Google in an effort to avoid the censorship requirements of the Chinese government began redirecting its users to its search engine in Hong Kong on Monday March 22. This action angered Chinese officials who claimed Google had violated an agreement to abide by the government’s laws regarding censorship.
This is the latest in an ongoing controversy between Google and the Chinese government as Google has threatened to leave China in the past due to censorship and intrusions from hackers.
Western speculators fear that this time the results may lead to China depriving its citizens of Google’s resources altogether.
“This has become a war of ideas between the American company moralizing about Internet censorship and the Chinese government having its own views on the matter Emily Parker, a senior fellow at the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society, said in a March 22 issue of The New York Times.
Censorship is nothing new in China and has long been utilized by the government as a method of controlling what information reaches and influences its citizens. Pepperdine students enrolled in the University’s Shanghai program have had to adjust to a nation whose government controls its people’s media consumption.
I think the hardest thing about Internet censorship is not being able to go on social networking work sites such as Facebook Shanghai program student Christian Gertz-Rombach wrote in an e-mail. I think throughout the year it has made us realize how important it is to communicate with friends and family back home especially when trying to sort out issues such as housing to live next year. I think by default everyone sends you messages and posts but many forget that it is censored here and we cannot access the site and reply. And all the popular blog sites such as Blogspot and Tumblr are blocked which is a big inconvenience.”
Aside from the blocked access to social networking sites on which so many Americans depend Pepperdine students in Shanghai have suffered very little from the policy of censorship. The vast majority of sites censored by the government are adult-oriented or pornographic and Google search terms typically used by Pepperdine students have no cause for censorship.
However aside from adult sites any information of a controversial or incendiary nature may be censored to prevent the Chinese government from being viewed negatively.
“[They censor] anything involving a number of controversial social or political issues such as the Tienanmen Square massacre Chris Van Velzer, director of the Shanghai program, said. Typically what happens is when you type in those terms you may still get hits related to those terms but they won’t be terms that direct you to a site that is an advocate of or representative of a stance that the Communist party would not approve.”
Since Google chose to redirect its users in the Chinese mainland to its Hong Kong server search results have been rendered uncensored though social networking sites remain blocked as well as Youtube. Still Shanghai students are impacted minimally as sites previously blocked are not those they would have typically visited.
“The only thing that has really affected us is whenever we type in ‘google.com’ Google Hong Kong turns up by default and apart from some Chinese characters here and there it is still fairly easy to navigate. It was a lot easier before to go to ‘google.com’ before and see everything in English but we can still use other sites such as yahoo to search as an alternative Gertz-Rombach wrote. Although it still goes to ‘google.com’ there are many things that are still censored. I think the biggest loser in this event is not the people using Google but the company itself since a large part of its market was in China.”
In the meantime resourceful users may bypass China’s censorship laws and access blocked sites by using a virtual private network which is a service that can allow someone in China to open a direct connection to a server in the United States or Europe. With this direct connection subject matter previously inaccessible is rendered uncensored.
“Although it’s not allowed it’s very easy to do and very rampant in the country Van Velzer said. The government knows that people do it but as long as it’s not being used to post extremely controversial material on the internet they don’t care.
“That’s the flip side of censorship in china: they’re not interested in being restrictive for the sake of being restrictive. They’re interested in stopping the most controversial or disruptive information so it doesn’t create social or political problems for them.”
If China proceeds to deny its users access to Google altogether all Chinese occupants including Shanghai students will be impacted.