competitor Baidu. Above all, the organisation was able to show that requests using certain terms, such as 6-4 (4 June, date of the Tiananmen Square massacre), or 'Tibet independence', temporarily blocked the search tool. If you type in one of these terms on the search tool, first you receive an error message. If you then go back to make a new request, even with a neutral key word, yahoo.cn refuses to respond."
On the third try... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On the third try... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:On the third try... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or they could simply allow the search.
Re:On the third try... (Score:2)
Re:On the third try... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:On the third try... (Score:3, Insightful)
But would that not imply that the other search engines are getting around the firewall?
If the firewall is so effective, why would China have asked Google to impliment a search filter that's inferior to existing methods?
Olympics (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Olympics (Score:5, Insightful)
News websites (Score:2)
Re:Olympics (Score:2, Flamebait)
Umm.. close but not likely. They aren't allowed to own guns, and most of them aren't too keen to worship our lord-n-savior. Those are generally republican de
Re:Olympics (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is that they'll set up unfiltered internet cafes in Olympic venues that are only for access by Olympic staff, athletes, and foreign visitors . They'll keep Chinese nationals out of them. It wouldn't be all that difficult for a communist government to restrict access, especially considering the security that Olympic venues typically have.
Re:Olympics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Olympics (Score:4, Informative)
Who else will be there, really, except reporters and the athletes? I don't anticipate the Jones family in Oaklahoma getting a cornsitter for the farm and heading off to Beijing to see how the East makes flapjacks.
Reporters likely know to tread lightly already, and I'm sure the athletes have to go to some workshop before the whole thing starts titled "Don't do any of these things in country X or you will be killed."
Re:Olympics (Score:2)
This firewall only applies to people within China, Westerners will be fine, the Olypmics isn't the World Cup, not many will be travelling to watch it.
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Try searching "Tiananmen Square" on yahoo.cn and compare to yahoo.com.
If I had more bandwidth, I'd gladly put up a proxy for these folks.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
I would bet that if anything bothers the average Chinese internet user, it's probably the censorship of porn, not political speech.
There are methods available today by which most people with half a brain could circumvent the Chinese authorities and read Western information sources, write blogs
Errr... Weird I can get refrences to the massacre (Score:2)
Re:Errr... Weird I can get refrences to the massac (Score:2)
Searching for "Tiananmen Square massacre" on yahoo.com yielded about 185,000 results.
Yahoo's filtering isn't perfect, but it did remove 98.8% of the results, many of which were probably very critical of China. The Chinese Government isn't trying to erase history, but rather keep a pro-PRC or neutral spin on search results.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
It should also be noted that our results here in the US are also censored.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Well, duh, what do you think "censorship" means? It is in the nature of censorship to conceal that it has happened. But, as a relatively poorly censored case of censorship, go to http://www.google.com/search?q=xenu [google.com] and scroll to the bottom.
For an even more striking effect, do the same search on Google.cn [google.cn] and scroll to the bottom. Interesting, no?
Re:Wow (Score:2)
A) The so-called censored links your are referring to have long since been added back to the Google index.
B) The links to discussions of so-called censorship exist on the very site that you claim is performing the censorship!
C) The very first site on that list no longer exists. Truly a tribute to an issue that is still relevant today! I find this amazingly ironic, because Google is willing to link to, and keep a cached copy of, evidence of the very crime that you ar
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps a Chinese person could come to the conclusion that the US government is censoring information about the civil rights movement, because when "Lincoln Memorial" is typed into google.com, there is no mention of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech in the top results.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
In Japan, people know of it as a city, while people outside of Japan generally only know of it as the second victim of the nuke.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
That sounds like a bit of a stretch to me. Probably the closest equivalent to Tiananmen Square in the U.S. would be Kent State, and when I type that into google I get refrences to the university but many more to the shootings. Sea
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Well they definitely aren't being taught about it in school. And they aren't going to learn about it on TV, or the Net. If you're a parent, you probably don't want to talk to them about it either as kids tend to run their mouths all the time and could ge
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, when you actually know something about the incident, it becomes very tiring listening to people parroting it in the west. What western power has not done something similar at some point or another? For example, in my parent's generation, the My Lai inciden
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Search engines aren't the only things which China censors, after all.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:2)
So I'm a little doubtful that these changes are dramatically affecting the mindset of the Chinese population. Like I've heard in interviews before "If you want to read it, you can find it".
Re:Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
An American and a Bulgarian are talking. The American says:
-Here, in the USA, we are really free. For example, I can go just in front of the White House, and shout: "Down with Ronald Reagan!", and nothing bad will happen to me.
-Oh, the same here: I can go just in front of the Party Central, and shout: "Down with Ronald Reagan!".
It is sad what has happened to the USA...
Tibet (Score:3, Informative)
The US sure isn't perfect but China shows that it could be a lot worse.
Sig (Score:2)
|
|
V
6-4 (Score:4, Funny)
I can't find a flaw in that.
Re:6-4 (Score:2)
Re:6-4 (Score:2)
Censoring? (Score:5, Funny)
Huh? Try it yourself. (Score:2)
Meanwhile, a search on yahoo.com for the same term yielded 877,000 hits. I guess I don't understand how they qualified what's pro-Bejing or quantified their censorship rate, but I would tend to think my own query was affected by possible differe
Re:Huh? Try it yourself. (Score:2)
Look behind the headlines (Score:5, Informative)
During China's rapid economic growth as a result of foreign investment and a move towards a free market economy, the Communist Party was unable to cope with the rapidly changing environment and failed to make the transition into this environment and continued to recruit amongst traditional areas of the Chinese economy.
Thus this created serious problems since Communist Party penetration in privately owned companies to less than one percent. This generated tremendous amounts of fear within the organization since they realized that they were falling behind on the times and needed to aggressively recruit from the educated portions of the population.
Without new recruits within the new economy, the hold of the Communist Party on the population would be significantly weakened. A significant problem since the Communist Party's right to rule is derived from mostly propaganda and peer pressure. Few people feel like protesting the government because Chinese culture derives it's strength through strength by numbers. Belonging to a group is especially important to Chinese people and by going against the government, you suffer severe consequences socially, economically, etc.... You can easily see how the lack of Communist Party members within the richest and most profitable portions of the workforce could become a problem.
One of the reasons why Communist Party membership penetration amongst the workforce was so low in privately owned businesses was because of a lack of recruitment amongst the intellectuals in the country. The educated group has always been shunned by the Communist Party throughout it's existence (ie Cultural Revolution/Tianamen/Hundred Flowers Campaign). However, when Communist Party members began to leave their posts to work for private corporations, the party was forced to change and the Communist Party began significantly recruiting from intellectuals. Since this movement started, Communist Party penetration has now grown to the 5-6% range within privately owned companies (although many neglect their duties and fail to pay their dues).
My bet is that the Communist Party specifically targeted Yahoo when they were recruiting for new Communist Party members in order to create an internal system to maintain control and ensure that Yahoo, as a foreign privately owned company, wouldn't go too far out of line of Communist Party doctrine. There isn't much that Yahoo can do as a foreign company can do to change the internal culture of their Chinese employee workforce. You can't fight against the Chinese government.
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:2)
If yahoo cannot control their subsidiary company in China, they should formally separate t
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:2)
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:2)
When the act is suppressing free speech, a action cannot really be judged in the area it occurs. It would probably be fair to say that if China was a legitimate government, what yahoo committed would be considered unju
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:2)
Sorry to butt in, but that's a really interesting question, and I'm not sure that the answer is "no". The principle of charging people for crimes committed in another country is fairly well established, and not just in the US (as with the likely extradition of Gary McKinnon [wikipedia.org]), b
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:2)
But suppose you testified in a capital case, and your testimony helped send the defendant to the gurney. Next time you fly into Heathrow, do you think you should you be pulled aside, shackled, and tried in the Queen's court of law?
Apparently, the F.B.I. believes that's EXACTLY what should happen. Just ask Dmitry Sklyarov [wikipedia.org].
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:2)
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll never see a corporation sacrifice its life for the greater good. Put up its very existence in front of a military battle tank simply to m
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:1, Insightful)
If something isn't done soon, we (as American's) will have to turn to Russia or Cuba for help with our oppresive regime.
Don't be blind to what is happening in your own backyard.
--PEACE!
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't be blind to what is happening in your own pants.
Re:Look behind the headlines (Score:2)
You seem to miss the point that by the time you see those batteries attached to your own nuts, it's just a tad too late to start worrying.
I shouldn't be even slightly surprised if the more-than-a-billion people in China who've never had car batteries attached to their nuts feel much the same way about your country as you do about theirs.
Very familiar; give it a rest. (Score:3, Insightful)
I admit, I've engaged in some karma-whore Bush-bashing from time to time as well. He's an easy target, and a lot of the stuff th
Re:Very familiar; give it a rest. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Very familiar; give it a rest. (Score:2)
Oh, and get your terminology in order. There's no such thing as "leftist fascism". Fascism is not a synonym for totalitarianism, it's just one particular political system which is totalitarian like many others.
Blocking Is Easy (Score:4, Insightful)
how long will it be before they tire of this game? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:how long will it be before they tire of this ga (Score:2)
So much for freedom on the Internet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So much for freedom on the Internet (Score:2)
When technology advances enough for a common person to access it without having to rely on a company. I dunno, beam the information into space and store it as a tachyon field in a quasar. Or something.
Re:So much for freedom on the Internet (Score:2)
Re:So much for freedom on the Internet (Score:2)
You're right, the ineffectiveness of ICANN (to name one example), due to top-down political pressure from specific countries, is quite obvious. I suspect the most likely scenario is your first suggestion: a compartmentalised internet for each country, with some overlap. Efforts in the US to make the internet tiered seem to point this way; even if the US go ahead and make its own internet tiered,
Microsoft.cn (Score:1, Offtopic)
Go Microsoft! Then again, perhaps their incompetence is showing...
Capitalism of the Communists allows censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
To the point however, it's funny that all of this happens only due to the world's largest communist country accepting certain capitalist ideas. What i'm saying, is that if it wasn't due to the money factor then this wouldn't be happening, and the search engines of the world might (effectively even perhaps) force China to change some of their policies a bit. However, since money IS the issue (which for some reason in reading Marx/Engles I thought that money wasn't supposed to be controlling in Communisim) then the people are being censored.
Were I a company, I'd just say "Fuck you" to China.
Re:Capitalism of the Communists allows censorship (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as there exists no unified effort to isolate China, the idea that a company should unilaterally boycott China is a nice thought, but toothless.
Re:Capitalism of the Communists allows censorship (Score:2)
Re:Capitalism of the Communists allows censorship (Score:2)
Re:Capitalism of the Communists allows censorship (Score:2, Insightful)
You must break a few eggs to make an omlette. Things will get worse, but they'll get better if the people care.
If they're not willing to stand up for themselves and "throw off the yoke of their oppressors" then they deserve it. All people have t
Re:Capitalism of the Communists allows censorship (Score:2)
The Jews, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and most of Cambodia would like a word with you.
Re:Capitalism of the Communists allows censorship (Score:2)
Methodology (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article:
This seems like a rather simplistic analysis to me. Are most Chinese citizens going to use such obvious terms to search for information about topics they know the government is attempting to block? My understanding of how Chinese citizens use the Internet is limited, so I'm likely off base. It just seems to me that most Chinese users of Yahoo would be gathering information using terms less likely to be aggressively filtered. A broader comparison might be more useful in determining just how aggressively each engine is filtering results.
morally ambiguous (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if it is better to let your customers search for things that will get them persecuted? If there is simply an error then Yahoo could probably get away with simply not logging the attempted search. So eventually when they are compelled to hand over search logs to the police then they can claim that it was simply an error and perhaps not log the attempt in any detail. And, except that it is now documented, it is so subtle that police would be none the wiser.
Then again this is precisely the type of thing authoritarian governments count on, that merely the threat of persecution is enough to suppress most challenges to their authority. Leaving the few real challenges to their authority to be dealt with harshly. Authoritarian and totalitarian governments really turn morality on its head and being honest about even the littlest thing might get yourself or someone else hurt or killed.
Methodology (Score:2)
I am not a statistician, but that seems like kind of a small sample set for such a sweeping statement. Each search
The Best Policy (Score:2)
Ha! (Score:3, Funny)
wtf? (Score:2, Funny)
Would this work? (Score:4, Interesting)
As a possible tactic to foil China's crippling of internet searching (or, for that matter, any country's policy of censoring its internet input), set up a number of "code word" euphemisms for events happening in China that match phrases that don't initially look suspicious to the authorities, and which will blend into the background of most searches until long after the proverbial cat is out of the bag.
For instance, set up a website that details the Tianenmen Square massacre of 1989; however, instead of plastering "Tianenmen Square Massacre" all over it, refer to it as the "Hunan Blossom Harvest". The language and pictures will make certain to anyone viewing the site that this is anything but horticultural; it's a depiction of a vicious crackdown on a peaceful public demonstration, with plenty of blatant "clues" to when and where it happened. Get plenty of friends to make websites referring to this event in the same manner.
All it takes is for one returning "dissident" armed with the phrase, and I'm fairly certain the news will spread meme-like far faster than the authorities can crack down on it.
Rinse and repeat with clear criticism of the Saudi royal family in slightly euphemistic Arabic, and other fun stuff.
Re:Would this work? (Score:2)
I have a simpler idea (Score:2)
Let's see here... (Score:2)
It never hurts to suck up to the boss.
Proof that it's better to be there than not (Score:2)
Re:Proof that it's better to be there than not (Score:2)
Likewise, it's good to know as the US gets more fascist that Google and Yahoo will march in lock step with them as they suppress our freedoms and make more kinds of information sharing illegal.
OB: Invader Zim (Score:2)
TALLEST: You made them worse!
ZIM: Worse... or better?
Re:OB: Invader Zim (CORRECT Zim quote) (Score:2)
Red Tallest: You made them worse!
Zim: Worse... or better?
No, THIS is the CORRECT quote! (Score:2)
Get it right! Honestly!
Also mod+1 grandparent who stole a comment/quote I was going to make/reference as soon as I saw the headline! Great minds, etc.
Re:'Worst' Filtering policy (Score:1)
Re:'Worst' Filtering policy (Score:4, Insightful)
The government in China deliberately doesn't specify exactly what is illegal. It's far more effective for ISPs, newspapers, tv producers to overcompensate in censoring themselves knowing that failing to do so will likely lead to their imprisonment or execution.
Re:'Worst' Filtering policy (Score:2)
Re:'Worst' Filtering policy (Score:5, Funny)
Unless of course, Google's poor censorship is on purpose, and it's their way of bringing freedom to the area. Then um, way to go?
Re:'Worst' Filtering policy (Score:2)
Evil and incompetent? Google truly is the next Microsoft!
Re:'Worst' Filtering policy (Score:2)
It's really the same once you're accounting for PR spin.
Yahoo is the worst filter as XP SP2 has the best firewall.
Re:Yet another anti-China news item (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Yet another anti-China news item (Score:2)
100% Flamebait
Well, now it's clear that we've got government TrollMods patrolling Slashdot. How pathetic and weak.
Priorities (Score:1, Troll)
1. Be Iraq
2. Develop weapons of mass destruction
3. Support terrorists
4. Infringe copyrights
..
... (Profit?)
...
...
413. Abridge freedom of speech, or of the press.
Re:Yet another anti-China news item (Score:2)
Look at it this way -- what if Google opened an office in Amsterdam for Google Weed? Promoted it just as heavily as every other service and with the same zeal, and they wouldn't ship to the USA. Think t
Law, but not legitimate law. (Score:4, Insightful)
To follow your line of reasoning would be to say that I.G. Farben did nothing wrong when it churned out Zyklon-B, because it was following a "legitimate law" of the government in power at the time. Following a law because you have no other choice, and a gun is being held to your head (figuratively or otherwise), is one thing; calling that sort of rule "legitimate" is quite another. (And don't start whining to me about Godwin's Law, this is a completely apt comparison in this situation. Both governments have roughly the same claim to legitimacy.)
I can excuse companies for falling in line with the Chinese regime because they have no choice but to do so, as long as they admit this is why they're doing it. (I will even accept, if not excuse, a company which stands up and says that they are cooperating with injustice because it is profitable to do so, and doesn't delude itself into thinking it's doing good.) Giving the government a claim to legitimacy is far more damaging, and in my mind inexcusable.
Re:Law, but not legitimate law. (Score:2)
This is an interesting question. What if a government of an otherwise authoritarian, non-democratic country does have "consent" (in form of conscious support) of the majority of the governed? You know, the "popular king/dictator" type of situation - like Ataturk, or, if you want a modern example, Lukashenko in Belarus. Is it still illegitimate because it suppresses the dissenting minority? Would
Re:Ahh Freedom (Score:1)
Re:Worst Filtering Policy... (Score:3, Insightful)