Tangible Impact of Censorship on Search Engines

An anonymous reader writes "NetworkWorld is reporting that Indiana University Informatics researchers have created a site that highlights the differences in query results provided by country-specific search engines. cenSEARCHip looks at engines like the versions of Google and Yahoo built to accommodate free-speech restrictions in China, Germany and France."

try a search on falun gong

[maharg]

China 69,600 US 3,450,000

children cries falun gong tears unheard unseen

I'd have thought that China wouls be encouraging webpages talking about Falun Gong in such glowing terms. Bizarre.

Sample Google Searches: China vs. USA

[digitaldc]

I did a few sample searches on CENSEARCHIP, here were some of the larger discrepancies and interesting results I found:

----Compare Google results between China and United States:

Censor Chinese Internet
China: About 810,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique) United States: About 7,140,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique)

Censor Chinese
China: About 1,790,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique) United States: About 11,700,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique)

Human Rights
China: About 879,000,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique) United States: About 878,000,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique)

Jack Daniel's
China: About 1,800,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique) United States: About 68,700,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique)

xxx
China: About 108,000,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique) United States: About 107,000,000 results (Fetching first 10 unique)

There's always the US.

[Valdrax]

The reason China was singled out is because of their heavy censoring of politically undesireable facts. France and Germany are listed because of anti-Nazi speech laws. Both countries have successfully sued Google to force them to take down such content.

Now, try using this search on Google and scroll to the bottom: scientology site:xenu.net [google.com]

Woo-hoo! Land of the free!

More to take into account...

[ExE122]

While these results are pretty neat, are they taking into account the fact that search AIs have developed differently? The AI refines the results based on what links people commonly follow when results are returned.

A search on Tiananmen Square, for example, results in many text references and images of the Chinese government crackdown on protesters in 1989 on the U.S. search site, but mainly hotel and tourist information on the Chinese version

Case in point. People in China are more likely to want to visit Tiananmen, and therefore would likely click on more links for hotels and tourist attractions. People in the U.s. are less likely to be interested in travelling there, and more likely to look up the history associated with it.

I looked up "Wyoming" in both Chinese and U.S. googles (not using this site, but actually using google with the Chinese translation of Wyoming). The Chinese site brought up a Wiki entry, a site showing history and demographics, and another page showing its famous landmarks... stuff that people in China might be more interested in. The U.S. site brought up the official Wyoming state government website, the official local travel website, and the University of Wyoming website... stuff that people in the U.S. would be more interested in.

Looking further down, the chinese site brings up more about history and international travel, while the U.S. site brings up more about hunting, skiing, local state departments, etc.

I also looked up Tiananmen Square in an image search, and yes, the first couple pages do indeed show nothing of protests. But its not like its completely blocked, the tanks show up a few pages down.

One thing I noticed in doing my own comparisons is that Censearchip is only showing you the first unique differnces. On some simple searches, those differences don't even show up for a couple pages... the results are more or less the same.

Now before everyone goes jumping down my back... I'm not arguing that there's no censorship, because I know its a proven point that there is. And I do think that this site is indeed indicative of that. I just think that there is a possibility that some of these measures aren't completely accurate and that there are other factors involved.

--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"

Re:More to take into account...

[General Wesc]

Google does do click-through tracking. If you have Personalised Results, it will always track what's clicked. IF you don't, it still tracks on occation. (I don't know how it whether to track or not, but it was doing it from time to time long before they had personalisation.)

Re:What about free speech restrictions in the US?

[BungoMan85]

Because google lives in America and it is governed by their rules.

Re:What about free speech restrictions in the US?

[Petrushka]

The response Google sent to me when I complained about their censoring google.co.nz because of US laws:

Thank you for writing to us about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, also known as the DMCA. Google has an established procedure for handling complaints about alleged copyright infringement, which you can review at http://www.google.com/dmca.html [google.com]. Since Google is an American company, we apply American copyright law to our global properties. Part of our motivation behind this approach is to promote public knowledge and discussion of DMCA notices and removals.

The e-mail continued with general information about the DMCA. They didn't specifically address the .co.nz (or .co.anywhere_else) question.

Google.fr, google.de, and google.cn also censor sites on the basis of the DMCA, in addition to censoring on the basis of local laws.

Re:There's always the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

Either google of the operator of http://www.xenu.net/ [xenu.net] is wussing out.

From uscode TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > 107:

"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

-- Bold emphisis mine

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/u sc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html [cornell.edu]

In short, fair use covers xenu.net as their use of the materials is for the purpose of criticism.

Google may not be the wuss here, when the DMCA take down notice was sent. Xenu.net was supposed to have been notifed and given a chance to get the link restored. If the scientologist didn't bring a law suit within 14 days of the counter notice google would be obligated to restore the link

"[512(g)] If a subscriber provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual's objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]"