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.
