Beijing shocked—shocked!—to find people access porn through search engine
Three years after Google accepted censorship in order to gain access to the Chinese market, its main site in China has been temporarily shut down amid government complaints that it’s been distributing porn. Or, as a foreign ministry spokesperson called it, “lots of pornographic, lewd and vulgar content.” But is this really about the moral sensitivities of the Chinese? Google has working diligently to increase its 30-percent share of the search engine market in China despite what often looks like protectionist behaviour on behalf of existing Chinese services. It already accepted elaborate filtering systems, but has repeatedly been blocked over material the government didn’t like. And we all know that trying to stop web users from accessing porn is at best a hit-and-miss undertaking. Now Google is bending even further backward to placate the authorities, saying it will try to find a way to stop Chinese users from accessing explicit materials.