l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 By LORETTA CHAO
Google Inc. has begun warning users in China of certain search words that
may trigger the country's Internet censors, in its boldest challenge in two
years to Beijing's efforts to restrict online content.
Google has begun notifying users in China when they use search terms that
can trigger China's Internet blocks, in its boldest challenge in two years
to Beijing's efforts to restrict online content, Scott Austin reports on
digits. Photo: Google.
The Internet company unveiled on its Hong Kong-based search site this week a
new mechanism that identifies political and other sensitive terms that may
cause service interruptions by Chinese authorities.
For example, when users in China search for keywords like "carrot" in
Chinese—which contains the character for Chinese President Hu Jintao's
surname—a yellow dropdown message says: "We've observed that searching for
'hu' in mainland China may temporarily break your connection to Google. This
interruption is outside Google's control."
Google acknowledged on its blog Thursday that users in China are having
trouble accessing its services, saying failed searches can cause temporary
outages on the site. The post is careful not to mention censorship or
explicitly say Chinese authorities are the cause.
"Users are regularly getting error messages like 'This webpage is not
available' or 'The connection was reset,'" the post said.
A Chinese flag flutters at Google's China headquarters in Beijing.
Google says it hopes the alerts "will help improve the search experience in
mainland China," where Google's search and other services have been unstable
since it entered a public spat with Chinese authorities over censorship
more than two years ago. A Google spokesman declined to comment further.
Chinese officials don't discuss their Internet restrictions, and its
restricted search terms are treated as state secrets. In its post, Google
said the trigger terms were identified based on reviews of the outcomes of
the 350,000 most popular search queries in China, not an official list.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a regular press
briefing Friday that "there are more than 500 million Internet users in
China, and they have access to plenty of information…Like other countries,
China also administers its Internet according to law."
China's restrictions include the names of top leaders as well as high-
profile dissidents like blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng and references
to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown, according to Internet
observers.
China censors the Internet in a few ways, say industry experts. For overseas
sites it uses Web filtering technology to limit traffic to Web pages
containing objectionable keywords. In some cases, it blocks entire sites, as
it does with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
For domestic sites, it wields the power to shut them down if they don't
police themselves in accordance with government requests. Sites like Baidu
Inc. BIDU -3.75% and the Web portal operated by Sina Corp. SINA -4.30%
notify users when search results for terms are omitted due to rules and
regulations, but they don't specify which terms have fallen afoul of censors.
Google's move is its most significant related to China's Internet
restrictions since early 2010, when it publicly said it wouldn't adhere to
China's censorship policies and said it might have to shut down its Google.
cn China site as well as its offices there. Google ultimately kept its China
offices but moved its Web search and other services to Hong Kong, where it
doesn't have to comply with regulations in mainland China.
But for users in mainland China, Google's search site and other services
such as Gmail are frequently disrupted by the government's Web-filtering
system.
As a result, Google has been losing market share in China, according to
research firm Analysys International, which estimates the company had a 17%
share of search revenue in the country in the first quarter, down from 36%
in the fourth quarter of 2009. Google executives have said revenue is still
growing. In comparison, Baidu had a 79% share in the first quarter.
Still, Google has expanded its operations within the country, adding
engineers and sales staff to work on other products, including its Android
mobile operating system and services that don't require official censorship,
such as e-commerce.
Analysts say Google's latest move could jeopardize some of its recent
efforts.
Google, in a move to squeeze more cash out of its lucrative Web-search
engine, is converting its free product-search service into a paid one. Drew
Dowell has details on The News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.
"It does seem like a move that would be perceived as antagonistic by Chinese
Internet authorities," said Jeremy Goldkorn, director of Danwei.com, which
researches Chinese media and Internet.
On Friday, a number of Chinese Internet users appeared confused by Google's
move.
"Has Google also started to 'harmonize' sensitive words?" wrote a user on
Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like microblogging site, going by the name
Chester_Hahn, using a term often used in China to mock censorship.
Others joked about it. "Google, you are trying to flip someone's miniskirt
up again! You bad boy," wrote one user by the name Xi Gang. Another called
Jiu Xian said, "Poor carrot. You are shot even when you have nothing to do
with anything sensitive. You are so unlucky to share the same surname, Hu,
with our beloved president."
—Yang Jie and Lingling Wei contributed to this article. |
|
