This post has been in gestation for awhile now. However, right when I think it’s time to speak about the Chinese government’s pernicious censorship of the internet some new bit of even more saddening news comes out and then yet another, so I kept waiting. The story of the Chinese internet, especially since the summer of 2008, has been one of endless sorrow. It’s almost too bad the internet is such a intangible thing. If what the Chinese government was doing was happening on the streets, rather than secretly in an office room without warning or explanation, people might stand up and care.
I originally wanted to write this post because just last week the Chinese government blocked IMDB (The Internet Movie Database) to all 300 million+ 385 million+ Chinese internet users. This is simply a piece of pathetic censorship and emblematic of the paranoia that the Chinese government has when it comes to the freedom of speech. I love movies and since I can’t use Netflix, go to a video rental store or use American cable television I use the Chinese internet and stream whole movies online for free (it is easy to watch and download movies, TV shows, and music for free on the Chinese internet), but I am constantly looking for new movies to watch. IMDB was always a great way of figuring out what is popular State-side and what movies have come out on DVD. I don’t think that’s why the government blocked it, probably has more to do with their gargantuan (and unwinnable) fight against pornography.
Then there was this little tidbit of news last month that had every foreigner in China laughing their asses off, before a period of quiet sadness set in as they realized the perilous world they live in.
“Our country’s Internet situation is unique. Compared to all kinds of restrictions in foreign countries, China has the most open Internet in the world.”
«我国互联网形态有特殊性。相对于国外的各种限制，中国的互联网是全世界最开放的。»
- Zhou Xisheng (周锡生) Deputy Chief of Xinhua News Agency, Director-General of Xinhua News Net.
In general the internet in China has since the Spring of 2008 been sliding ever-faster towards a sad world were freedom turns up no search results. 2008 was of course the year of the Olympics and was when we saw the riots in Tibet, with corresponding government censorship and paranoia. 2008 was followed by a new year of even more censorship as Facebook and Twitter were blocked and Xinjiang became (and remains) an internet dead zone after intense riots there. And as time has gone by the government has silently picked off sites big and small, hiding pieces of the internet from its people.
All of this would be enough to warrant a blog post on any blog that pays attention to China issues, but with this morning’s bombshell of an announcement about Google in China the story of Chinese censorship of the internet has exploded and we all can’t help but take notice.
Early this morning in China, Google posted on its official English blog this: A New Approach to China.
The post starts off by explaining that in mid-December Google’s servers, along with those of a couple dozen other American internet companies, were systematically attacked by someone or something in China that really knew what they were doing. Google never states that it is blaming the Chinese government but it’s there if you read between the lines. For Google the attack targeted the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. But that’s not all! The real juice of the post comes towards the end when they write:
We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”
These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
Right now this means that Google.cn is uncensored for the first time ever (check out those cute pictures of the Dalai Lama!) (1/25: Google.cn has continued to be censored since the blog posting). In Beijing Chinese citizens are laying flowers outside Google’s China headquarters. A friend of my colleague just emailed her saying that Google management at the Beijing headquarters has told employees to not come to work starting tomorrow. (1/25: These rumors about the office closing seem to have been nothing but rumors.)
Google, like so many other useful and righteous websites will soon no longer be accessible in the People’s Republic of China. As someone who uses Google search, Gmail, and Google Reader every single day, this is not good news. Some are rightly pointing out that Google was never going to become the no.1 search engine of China (that belongs to China’s own Baidu.cn) and that Google never made a lot of money in China, so bowing out of China was not as difficult a decision as it could have been. Nevertheless, this announcement is epic. Foreign companies never go after the Chinese government like this. American companies actually bend over backwards to do business here, even if that means ignoring issues like freedom of speech or privacy.
I can’t help but applaud Google’s actions. Not only are they living up to their mantra of “Don’t be evil”, but they are also confronting the Chinese government the way no one else seems to be doing. That said, people in China are really sad today. Here in my office Google is the search engine of choice and my colleagues are not happy that they will have to let it go now. Me, I’m horribly sad to see Google go (though I have the power to jump over the Chinese government’s Great Firewall), but as an American who holds certain freedoms in high regard and as someone who lives in China I am thankful that someone is standing up. I really liked what Jeremy Goldkorn, of Danwei, published in the Guardian today:
The fallout will be interesting. I can’t recall a single case of a major international company with operations in China taking a stand like this. As someone who agreed with Google’s reasoning when it entered China, I also support this move. If it cannot operate here in accordance with its global standards, it should leave. I have given up on getting my own website unblocked by the government and am resigned to the fact that it’s only accessible to people who are outside China or know the technical tricks to get over the Great Firewall.
I’d rather be outside the wall and free than inside it with the icy hand of the censor around my throat.
This has been really big news today and seems to only get bigger as the day goes on. Looking at my Google Reader feeds of China blogs, it seems that the vast majority have already posted something about this news. Twitter, which is blocked in China, has been glowing with people’s comments on the issue (check out China Digital Times collection of interesting tweets). Of course, the government here seems to be blocking information of the announcement left and right. Still, the news is traveling fast along office corridors and between friends on the street and people sitting next to each other in internet cafes across the nation, censorship of the internet is being talked about like I’ve never seen before. And that, my fellow internet users, is something we should be thankful for.
Mourners laying flowers at Google's China headquarters in Beijing. January 13, 2010
Some further reading on the subject:
Imagethief
James Fallows (The Atlantic)
More photos of people bringing flowers to Google’s China headquarters
Global Voices Online
The Peking Duck
Shanghaiist
China Hearsay
