Twitter is expanding its social media business into China. This report seeks to describe the potential problems of this expansion by analyzing Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft’s mistakes after attempting to enter the Chinese market in 2006.
According to Amnesty International (AI), an international human rights organization, the Chinese government has been violating the “fundamental human rights” of its citizens, and Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft have been “complicit.” AI defines these human rights as being inalienable for all human beings. By this definition, AI believes that Chinese citizens have rights that cannot be infringed upon by the Chinese government. In addition, AI argues that a company can be accused of being “complicit” if it:
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This censorship is a product of the Chinese government’s goal to control the flow of all content and information over the Internet, especially information that the government believes to be critical and damaging to the nation. AI accuses these companies of succumbing to the lure of an untapped, lucrative market and consequently, failing to uphold the fundamental human rights. In particular:
• At the government’s request, Google had launched a censored version of its world-renowned search engine in China.
• Yahoo! had provided private information about its users to the Chinese government. The government used this information to convict a citizen who had peacefully exercised his right to free expression.
• Microsoft had shut down a blog at the request of the Chinese government.
Google’s CEO has argued that the “democratization” of the Internet empowers individuals to be more critical of governments and politicians. As a company, it has decided to uphold fundamental human rights.
Yet, despite its motto, “Don’t be evil,” which insists on holding itself to be morally conscious, Google released Google.cn for Chinese users in January 2006. Google created this censored version of its popular search engine “in response to local laws and regulations,” even though its own policies state that it does not and will not censor search results.
In response to the criticism the
Google should definitely continue operations in China, even if it means limiting the amount of information that is disseminated to Google China. While filtering information is the opposite of everything Google stands for, Google can still disseminate information to the Chinese public while abiding by the information laws set up by the
In the book 1984, the government has control over all media “and so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain” (Orwell 37). Due to the party’s restraint of all media, there are no actual certainty of written records. Without written records, no one knows if the government is being truthful about what has happened in the past. The citizens even question their memories and logic because there is no certainty of the past. Without records, the government can rearrange history however they please because there is no evidence to prove they are wrong. Similarly, in the article, “The Other Side Of the Great Firewall”, China has set up an immense system of “online censorship, commonly known as the Great Firewall, [which] blocks the populace from viewing material deemed dangerous to the state” (Beech etal 2). The chinese government has blocked the chinese citizens from being able to go on a variety of websites in order to protect China from western influences. Without certain websites, the government can regulate what their citizens can see and can hide what they don’t want their citizens to see. The citizens are being blocked from information that is considered dangerous to their government. The government continually will have total jurisdiction through the use of blocking websites
China today still follows a similar style of governing by blocking websites, altering news and punishing scholars (Buckley). In addition, due to the concealment of information citizens of China are living life in ignorance (Buckley). These actions might jeopardize the prosperity of China in the future just as it did during the Qin Dynasty. Ceasing media censorship now in China may benefit their society in the years a head due to all of the conflict in the apparent world around
Google has run into many different issues in trying to expand itself internationally in an effort to increase its market share. Google has been viewed by many countries as a threat to their cultural values and norms. Many people feel that by allowing Google to have free reign in their countries will allow them to impose the Anglo-Saxon outlook on a variety of different topics, like history, pop-culture, and even fashion. Many European and Asian countries are combating Google a few different ways to ensure that their culture is not diluted by American society. The most popular by far has been the creation of a local search engine within the country, many times
Censorship in China has gained much attention recently because of the conflict between Google and the Chinese government’s self-censorship policies. In fact, censorship has been practiced since ancient China and the intensity only increases by the years. Nowadays, the most notable measure of censorship is being done on the Internet. More and more restrictions have been put into actions by the Chinese government, which make the life of Chinese Internet users, the Chinese netizens, very inconvenient. With the intensity of censorship increasing and the censoring technology improving, Internet censorship has mainly negative effects on Chinese society.
The Chinese government had enforced these rules and regulations through blocking, filtering and shutting down Internet cafes. According to Amnesty International, the Chinese government routinely blocks news sites, especially those with dissident views or banned groups. Anniversary’s such as the 1989 pro-democracy protests are heavily guarded days that see increase Internet blocking. Internet blocking of major search gateways is also
Now, many Chinese citizens are attempting to access these applications and searches without censorship by “connect[ing] to virtual private networks that provide them with communications channels to servers outside the Chinese mainland” (Bradsher 4). Though, many citizens have found loopholes in order to post their messages to these websites. For example, on Weibo (the Chinese version of twitter), if a user were to post using a specific keyword, the post would automatically be deleted, if not manually by a superior on the site if it slipped through the system. However, because the use of “abbreviations, neologisms, homophones, and homographs” by users, many political satirists, revolutionists, or regular citizens find themselves sliding through the cracks thus escaping the censoring governments reach (Wang and Mark 5). In addition, because the government also changes from time to time, a man named Yu Jia, a government critic stated that “Today's China is very different from Chairman Mao's China. I think then, it used to be like an iron slab, and there was only really one idea. It was completely impermeable. But now, it's more like a fishnet, and there are holes” (Jia, Han and Fu 4). This further proves the argument that legislation in regard to behavior online is too varied in
The Freedom of Speech is granted to every American citizen and has been since it was founded in 1776; however, not every nation grants that right. China, as a communist nation, retains most individual freedom rights from its citizens. Although in the Peoples Republic of China’s (PRC) 1982 constitution, people are guaranteed Freedom of Expression and Press; it is often violated by the current corrupt government. The government demands the news to be 80% positive and 20% negative, altering the facts n occasion. In contrast to that, America has recently become more involved with the pressing issue as well because of the involvement of Google. Thus it has shined the light on government censorship and corruption. China’s government corruption
There is also no freedom of speech in China. Authors of the criticizing articles about China were executed under the reason, “protection of state
Corporations that move into China have long recognized that internet censorship is a fact of life. In 2006,
Google’s policy of self-censorship in China did not sit well with the public or human rights organizations.
Google is the most popular search engine that the world uses on an everyday basis. Sergey Brin and Larry Page created Google in 1998. What started out to be a small search engine and ranking system are now the worlds most profitable Internet companies of our time. Google has created many products today that have changed the world of technology, products such as Google+, YouTube, Android, Motorola Mobility, the Nexus 7 tablet computer, Google Wallet, and Google Glass (p.470). Google is qualified as one of the best companies to work for (p.464.) The issue we are facing today is the privacy policy
China is one of the most controlled countries in the world. The Chinese constitution states that the people of China have freedom of speech, of the press, and of demonstration. However, this article in the constitution also states that the Chinese government has the authority to censor anything in the country when freedom of speech or of press could potentially be harmful to the country. So, in China, you are free to speak, but only about what the government says is okay to talk about. Also, protesting in China is a very dangerous task, as shown in the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. But, in August 2009, Chinese Internet users were able to “indefinitely postpone” the use of censorship software on all new computers in China, called the
The aim of this study is to determine the differences between the Internet in China and the United States. China was chosen due to the restrictive and closely scrutinized nature of its Internet, in contrast to the internet in United States which has significantly more freedom and protected by the freedom of speech and expression. This study will include:
Position: China wants to enforce Google the same level of censorship so that it can appear to the world as an independent and powerful actor in the global marketplace.