Google, No Flowers For You
On Monday Google announced that they were no longer going to censor results for their Chinese search engine. There was minimal response from the Chinese, and today I found out why.
The China Digital Times picked up a set of media rules issued by the Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party. It went out on Tuesday and was leaked onto Chinese social media sites. (By the way, Central Propaganda Department is the actual name. I wasn’t making that up. Their nickname, of course, is the Ministry of Truth.)
Here are the “guidelines” that the state handed down to media outlets:
All chief editors and managers:
Google has officially announced its withdrawal from the China market. This is a high-impact incident. It has triggered netizens’ discussions which are not limited to a commercial level. Therefore please pay strict attention to the following content requirements during this period:
A. News Section
1. Only use Central Government main media (website) content; do not use content from other sources
2. Reposting must not change title
3. News recommendations should refer to Central government main media websites
4. Do not produce relevant topic pages; do not set discussion sessions; do not conduct related investigative reporting;
5. Online programs with experts and scholars on this matter must apply for permission ahead of time. This type of self-initiated program production is strictly forbidden.
6. Carefully manage the commentary posts under news items.B. Forums, blogs and other interactive media sections:
1. It is not permitted to hold discussions or investigations on the Google topic
2. Interactive sections do not recommend this topic, do not place this topic and related comments at the top
3. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which attack the Party, State, government agencies, Internet policies with the excuse of this event.
4. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which support Google, dedicate flowers to Google, ask Google to stay, cheer for Google and others have a different tune from government policy
5. On topics related to Google, carefully manage the information in exchanges, comments and other interactive sessions
6. Chief managers in different regions please assign specific manpower to monitor Google-related information; if there is information about mass incidents, please report it in a timely manner.We ask the Monitoring and Control Group to immediately follow up monitoring and control actions along the above directions; once any problems are discovered, please communicate with respected sessions in a timely manner.
Addition guidelines:
- Do not participate in and report Google’s information/press releases
- Do not report about Google exerting pressure on our country via people or events
- Related reports need to put [our story/perspective/information] in the center, do not provide materials for Google to attack relavent policies of our country
- Use talking points about Google withdrawing from China published by relevant departments
There are some real gems in there, but I think my favorite is rule B-4, which I highlighted for its awesomeness.
*Editor hands out guidelines to reporters* “Here you go guys, the standard stuff, no supporting Google, no going against the official party line. Just make sure you follow these rules and you’ll be fine. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Oh, and one more thing, NO FUCKING FLOWERS FOR GOOGLE. DO YOU HEAR ME?! IF I HEAR ABOUT ANYONE GIVING GOOGLE A FLOWER I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL SEND ALL OF YOU ‘JOURNALISTS’ STRAIGHT TO AMERICA. You want that? You wanna go work in American media? You want to be the temp that lubes up Glenn Beck’s tear ducts every night? How about MSNBC? You can go be Keith Olbermann’s assistant, getting his pants dry cleaned every time he creams himself after an Obama speech. I swear on the ghost of Mao if I hear one story about Google getting flowers you will all be on Olberman jizz duty.”
*Reporters shudder* “No please, chief, anything but that. Send us to the work camps instead.”
Anyway, what was I saying?
Update: One way or another Google always gets their flowers.
Uncensored Google Results!
I arrived in China excited about all the new freedoms I would have, and one of my favorites was the Right to Be Free From Controversial Google Results. That was until yesterday when the capitalist pig company Google stopped filtering their search results. From the official Google Blog:
Earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. … We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services.
I checked about ten minutes ago and it looked like the results were still uncensored. I did a search for ‘Tiananmen square’ and got the same results as I did when using Google.com over VPN. So for now, people in China actually have access to unfiltered Google results.
I can’t see this lasting more than a day or two (or maybe only a few hours) until the Chinese government steps back in to prevent the poor common folk from catching truthitis.
You can monitor the state of Google’s services in China here.
Also, if you missed Bill Gates’ comment from back in January (when Google first announced they would stop filtering results) here it is: “You’ve got to decide: Do you want to obey the laws of the countries you are in, or not? If not, you may not end up doing business there.” Spoken like a true bitch.
