Google stops censoring its search engine in China

[SS-18 ICBM]

While the fact is that they can do this painlessly because they do not have a relatively large share of the market and that China is a small percentage of their global revenues, I do approve of the gesture. Said conditions also mean that this will have little impact on the government's position.

 

[Masada]

Its a completely ridiculous that party policy on such an important issue was not made transparent. You made an interesting point on "government paternalism" in Australia:

Australian governments have been paternalistic for a long while. It manifested itself in state sanctioned racism where the state 'protected' the populace from the 'yellow hordes'. It can be seen in our existing immigration rules. It can be seen in our media. And just about every other facet of public life.

And as you've noted in other threads: you can see the effects writ upon the faces of the populace. The casual racism and the disparagement of everything and anything foriegn isn't a coincidence. Its something that's been inoculated into the Australian psyche since long before Australia was a nation. And it stems from the essentially paternalistic nature of Australian politics -- from governments who believe that Australia must be protected and that Australians must be protected and so forth. If the government believes that the internet poses a threat to the people it will take every effort to eliminate it whatever the cost. There isn't a need for consultation if its in the peoples own best interests -- as narrowly conceived by the government. Australia didn't have a real debate on our Anti-Terrorism legislation and we won't get one on internet censorship -- let alone the secretive mechanisms through which sites can be banned.

If its not from religious institutions, then from what did this political culture emerge, in your opinion?

I hope I covered that above. But essentially in the past the Australian population were happy to give to the government a very wide political ambit to shield them from the problems of the world. Australians expected the government to protect them and in turn the government expected to protect Australians. That compact hasn't ever really ended but the original issues that the Australian public wanted to be shielded from -- the Great Depression, the Yellow Tide and so forth -- are no longer relevant. And there has never been any attempt to redefine that relationship based on our increased safety (well, imagined danger has decreased).

Nevertheless, the government has continued to expand its role moving progressively into other areas, protecting the children is an important one as is 'saving der blecks from demthelves' in the name of protecting the Australian population from itself, or from some fictive enemy. The issue is that while those other two had a measure of political support, even if the latter was sprung on the population without warning, that this doesn't seem to have any support whatsoever. It seems to be something that my Avatar (Senator Conroy) and a few others dreamed up on their own volition. So while Australia is paternalistic you can usually find some electoral support for whats happening even if the government never campaigned on it but this is an especially worrying trend where even that implicit support isn't even sought. Its for our own good even if we don't know it.

Instead of the Church driving our morals and influencing our legislation like in Ireland. The state has taken upon itself to do the same thing since well, I guess, we don't have institution with sufficient clout to impose its morals upon the government. Its a kooky system. Our government is the chief enforcer and decider of the moral mean of the Australian people. Heck, our Prime Minister makes moral pronouncements all the time that are given more weight than any religious figure. And unlike Ireland we can't get rid of our moral enforcer...

Google just cost me 200 yuan.(for VPN)

Vesley ol' son your back!

 

[vesley1987]

Vesley ol' son your back！

Another reason to hate Google
It failed to help me to understand this sentence.

 

[Masada]

It failed to help me to understand this sentence.

Translation: Vesley glad to see you back.

 

[plarq]

Another reason to hate Google
It failed to help me to understand this sentence.

No big loss for me. I don't use google.cn anyway. Who speak Chinese, I do not.

 

[plarq]

Google.cn is redirected to google.hk, which means that Google China stops its main service.

 

[Tee Kay]

Is Google Hong Kong being censored?

 

[plarq]

Is Google Hong Kong being censored?

No, but...

Any Internet traffic between Mainland China and outside world is censored by Chinese Internet Authority. Any keywords (the list of which is classified), disallowed URL and IP address will result a network error.

 

[amadeus]

So how does this work with Hong Kong? Is HK considered the "outside world" for the purposes of the CCP?

 

[onedreamer]

What can China do about it?

filter queries

In a democracy we (well, not me, other people) select our "representatives". These representatives once they get into parliament can do what they want without these actions actually being directly supported by the people. A bill only has to pass through other representatives, not a referendum.

What ? This is utmostly wrong. A Democracy is where you don't elect anyone to speak for you, you vote. Referendums are the regular tool of a democracy. What you speak of is a Republic, or at best a Democratic Republic, but still a Republic.

 

[Shaihulud]

The Australian government does censor alot of violent computer games, I find it incongruous because the society is so free (from my point of view)

 

[plarq]

The outlook of censorship is similar, but the atmospheres of corresponding nations are gravely different.

Let's recap:

Google.com , etc. obey censorship laws of corresponding countries (Few are censored).
Google.cn formerly censor information according to Chinese authority regulations.
Any byte between Mainland China and outside world (HK included) is checked and censored by state firewall systems.
Google.cn stops censorship, thus moving itself to HK, and eligible for Chinese State Firewall systems (Google.cn formerly didn't, since it's inside China).
So Chinese user will suffer more spontaneous censorships when they surf google.

 

[Tee Kay]

What ? This is utmostly wrong. A Democracy is where you don't elect anyone to speak for you, you vote.

Voting in an election is the process of electing a representative to act on your behalf in government.

Referendums are the regular tool of a democracy.

Define "regular". We certainly won't have a referendum over this internet censorship issue.

What you speak of is a Republic, or at best a Democratic Republic, but still a Republic.

No. The word republic these days is taken to mean any country without a monarch or some sort of nobility ruling the country (so, Mainland China is a republic). I'm speaking of representative democracy, which is how most so-called democracies in the world today operates. It seems you are thinking more along the line of direct democracy, eg the Swiss model, where referendums do play an important role in passing legislation. Not so in representative democracies.

 

[plarq]

Tor-ing, please wait...

I need to update my Tor manual.

Try a linux distribution. Debian, ubuntu, centos, gentoo... anyway you want, Tor is a package most distribution offers.
Install it, grab tor (old version, but not too old, 0.2.0.3 and up and you're set). Install it, install privoxy if it hasn't already.
check torrc file. Add lines like:

UseBridge 1
Bridge xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:yyyy

check /etc/privoxy/config
Uncomment this:

forward-sock4a  /  localhost:9050

Write a email to bridge@torproject.org -- Use Encryption. Do not use domestic services. You don't want anyone mess it up. If you find Gmail blocked, try register in another E-mail service.
Now copy down the auto-reply: it is what Bridge is, fill it in torrc file.

Start tor via terminal, wait until "Tor is now operating successfully" is displayed.
First you need to access torproject.org -- download newest version of tor software, etc. You can also download a binary bundle for your Windows.
Delete Bridge once you successfully connect to Tor Network. Use Tor occasionally to keep its nodes list update, otherwise you'll have to use Bridge again.
And, greetings!

 

[eoc]

They could lose all their trade in China. Thats pretty gutsy in my book. They could have easily just left it be, maybe just upped security to stop cyber attacks, so more credit to them.

You call it gusty?
If google own 60% market in China cyber applications, it won't be so brave at all. You really don't know that how pathetic google.cn in China. And if you has nothing to lose, you will become brave too, right?

 

[plarq]

Well, 30% is not a small number, multiply it with Chinese netizens.

 

[eoc]

Well, 30% is not a small number, multiply it with Chinese netizens.

30%? Don't believe number too much. As I know, even thosewhouse goole, most of them use google.com, while not google.cn

 

[eoc]

So how does this work with Hong Kong? Is HK considered the "outside world" for the purposes of the CCP?

I tried just now, it can provide the result, while can not dig into the link.
I hope that it would better not bring censorships to HK because of google.

 

[plarq]

No such censorship in HK exists as it's in Mainland China. Check wiki article (need proxy) about censorship in Mainland China and HK.