As internet communication technology advances, more and more people are also equipped with the knowledge and skills to use the internet with ease. Such a technology has many uses, one of which is information sharing. Information sharing can be done in the form of downloads, emails, online chats and blogs to name a few. It has helped draw people closer as you can now meet someone from the other end of the world just by visiting a chatroom or a forum without actually having to book a flight. People can now find plenty of information available on the world wide web on practically everything from aquarium setups to political articles. It is a wonderful tool for many but a threat for some who views it with suspicion and caution.
Some governments and politicians treat certain information as 'threats' that will spread negative sentiments against them. Many journalists have also been detained for sharing 'state secrets'. Firewalls have also been set up by governments to moderate search results and to block out certain 'malicious' websites. The list of preventive measures goes on and on but all of these cannot be successful without the help of global internet services company such as Yahoo! and Google. To follow up on my blogpost entitled "Internet censorship in China", which I have had no time expanding, I would like to take this opportunity to do so for the Bloggers Unite for Human Rights campaign.
Google Inc. and China
"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information... is more inconsistent with our mission."
No doubt Google's noble mission of providing information has done many of us good, it is defying it's however unofficial slogan of "Don't be evil" by collaborating with the Chinese government's unofficial slogan of "We are wary of information". Google has thus stained its name with the word 'hypocrisy' by coming up with a separate search engine for the Chinese government that helps to filter out many of a user's search results.
A good example will be Falungong. Try searching for information of the sect on both Google China and Google UK, and you will see the difference in the number of search results. I ran a search and the result on the former stated that there 9.130 websites were found whereas the latter stated that there were 120, 000 websites found. Try searching for it on Google Singapore and you will get the same number of result as Google UK. You do not even have to be in China to see the difference. However despite the result showing 9,130 links, many of them are blocked by the Great Firewall. One can still access those links shown on Google China unless you are in China. This was found out through my experiences while living in Shanghai. The same was confirmed by a friend of mine living in China as she was tasked to do the little experiment with me at the same time.
Information, as widely available as they are, should be free for all our views as we have the right to read them and decide for ourselves if they are malicious or otherwise. Reasoning is a great function that humankind has been equipped with and thus withholding information from anyone is an action of undermining one's intellect and logic, in my opinion. There is also an evil intention underlying all the censorship and special search engines. Many things that seem logical and important to many of us have been seen as taboo subjects in China. This is largely due to the way the government works. Conservative and authoritarian, the Chinese Communist Party intends to remain in power for many years to come. They have no worries as yet because they always remain in power anyway and their citizens have no chance to vote them out. Being traditionalists, they also fear 'losing face' to the international community as it will embarass the whole of the leadership hence many 'dark secrets' are not to be revealed. Not even to China's own citizens. Their textbooks have been whitewashed, making Mao a hero, justifying his cultural revolution and all the murders that had been committed under his rule. The government of China fears that 'western' ideologies and notions of freedom and democracy will 'brainwash' and influence their citizens, causing the toppling of their reign. This has also been shown through their hestitance to grant permits to foreign broadcast companies and foreign magazines (mainly from the West and of course, Taiwan) apart from holding their control (however inconsistent) over the world wide web.
Personally I am disgusted by the fact that Google Inc., as rich as they are, are thinking of business first before mission. Instead of agreeing to such a condition by the Chinese government, they should just not go into China at all because their censored existence in China simply defeats their mission (if any at all, really). Although I must say that they did their best to stand by their principles, as mentioned by Elliot Schrage in a testimony before a panel of human rights representatives from various human rights organisations in 2006 but I still cannot find myself agreeing fully to their compromise. Surely, respecting the rules and regulations of a government is encouraging but putting oneself in the position of a compromised victim of a governmental bully is not worth respect.
I hope for Google to reconsider their compromised service in China and consider pulling out altogether to make their statement. There are many fans of Google in China and I am sure that they will be dismayed and even angry at Google's pullout of the China market. A probable reaction might well be loads of emails to Google asking them for reasons and what Google could do is to simply inform them about their principles and mission as well as how existing in China is not really being true to what they call "Don't be evil".
Nobody feels comfortable knowing that information, and a great load of information too, has been withheld from them. If Google doesn't start making a statement via their actions, there is really no hope for any other internet services company to follow suit. Indeed, even if Google pulls out, many companies such as Yahoo and Baidu will grab their opportunities but at least we will have more respect towards Google.
Yahoo yourself all the way to jail!
(Come back later for this part. I lost it when the internet connection got cut abruptly. Grr.)
