China attacks Google for ‘porn’ links
China has criticized 19 search engines and portals for failing to do enough to block links to pornographic sites. It’s part of a renewed effort to control access to adult content among the Chinese public.
The Chinese government has already banned domestic Web sites from carrying adult content. However, it says search engines operating in China should not carry links to adult Web sites based overseas. This is supposedly to “purify the Internet’s cultural environment and protect the healthy development of minors”.
The government has now listed 19 sites including Google, Baidu (the other main search engine in China), online video sites and message boards which it says are failing to meet this requirement despite previous warnings. According to the Associated Press, officials say “violators will be severely punished”.
Google says it meets Chinese laws and can’t be held responsible for the sites it links to, pointing out that it doesn’t create any of the offending content itself.
Putting aside the moral arguments about whether search engines should follow such orders, there’s a practical issue at stake. You might think the simple answer would be that Google simply take the entire Internet user base of China and switch on ‘Google Safe Search’ as a mandatory filter.
The problem is that the Chinese government’s idea of pornography may not be covered by these standards. The BBC reports that “Officials seem to be particularly concerned about pretty girls in suggestive poses that can be accessed through various Web sites.”
Even if sites such as Google did agree to widen the variety of content which its filters classed as unacceptable, there’s still likely to be problems creating an automatic filter for such a vague definition as ‘suggestive’. And while sites such as YouTube try to manually filter out unacceptable content, the sheer scale of Google’s index means a manual vetting system simply isn’t practical.
There’s also some concern that the ‘moral’ crackdown might turn into a cover story to remove political content which isn’t to the government’s liking. One of the sites under attack, Tianya Club, is a discussion better known for political debate than scantily-clad women.
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