I looked up the definition of Evil today, and I found it, I tried to play a Google War and came across 256 million occurrences of it, still there's a hope for all of us I guess. On the 17th of January I blogged on how China turned into the biggest black spot on the Internet's map, to find out that I even have activists commenting in my blog :)Google has agreed to "remove certain sensitive information from our search results" you all know it by now, what you perhaps don't know is how what used to be the old Google still has its marks on the web. Google's Information for Webmasters still states that :
"Google views the comprehensiveness of our search results as an extremely important priority. We're committed to providing thorough and unbiased search results for our users."
I
guess Chinese users should print this and stick it on their walls to
remind them of the past as it says exactly the same. They have also removed
their "censored notice" from "older removals", how come, and for what
reason? Lack of accountability for when "local laws, regulations, or
policies" were removing "sensitive information" before the date?! Google
is my benchmark for disruption, but I guess its actions and "do no
evil" motto were simply too pure for the business world, which on the
majority of occasions is capable of destroying morale, even
individuals..Welcome in a "Twisted Reality" where one event looks like an entirely different one - on request, and the list is getting bigger!
But what is actually filtered in china these days, what are the topics of interest? Four years ago, a great initiative
brough more insights into what's deemed "sensitive information", and
while of course the list is changed on-the-fly, it is important to know
how it blocks the top results, as this is where all the traffic goes.Recently, CNET did a nice research on which sites are blocked by which search engine, I ever saw Neworder in there :)
The best thing about China's backbone is how centralized it really is and the way researchers are finding common censorship patters that could prove useful for future research. Is TOR with its potential applicable in China, and would initiatives such as the the Anonymous OS, or even TorPark, an USB extension of the idea, the future?Meanwhile, in case they are interested parties reading this post, consider taking a look at the "Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents" courtesy of Reporters Without Borders.
Technorati tags :
privacy, censorship, search engine, google, china, TOR, Anonymity
