p2pnet news | Freedom:- "Google, after being publicly questioned at the UN about not signing on to the human rights and anti-censorship principles of the Global Compact, responded not by joining the Compact and foreswearing from censorship but by moving to de-list from its Google News service the media organization which raised the question."

This comes in the intro to an Inner City Press post by Matthew Russell Lee, the man who runs the small online news outfit.

But this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

In 2004, based on information from Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT) CEO Bill Xia, p2pnet was the first to report ‘Do No Evil’ Google was censoring news from within mainland China.

We posted:

DIT’s DynaWeb is a free proxy network built to circumvent internet blocking in China and Xia told p2pnet that on September 15, DynaWeb revealed Google’s news results for China were different than those conducted in the US.

"We were able to confirm this report through proxies in China," he said.

Google spokeswoman Debbie Frost told p2pnet, "to create the best possible news search experience for our users, we sometimes decide not to include some sites, for a variety of reasons".

Does ‘not include’ amount to ‘block’? And does ‘block’ amount to ‘censor’?

Google justifies the fact it ‘omits’ some sites in mainland China by saying:

"[…] it’s clear that search results deemed to be sensitive for political or other reasons are inaccessible within China. There is nothing Google can do about this," and:

"We, "considered the amount of information that would be omitted. In this case it is less than two percent of Chinese news sources. On balance we believe that having a service with links that work and omits a fractional number is better than having a service that is not available at all."

Logic suggests the most sensitive sites would be the ones ‘omitted’. Otherwise, why bother?

Now GAP, the Government Accountability Project, sums up this latest Google attempt to stifle freedom of speech like this:

Internet goliath Google has discontinued listing stories from Inner City Press, a United Nations-focused media organization, through its Google News program. The move comes after an Inner City Press staffer reportedly questioned Google regarding its failure to sign a human rights and anti-censorship agreement. Inner City Press is the most effective and important media organization for UN whistleblowers, according to Bea Edwards, International Program director of the Government Accountability Project.

GAP goes on:

In an email sent to Inner City Press, Google stated the following:

"We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users. When we reviewed your site we’ve found that we can no longer include it in Google News."

"Google’s reference to ‘user complaints’ is disturbing," said Edwards. "We can’t help wondering who is complaining about Inner City Press. Considering their continuing coverage of U.N. whistleblower issues, it’s not too difficult to venture a guess."

"Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page have each been quoted dodging the question of Google’s participation in the Chinese government’s censorship of the Internet, saying only that Google contacted Beijing and came to an understanding," says Lee, adding:

"It now appears that after getting a taste of censorship in China - and in Egypt, by some accounts - Google has in this case brought the practice home to the United States.

"Inner City Press, alongside requesting the name of institutional complainants and to be maintained in Google News, sought comment by e-mail from press@google.com and from Google’s Michael T. Jones, whom it questioned at the UN. The latter has not responded. From press@google.com came a series of questions, which once answered, resulted in a vague assurance that indexing would continue."

Definitely stay tuned.

Jon Newton - p2pnet

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Freedom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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