In a move that will do nothing to calm fears of a looming
trade war, the Chinese government momentarily blocked access to Google on Wednesday,
after the Communist Party chastised the world’s foremost search engine for
allowing Chinese web surfers to view — get this — pornographic material.
The Communist Party’s criticism and subsequent censorship led
to Google removing search suggestions, and language and location settings. The
company was also told to remove pornographic links and “vulgar material” from
its search engines inside the Middle Kingdom. Google, who complied with the
demands and is back online in China, has said that it plans on working closely
with the Chinese government in the future to ensure that strict media
regulations are met.
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While it is true, according to one Westerner living in
Shanghai, that Google Video could easily be used in China to find pornographic
videos previously, it is highly unlikely that China’s recent crackdown is aimed
at blocking lewd material. Pornographic media can still be purchased in video
stores in China.
Like the decision to require all computers sold in China after
July 1 to be fitted with web filtering software known as Green Dam — supposedly
aimed at blocking pornography — the decision to shut down Google seems to be a
case of the Communist Party flexing its Internet censorship
muscles. The Chinese government does not want outspoken netizens to spoil a
year when China will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Communist
Party’s rise to power, and not celebrate the 20th anniversary of the
Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Particularly at a time when online media proved itself to be
useful to dissidents in Iran, authoritarian governments around the world are
looking for ways to stay one step ahead of the Twitter Revolution. Even if
nothing had happened in Iran, the Communist Party would still be anxious that
cyber dissidents may try to drum up memories of Tiananmen. “June is a very
politically sensitive month for China,” said Cynthia Wong, Plesser fellow and
staff council at the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C.
Don’t be evil, unless you get paid
Google, which evidently has no problem making
moral adjustments to do business in the world’s most populous country,
looks set to continue its work in China, despite the company’s “Don’t be evil”
mantra. Apparently, helping the same bureaucracies that throw people like Liu
Xiaobo in prison isn’t evil.
The U.S. government is taking a slightly different view of
the matter. Though it has yet to make a statement about this latest flap in
China, earlier this week the U.S. pressured China to drop its Green Dam
requirement for computer manufacturers. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and U.S.
Trade Representative Ron Kirk warned the Chinese government that the United
States considers the Green Dam requirement to be a violation of World
Trade Organization rules.
“Protecting children from
inappropriate content is a legitimate objective, but this is an inappropriate
means and is likely to have a broader scope,” Kirk said in a letter to the
Chinese Ministries of Commerce and of Information and Technology. “Mandating
technically flawed Green Dam software and denying manufacturers and consumers
freedom to select filtering software is an unnecessary and unjustified means to
achieve that objective, and poses a serious barrier to trade.”
A trade war,
in fact, may actually be at the heart of the issue. The Chinese government only
took action against Google after being issued the rebuke from Locke and Kirk,
despite the fact that it was highly critical of the California-based search
engine earlier in the week. The Chinese government may just be trying to
protect Chinese companies.
“It has been reported on
blogs that you can still find porn on local search engines, such as Baidu,”
Wong pointed out. Google’s previously lax attitude towards blocking porn in
China merely strengthened the government’s favoritism towards local software
engineers. “The government can point to pornography found on Google and
say that filtering programs like Green Dam are necessary,” Wong added.
Given the Chinese
government’s attitude towards transparency, it is difficult to tell the real
motivation behind the decision. One thing is certain — Chinese enthusiasts will
now be buying their porn in stores. And if those movies are pirated copies of
classic American films, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce may very well be
hearing from its American counterpart once more.
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