Google's been talking about it for months now, and this week the rumblings grew louder that the Internet search giant plans to cease censorship of results for users of Google.cn in China.
Those plans may have been put into action earlier than anticipated, as news agencies are reporting that certain previously censored results are now freely displayed on Google's China site.
Specifically, results relating to the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet and regional independence movements are now displayed for Google.cn users in China, reports MSNBC. These topics are currently under strict control by the Chinese government.
Even when using more general search times such as "Tank Man" in Chinese, Google still returned a result showing the iconic image from the June 4, 1989 protest. Google.cn also returned the same image result when searching for just "June 4," as well as giving uncensored information when searching for "Tiananmen Square massacre."
While Google made indication this week that it was almost certain that it would be uncensoring search results and/or pulling operations out of China, the company denies that it has changed anything yet.
"We have not changed our operations in China," said Google spokesman Scott Rubin.
Expect more updates soon.
