Posted on 01/16/2010 11:18:56 AM PST by opentalk
Google has stopped censoring images of the Tiananmen Square massacre on its Chinese website. Users on Google.cn's image search can now see the iconic picture of Tank Man, among other images from the massacre in the Beijing square in 1989 - just as users on Google's other country portals, such as Google.co.uk, can.
Students and intellectuals protested communist rule for seven weeks in the square in 1989 in the face of a brutal security crackdown. Roughly 100,000 people are believed to have taken part in the protests - with up to 3,000 of those killed during the demonstrations.
Previously, the images search on Google's China website did not show images from the massacre. But Google has lifted the veil on the images within the last 24 hours as it squares off against Beijing in a row over censorship and hacking. China stood firm today in its demand that foreign firms adhere to state censorship rules after Google sparked the diplomatic spat by threatening to quit the country. The U.S. web giant’s announcement yesterday that it would abandon voluntarily censoring its Chinese service was backed by President Barack Obama. Google said its decision was the result of 'outrageous’ attempts to hack into the accounts of thousands of Chinese human rights activists who use its email service, Gmail.
Tank Man: One of the most iconic images of the Tiananmen Square massacre, that of a man standing alone and defenceless in a face off against four tanks, now appears on Google.cn
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
And businesses continue to try and do buiness with Red China knowing this will happen.
Google doesn’t know it’s an American company. Their wealth and dominance is directly related to that fact.
When they decide to know who they are or move to China, I’ll go back to using Google. My ad clicks are worth more than their political perversions.
Ping
As we speak, China’s top leaders/factions are meeting on this. No weighty decisions are taken until all the top leaders and their factions are in agreement. This is why it has been so quiet the last 3 days.
When they go at Google, they are going to go HARD. The CCP plays for keeps. Google’s “image” or technology mean nothing to them. It’s a question of power and sovereignty.
Exactly. I currently avoid Google (as much as is possible) and tell everyone I know that the owners are communist.... I was very surprised that they found out what happens when they lay in bed with other communists... not so pretty, is it, Google? Waiting to see if they continue to do the right thing.
This is going to fuel the fire. Obama is reported to have backed this decision.
One of my favorite photos/video sequences of all time...
I read another theory in the Economist..
Google has not made a dent into the Chinese market and has not taken any business away from the number 1 Baidu..
Google wants to get out of China but wants to look good doing it, rather than it looked upon as a failed venture..
They leave China because we will not put up with the censorship thing makes them look good.
China throwing them out would make them look even better,hence the reason why google is now fighting back....
China will probably have Google’s employees in China re-educated.
Google is such a hypocrite re censorship. They censor anti-Islamic searches (as recently publicized); pandering to political correctness against free speech - even to the extent of referring to Christmas and Easter as just "Happy Holidays."
They,re image could use an improvement, The Economist theory fits.
Here is the Article....
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15267915&source=most_commented
In Silicon Valley, its home, Google’s change of tack in China was widely applauded. But some were asking whether it was “more about business than thwarting evil” to quote TechCrunch, a widely read website. Besides pointing to Google’s failure to eat into Baidu’s market share, cynics noted that, whereas, according to Mr Drummond, Google’s revenues in China are “truly immaterial”, its costs are not. It employs about 700 people in China, some of them royally paid engineers, who may now may have to look for other jobs. Hacker attacks and censorship, critics say, are convenient excuses for something Google wanted to do anyway, without appearing to be retreating commercially. Google strongly rejects this interpretation
I try to avoid the G’ as much too. Scroogle does the same job but sometimes I need the images to go along with research, so back to Google proper.
“China will probably have Google’s employees in China re-educated.”
Re-education is expensive, but bullets are cheap. And you can bill the family for the cost...
Assuming a pay rate of $15K a year (very high by Chinese standards), that's only $10.5m in annual salary expense. This is less than 1% of Google's salary expense. Google has 1/4 of Baidu's market share. Baidu had $450m of sales in 2008. Assuming Google had 1/10 the Chinese 2008 revenues, that would amount to $45m, less than 1% of Google's 2008 revenues, but easily covering Google's $10.5m in salary expense. I think Google is bailing out because China might be a fast expanding market, but it remains a tiny market, with Baidu, the leading player in China, amounting to 3% of Google's total revenues.
If you're gonna' go, go big.
Google is still very very leftwing.
They had no qualms about censoring stuff until China messed with them directly.
Are the MSM in the US going to ‘lift the veil’ on the 9/11 attack? They don’t want to show the WTC attacks because they might ‘offend’.....yet encourage the terrorists being tried in NYC with FULL Constitutional rights.....as that of an American citizen.
Any FReepers have the photo of that amazing guy, standing down the tanks on Chang-An Blvd?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.