The aim of reviewing the dispute between Google and the Chinese government is firstly, to provide a background of why and how Google was restricted in China despite the fact it is the one of the largest search engines in the world. For online news workers, the consequence of losing access to Google’s search engine deprives them of a useful database and access to international news feeds and proxy VPNs for the purpose of bypassing the Great Firewall. Secondly, this section aims to compare the efficiency and results of administrative interference from the authorities in the online news media. For domestic websites, the Chinese authorities can give instructions and directives to interfere with the protocol of online news production, as the domestic websites are principally managed by the authorities. The web administrators can be pressed by the government to comply, and the staffing and structure of websites are infiltrated by the Party (See details in Chapter 6:4.3). But for foreign websites, such approaches are ineffective. The dispute between Google and the Chinese government is an extreme case where the Internet firm refused to comply with the censorship and this resulted in its abandoning of China’s market.
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The dispute between Google and the Chinese government was not an isolated case. Many global Internet firms have a conflictive history with the local authorities when setting up business in China. For instance, Microsoft admitted in 2005 that its blogs automatically blocked key words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, and Yahoo was accused by a US congressional hearing that they sacrificed their cooperative principles to profit, by helping the Chinese government filter e-mails and messages (Petley, 2009: p.107-8).
Google developed a Chinese-language interface in 2005. Its China-based search page google.cn was launched in 2006. After the establishment of Google China, google.com was inaccessible on mainland China’s Internet (McLaughlin, 2006). Google’s official blog admitted that it compromised in launching a Google domain that restricted information and filtered search results (McLaughlin, 2006; Thompson, 2006). If users searched for prohibited Chinese keywords, the result would be filtered. Users were notified when they tried to access certain search terms that had been restricted. In this case, Google.cn displayed the notification at the bottom of the page: “In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search result is not shown” (Text translated from Chinese).
Google China had been the focus of controversy over its capitulation to the Great Firewall since it announced its intention to comply with Internet censorship laws and regulations in China (Bridis, 2006). Google was criticised as a multinational Internet company that assisted government censorship in China (HRW, 2006), and Google China as a flagrant violation of the Google motto “Don't be evil” (Cohn, 2007, p.30). In responding to these criticisms, Google argued that, despite the compromises involved, it could play a more useful role in China “by participating than by boycotting it” (BBC, 2006).
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Google’s official blog released a blog named “A new approach to China” on 12 January 2010. It responded to a Chinese-originated hacking attack on it when Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were hacked (Worthen, 2010). The blog indicated that Google.cn would not continue censoring search results and might stop the searching service operation in China as follows:
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 (Drummond, D., 2010a).
According to the announcement released by David Drummond, SVP, Google’s Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer on 22 March 2010, Google stopped censoring the search services on Google.cn, including Google Search, Google News, and Google Images. Meanwhile, China’s mainland users, who visited Google.cn, would be redirected to Google.com.hk, Google’s Hong Kong service which offered uncensored searches in Chinese. However, Drummond stated that, throughout the negotiation, the Chinese government had been “crystal clear” that self-censorship is “a non-negotiable legal requirement”, and presumably that Google’s decision might cause access to the search engine to be blocked in China (Drummond, D. 2010b).
Although Google argued that offering uncensored searches “is entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China” (Drummond, D., 2010b), it was criticised by Chinese media, which stated that the search result violated China’s law and regulations. From 19th June, state owned media CCTV and People’s Daily published a series of commentaries to condemn and denounce the fact that pornographic
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information was found on Google’s search results (Qing, R. 2009; Zi, 2009; Cui, 2009b;
Chen, 2009). It was reported that Google search engine might direct users to links with obscene content even though users did not intentionally look for it. For example, searching the keyword “son” would result in links that contained fornication (Chen, 2009).
Google China’s uncensored search was accused of demoralisation and causing people antipathy (Zi, 2009). Beijing recruited an Internet monitoring team which consisted of over 10,000 volunteers in June 2009. The team members would supervise the contents of websites and report to the Bureau of Culture Enforcement and Public Security if
“pornographic or dirty information” was detected (Cui, 2009a).
A distinct difference between the Chinese government and Google on this debate was the parties’ different focus on censorship. Google claimed the decision was not merely made on a financial basis, but that Google.cn would not willingly self-censor its results (Jacobs, 2009b). These uncensored results might contain links to adult content and some of the political content which the Chinese government originally required Google to filter.
However, the state owned media in China appeared to only address the issue of adult content and delivered its strong disapproval to them. From the reports and commentaries, criticism of Google defying the government focused on searchable adult contents over Google.cn. However, the crucial issue of searchable, politically sensitive content was somehow neglected. In other words, these reports and commentaries did not mention, quote or comment on the censorship issue that was addressed in Google’s announcement.
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3.4.3.1 Criticism
When Google initially announced its intention to leave China, many young people placed wreaths at the company headquarters in Beijing as a sign of mourning (Helft & Barboza, 2010; joe200362, 2010). However, the donated flowers were promptly removed by security guards. Google’s supporters were told that they needed to apply for permits to prevent them from facing accusations of contributing to the “illegal flower tribute”
(Osnos, 2010).
It was reported in January that some students and professionals felt disappointed by Google’s decision to pull out because they lost access to the company’s vast resources (Helft & Barboza, 2010), and others used the real-time service to express their gratitude to Google (Independent, 2010). A large number of tweets with the term #GoogleCN were being created and the stream of tweets increased rapidly (Independent, 2010).
In responding to Google’s pull-out in March 2010, Han, a critic, said “farewell Google”
in an interview with Tudou.com. (veryeasy, 2010) He commented that Google abandoning China might cause other foreign websites to change their business strategies in China and back out, eventually making China’s Internet “the largest local area network (LAN) in the world” (veryeasy, 2010). The video of this interview spread over the Internet, but was later deleted along with his other blog articles which commented on the incident.
It was viewed as a historic moment for Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet project at the University of California, Berkeley. He valued the Internet as a catalyst for China being more integrated into the world. But Google’s departure indicated that “China’s path
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as a rising power is going in a direction different from what the world expected and what many Chinese were hoping for” (Helft & Barboza, 2010).