China disables Google ‘vulgar content’
p2pnet news view P2P | Advertising:- China’s Communist leaders say American advertising company Google’s Chinese language site is, “linking too often to pornographic and vulgar content”.
So they’ve disabled some certain functions, says the New York Times.
“Government officials met with managers of the Chinese operations of Google on Thursday afternoon to warn them that the company would be punished if the Web site was not purged of the offending material,” it has state news agency Xinhua saying.
The show of force, “could disrupt the company’s growth in the country and underscores the political risks of operating in China,” says the Financial Times, going on
State media said on Friday that the authorities had “punished” Google China for linking to pornographic content. On Thursday, in a “law enforcement talk”, the government announced that Google China would be punished with orders to suspend foreign webpage searches and automated keywords, Xinhua, the official news agency, and China Central Television, the main state broadcaster, said.
On Friday, “it appeared that the associative-word feature of the Web site had been disabled,” says the NYT, adding:
“That is the function that displays a drop-down menu of words related to a search word that is typed into the search engine. The previous evening, reporters on China Central Television, the state television network, showed how typing in the Chinese word for son, erzi, could pull up associated terms that have lewd connotations.
“State news organizations also reported that the ability to use Google’s Chinese site to search overseas Web sites was supposed to be disabled, but that feature was still working on Friday evening.”
Google says it’s, “making greater efforts to clean up its Chinese Web site”.
The crackdown was, “probably a mixture of the government’s recent hard-line approach on censorship and increasingly bitter rivalry with Baidu,” says the FT, adding:
“Whistleblowing on competitors is a very widespread practice in China.”
New York Times – China Disables Some Google Functions, June 19, 2009
Financial Times - China orders Google to restrict searches, June 19, 2009
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June 19th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
[http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/06/china-starts-meddling-with-google-results-because-of-porn.ars]
“The Chinese government has repeatedly condemned Internet pornography for ‘perverting China’s young minds,’…”
I’m continually fascinated with the use of the term “internet pornography”.
Is that another “genre” of pornography (like “S&M”, or “Asian”)?
: )
Seriously though, something is either considered “pornography” or it isn’t. If porn is “bad”, then it wouldn’t matter what medium is carrying it. Before the arrival of the Internet, I don’t recall people using terms like “videotape pornography”, or “reel-to-reel pornography”. Why this sudden “distinction”?
It might be just a stupid question.
Think of it as a distraction, if you will, from all these current stories highlighting the human animal’s inability to truly evolve. I mean, we’ve been around for so many years, yet, collectively, we’re still not capable of accepting things like our own sexuality, in all its forms. And, mobs continue to “chase the evil that is pornography”, using that “mission” to justify so many other infringements to humanity.
Some days, I just think the human race is destined to be exterminated by a clearer-thinking alien power, or wipe out its own existence, as it seems determined to do.
(gone for coffee)
: )
June 19th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
@ DA:
Pornography has been with us since we learned how to make marks on cave walls. And it’ll stay with us until we’re all neuteroids who procreate by sticking our fingers in each other’s ears, or some such.
Currently, the people who make the most use of porn are the same ones who are hypocritically condemning it.
Cheers!
June 19th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I hear ya, Jon.
But, what we started with wasn’t CALLED “pornography”.
Many of our discussions here seem to bring up a common point, that being “bastardization of words”.
The word “pornography” itself is a derrogatory term that was universally accepted as being SUBJECTIVE, and therefore, not representative of anything specific (i.e. content itself) that would allow laws to be built around it.
Examples:
1) The Johnson Commission (1970) decided that the term pornography had “no legal significance” and that is “often denotes subjective disapproval of certain materials rather than their content or effect.
2) The Meese Comission of 1986 defined pornography as “any depiction of sex to which the person using the word objects.” They agreed with the previous commission that (in it’s common use) it is a subjective term, and does not in any way reflect more specific content than sex.
It was supposed to be established that “pornography” was not a term that was synonymous with others, like “erotica” (sexually explicit materials which are not considered pornographic), “obscenity” (universally degrading materials), or “sexually explicit” (materials depicting the actual details of sexuals acts).
Now, it seems, we’re supposed to accept that the word “pornography” represents “illegal activity”.
Similar to the same way the term “file sharing” is being equated with “illegal downloading”.
All I’m saying is, who the hell is responsible for changing the language in these cases??
Because, if we continue to allow everything in our language to be bastardized to death and arbitrarily mutated into new legal terms, then those new terms can and will be exploited by those with pointed interests that would interfere with a normal, healthy societal development. (More “word salad” for ya, Dreddsnik.) : )
This twisting of words has been proving to be causing the brunt of our difficulties in combatting a number of issues of late, don’tcha think?
June 19th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
The Internet is for Porn!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULpSmZExuZU
June 20th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
the world of warcraft version is better in my opinion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWEjvCRPrCo
June 24th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Ellen Feiss is cuter.