Google China’s New Take on ‘Tiananmen Massacre’
Google announced it will stop filtering its China search engine — or shut the site. And already, once-suppressed results are showing up on Google.cn (see screenshot; top is current, bottom from June). That’s the good news. The bad news?
Google says it hasn’t actually done anything yet. A spokesperson told the Daily Telegraph‘s Shanghai correspondent the company has not changed its filtering since announcing its forthcoming changes. That, presumably, is why you can still see a disclaimer about censored search results in black at the bottom left of both screenshots above.
And that’s presumably why a search for “tiananmen” still looks like this on Google.cn…
…and like this on Google.com (with the language set to Chinese):
It’s always nice to imagine a censorship free Google.cn, of course. It might even happen, some day. But don’t hold your breath.
View full post on Gawker: valleywag
@Glitterberries: now try it at an internet cafe!
Jhonka
@ambiguousasian: Speaking of hype… Okay, you’re right. The US committed atrocities in Vietnam and in other places. Happy? Now let’s get back to the subject at hand, China’s many present day crimes and it’s attempt to strongarm not only it’s own people but everyone in the world from learning and sharing the truth. Crimes like supporting and promoting genocide in Darfur in order to gain free access to Sudan’s oil. Or ethnic cleansing in Tibet. By the way, where is the Panchen Lama? Personally, I think Google should pack up and get the hell out of China. Hopefully their example would encourage other corporations to withdraw their tacit cooperation with a fascist, totalitarian government and country which seems not to give a damn about the other people who share the earth with them.
Oh by the way, I saw the massacre in Tianaimen Square live on CNN and no, I don’t think the Chinese people know the full story, like what happened to the man in front of the tanks and became an international symbol of defiance against facism. Did he survive the afternoon?
topsy
@topsy: Oh you know, because seeing photos of kids in Vietnam burned by napalm, bombed out cities in Iraq, and completely innocent, landmine-mained limbless farmers in Laos and Cambodia have totally motivated Americans into becoming enlightened, liberal citizens that recycle and drive electric cars.
Get real.
I spent my childhood divided up between southern China and Ghana. I am not going to profess that my upbringing makes me a foreign policy expert, but I’ve seen enough of the world outside of America to understand some of the greater nuances in certain situations. Do you honestly think that people in China have NO idea what the Tianaimen Square massacre entails? Ask any university student there and they’ll be able to easily bypass the search engine to pull the same images of tanks that any of us can see today. They know it and their parents know it, and it’s not exactly a source of pride for anyone. Do they want things to change? Yes. Are they actively hoping and working for it to happen? Yes. Subversively, change is in spades.
In the grand, global scale of human inequities, China’s atrocities equal the average sins of any power that held a significant share of the world’s riches. If China is guilty of one thing, it would be for completely destroying its own environment and the sacrificing the health of its own people to shill out crap for Walmart in order to buy into the American model of mass consumerism. Ultimately, its environmental policies does far more damage to the country and the world than anything else. Ignore the hype.
ambiguousasian
I had no idea Michael Phelps was there. That explains his bong issues — he’s trying to deal with the tragic memories that haunt him to this day.
Ogiri W Surie
@Glitterberries: Could you please post screenshots? They would be helpful
Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith
@raincoaster: Don’t be evil, as long as it suits your: (a) bottom line? Because, would they be doing this if Baidu weren’t around?
malvones
@m4ximusprim3: It’s not just you, I have no fucking idea what’s happening in this article.
“And already, once-suppressed results are showing up on Google.cn..”
Later..
“And that’s presumably why a search for “tiananmen” still looks like this on Google.cn…”
So is it changed or not? If it’s not changed, then why did you say it did..?
ostartero
@topsy: So true.
Stream Of Consciousness
“It’s always nice to imagine a censorship free Google.cn”
I’m still waiting on the censorship free Google.com. Anyone seen that one anywhere?
Namu
@Glitterberries: Do you have any idea of what the results were when you did the same query or any other prohibited query on Google.com before Google’s statement yesterday? I always thought requests to non-Chinese Google servers were either explicitly blocked or the addresses to the servers were unresolvable.
atlasfugged
@raincoaster: It’s simply terrible. A good friend of mine is a project manager for Google, and I can’t help feeling like his sunny California-but-moving-to-Hawaii disposition is just CRAP.
PikaDar Brisetout
@m4ximusprim3: ditto.
thisiswhatweknow
Ryan, fwiw, I’m in mainland China and using Google.com to search “tiananmen square’ just now, I got a screen full of pictures similar to the Google.com shot above, which I assume was captured outside of mainland China? And the drop down box offered ‘massacre’ as the first search option.
But when I used Google.cn, I got a different screen shot than the one you’ve posted here. Same pictures, but below the censor disclaimer, there is a link “1989天安门.” Your screen shot only shows a link to “天安门.” I searched using Chinese characters, not pinyin.
(I searched without using any type of proxy, btw.)
lolainblackglasses
Nobody really believes that Google is doing this out of their civic duty to the human race, right? There is only one reason Google will EVER pull out of a deal and that reason is Money. Plain and simple.
Either the mandated government majority ownership of all businesses in China was too much for Google to swallow or there is some other monetary reason that Google can’t stomach.
The data that was “compromised” was likely financial or worse still, profile and user info – which does not bode well for mainland Chinese people with Gmail accounts. I’ll be interested to see how this gets spun over the next few weeks.
Fatback N Collards
Shove it in their faces Google. Throw in some pictures of victims in Dafur, murdered by weapons provided by China to distract the killers, while China helps itself to the Sudan’s oil
topsy
wait, I’m totally confused. They haven’t done anything yet, but the results are different, but they’re the same?
Can someone pretend I’m stupid and explain this to me?
m4ximusprim3
Don’t be evil — Stop being evil.
raincoaster