China responds to Google's decision to leave the Chinese market.
Earlier today, Google announced that it would be offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese via the company's .com.hk branch. Specifically designed for users in Mainland China and delivered via servers in Hong Kong, the announcement signified the end of nearly three months of speculation about Google's threats to leave China.
Shortly after the announcement from Google, China's state news agency, Xinhua, issued a press release criticizing the search giant's decision. The release, titled "Google, don't politicize yourself," challenged Google's "groundless accusations" that the Chinese government supported hacking attempts against the search giant and reiterated earlier statements that Google is politicizing itself.
"Google, as the world's largest search engine, should understand an internationally accepted rule as well as other enterprises, if not better, that no matter in which country you conduct business, you have to obey the laws and regulations there.
In fact, no country allows unrestricted flow on the Internet of pornographic, violent, gambling or superstitious content, or content on government subversion, ethnic separatism, religious extremism, racialism, terrorism and anti-foreign feelings."
The release goes on to say that the Chinese government regulates the Internet according to laws and that that is an internal affair.
"Regrettably, Google's recent behaviors show that the company not just aims at expanding business in China, but is playing an active role in exporting culture, value and ideas. It is unfair for Google to impose its own value and yardsticks on Internet regulation to China, which has its own time-honored tradition, culture and value."
The press release ends with yet another call for Google to not politicize itself and assures that "whether it leaves or not" the Chinese government will not change its Internet regulations.
"One company's ambition to change China's Internet rules and legal system will only prove to be ridiculous," reads the release from Xinhua. "Google should not continue to politicalize itself, as linking its withdrawal to political issues will lose Google's credibility among Chinese netizens. That, will make Google end up to be the biggest loser."
Check out the full release here.
How do you remain competitive when you try to comply with laws that your competitors ignore? Of course, how do you compete with a country?
We have Google's answers, what do you think?
As long as that decision is approved by the government sure
Sorry but China is not evil, Chinese people are not evil, but the government sure the hell is. They may be in the process of changing that but I have no questions that if I lived there I would be scared to voice my opinion unless it was something like "China is the greatest!!!"
Filtering the internet of crap is fine and people will live with out porn to be sure. Filtering out opinions that differ from your own is uncomfortably close to burning books that do not agree with a dictators doctrine and that is where the shadows grow and the lies hide.
No, some but certain countries figure they'll just censor anything thats unfit for their little "children." Last time I checked, you could buy the Anarchist Cookbook in the U.S., you just have to accept the fact that it look suspicious and will show up in records and such. But it's still publishable, and isn't hidden from society.
*waits for the pointless and ignorant "China is evil" rhetoric that strangles every one of these articles' comment section*
@babybeluga you are entitled to your opinion just as i am entitled to mine, though the Chinese might try to censor that kind of thinking. i do not think the Chinese are bad, just the government.
The way you people complain makes me think you'd never be able to survive without being connected to 24/7 internet. I'm not judging you on that, but you have to realize other real people are out there struggling to survive and your internet pseudo cries for justice do absolutely nothing but build into ignorance. That green twitter army really helped those Iranians, didn't it?
Most people cry for more privacy here in the United States, but this is the culture of tabloids and forcing our whole country into other people's business. It's absolutely ridiculous how many people will jump onto a bandwagon due to the media.
How do you remain competitive when you try to comply with laws that your competitors ignore? Of course, how do you compete with a country?
We have Google's answers, what do you think?
As long as that decision is approved by the government sure
Sorry but China is not evil, Chinese people are not evil, but the government sure the hell is. They may be in the process of changing that but I have no questions that if I lived there I would be scared to voice my opinion unless it was something like "China is the greatest!!!"
Filtering the internet of crap is fine and people will live with out porn to be sure. Filtering out opinions that differ from your own is uncomfortably close to burning books that do not agree with a dictators doctrine and that is where the shadows grow and the lies hide.
Someone has to stand up
What, so because the Chinese government's act of censorship isn't the worst thing in the universe, we can't talk about it? Neither is pollution (genocide is certainly more important) so I suppose we should just forget that too. Censorship is pretty low on the list of dire subjects, so let's just stop talking about it.
What does this complaint have to do with the Internet at all? It's about censorship - the medium that it occurs over is almost irrelevant in the issue. Censorship is wrong (on this level, when it hides the truth-edit). I've yet to see someone give an argument where it is a good thing.
As for Google, they get props for standing up for themselves, too bad it'll cost them financially.
Several European nations have laws prohibiting denying the Holocaust, prohibiting Nazi symbols and prohibiting hate speech. I think censorship in those cases is understandable. There is a balance between freedoms and the public good and every country has the right to set that balance for themselves because it's their responsibility as are the consequences.
Child pornography? Islamic terrorism sites are monitored. I'd also say that's close enough.
The level of censorship you're willing to deal with is another person's communism. It's all relative, and maybe 10% of the people (who post) here understand that. It's like when tea party people complain how socialism is so evil when they use the U.S. Post Office, call the police for help, and send their kids to public schools. LOOK IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE.
(a lot of other things, cut out for no wall of text)
it can't be forced on people, but i don't think it should be forced out of the peoples hand. who is to say what is the right? put it out there, and let nature take its course.
What is understandable about prohibiting denial of the Holocaust? Should we also ban denial of global warming, 9/11 and the dangers of smoking?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Thank you for saying it more rationally than I could.
I think a lot of United States citizens are mad because the media says China is taking our jobs and they say it's ok to hate them because of their evil communism. People don't realize that the main reason China is thriving is that they aspired to be like us. They wanted to be swimming in wealth like we were perceived to be doing. The United States grew strong on cheap factory labor (just like China has). The problem with us now is that most people just want to complain about it because that's what the media does. Everybody living in a modern society is going to be force fed opinions (this includes me), but a lot of people don't realize that it's happening.
Do you know anything about history? Revolution usually comes from the banning of ideas or freedoms (followed by a grim, bloody war). You should be thanking China for taking the next step towards the inevitable (whether it works out or not).