p2p news / p2pnet: Yahoo is the clear worst offender in Chinese censorship tests on search engines, says Reporters Without Borders.

The organization ran tests on Chinese versions of Yahoo!, Google, MSN and local competitor Baidu and, "While yahoo.cn censors results as strictly as baidu.cn, search engines google.cn and the beta version of msn.cn let through more information from sources that are not authorized by the authorities," it states.

But although Yahoo was singled out for special mention, neither Microsoft nor Google escaped.

Microsoft claims it doesn’t, "operate censorship," says RWB, but it found the Chinese version of the Microsoft search engine, "displays similar results to those of google.cn, which admits to filtering its content".

Searches using a ’subversive’ key word display on average 83% of pro-Beijing sites on google.cn, against 78% on msn.cn.

"By contrast, the same type of request on an uncensored search engine, like google.com, produces only 28% of pro-Beijing sources of information, says the story.

"However, Microsoft like Google appears not to filter content by blocking certain keywords but by refusing to include sites considered illegal by the authorities."

RWB says it was "particularly shocked" by the scale of censorship on yahoo.cn, " because the search results on ’subversive’ key words are 97% pro-Beijing".

That means Yahoo censorship is even worse than its Chinese competitor Baidu, says the story, continuing that above all, RWB, "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. It takes one hour before the service can be used again. This method is not used by any other foreign search tools; only Baidu uses the same technique."

RWB says it tested Chinese search engines by using the following ’subversive’ key words:

6-4 (4 June, date of the Tiananmen Square massacre)

• Falungong
• Tibet Independence
• Democracy
• Human rights
• press freedom

The first ten results displayed by each search engine were analysed and then divided into ‘authorized’ and ‘unauthorized’ sources of information.

Research test on "press freedom" (in Chinese), the first ten results:

• Google.com: 7 unauthorized, 3 authorized sites (72 million results)
• Google.cn: 5 unauthorized, 3 authorized (52 million results)
• Msn.cn (Beta): 3 unauthorized, 7 authorized (800,000 results)
• Yahoo.cn: 1 unauthorized, 9 authorized (240,000 results)
• Baidu.cn: 3 unauthorized, 7 authorized (450,000 results)

Also See:
Reporters Without Borders – Yahoo! clear worst offender in censorship tests on search engines, June 15, 2006

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