You are here

Has Google increased its China censorship? Doesn't that violate the Internet's First Amendment?

New research from Piper Jaffray suggests that Google actually may have increased its censorship by ~30% in China since Google grand-standed on the world stage in January pledging that it would no longer censor search results on China.cn.  

Per Business Week's Blog, Piper Jaffrey' analyst Gene Munster: 

  • "Searches done on ten “sensitive” keywords in the Mandarin language on Google.cn, the company’s Chinese search site, yielded 52% fewer results than searches for the same keywords on the uncensored, English-language site, the analysts said in a research report on March 5. That confirms the censors are still in effect.
  • And there may actually be a higher level of filtering on Google.cn now than there was in January, when Piper Jaffray found 40% fewer search results on the censored search engine for the same ten keywords."

Google's non-neutral censorship of search results in China means Google is proactively: 

  • Blocking, degrading and impairing the open and free access to tens of thousands of Internet websites; and
  • Discriminating explicitly against freedom of speech in favor of censorship, in explicit and flagrant violation of "Net Neutrality, the First Amendment of the Internet, which ensures that the Internet remains open to new ideas, innovation and voices" -- according to the 'About' section of FreePress' SaveTheInternet.com flagship website.

Why are FreePress, Public Knowledge, New America Foundation, et al, not standing up to Google's flagrant and ongoing public violation of "the First Amendment of the Internet -- net neutrality"?

  • Why is there zero support from supposed net neutrality proponents for the small innovative job-creating start-ups that Google has crushed via non-neutral discrimination? TradeComet? myTriggers? Foundem? ejustice.FR? Ciao? StudioBriefing.net? etc.
    • Could it be that the whole net neutrality "movement" was actually a manufactured political issue by FreePress and bankrolled by Google? 
    • What other explanation is there for them turning such a blind eye to so many overwhelming facts of net neutrality violations by Big search right underneath their noses?      

In sum, it now appears this has become a rare lose-lose-lose-lose dynamic for Google:

  • The first loss is that Google has permanently destroyed their China business by choosing to shame China with public, humiliating, and accusatory tactics;
  • The second loss is that Google has permanently damaged their international business by proactively seeking to partner their own privacy-invading business model with the spy mission of the U.S.' top spy agency, the NSA -- in the name of cyber-security;     
  • The third loss is that Google is risking permanent damage to the Google brand by signalling to the world that Google's word is not Google's bond; and
  • The fourth loss is that Google's actions show that its support of net neutrality regulations for only its competitors and not for itself (when Google is the only major entity serially violating net neutrality) -- is obviously self-serving.

***  

BTW, see the China Censorship Ticker at www.GoogleMonitor.com to learn how long Google has continued to censor in China after explicitly and loudly pledging that it would no longer do so on its official blog.