This is not new. Generally speaking, Google only censors Chinese words, and this is how it has been since as long as I can remember (since 2006 at least). See here:
Google's global CDN is too complicated for average reporters to write about. There are enormous parameters to tweak if you want to mimic the real google.cn search behavior in China.
Also WHY EVERY WESTERNER USE TIANANMEN AS A TESTING KEYWORD?
tiananmen maybe famous in the west, but in Chinese it has other definitive meanings. Who the f__k would link a square with a massacre?
My theory is Google does not censor Tiananmen. e.g. the Chinese blog http://liblog.blog.163.com/blog/static/53679382200981773143/
It's not because Google censors it, but because there are just very few Chinese blogs or pics named TianAnMen.
Tiananmen is just insignificant. During culture revolution people shooting each other with guns even mortar on streets, machine guns were pretty common to guard important facilities. My college even had a f__king cannon installed on the main building.
If you really want to test censorship in China, use a real keyword, like this one
That looks quite censored to me (ymmv if you access this from outside the PRC).
Like the man standing in front of the tank? I'm sure my girlfriend (who is a native Beijinger) would like to blog about that, but she wouldn't dare. She occasionally tells me about how one of her grade school classmates got hit by a stray bullet and died at Tian'anmen. She lived near the Square and heard the gunfire as a child and her sister's got a drawing she made of the freedom statue that was put up there. I could see all of those things going into blog posts, except they don't put them there because of fear of retribution. So I think there is censorship around the term, and I think it's a valid search query.
> I'm sure my girlfriend (who is a native Beijinger) would like to blog about that, but she wouldn't dare.
You see, what I mean is that Google does not really censor this Tiananmen keyword too hard, but it's really there's not many Chinese content about 'tiananmen'. Because people would not write about that particular keyword.
The real heavily censored keyword about Tiananmen is this
Like I said, the domestic Chinese see things from a different angle, because westerners don't see it does not mean it didn't happen or Chinese didn't know.
I'm not sure why we're disagreeing. The "6/4 incident" is heavily censored (and I imagine moreso because that's what you guys would use more often to talk about the event), but so is my search term. On the search result pages, there are only like 4 or 5 results per page. Page 6 is totally empty:
Indeed, this search term has been uncensored when searching google.cn from outside of China for some time. I'm surprised it took Tom's Hardware so long to get onto it.
14 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 31.1 ms ] threadChinese TianAnMen Search http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=...
English TianAnMen Search http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=chrome&q=tianan...
Still looks censored to me...
1. We don't even call TianAnMen event or massacre in China, more common expression is Student Movement or the 1989 Student Riot, or June 4th event
2. TianAnMen is a symbol to westerners, but to Chinese it has other more important meanings.
Using TianAnMen as a testing keyword is simply wrong
http://images.google.cn/images?um=1&hl=zh-CN&tbs=isc...
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch:...
http://203.208.37.99/images?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=tia...
Google's global CDN is too complicated for average reporters to write about. There are enormous parameters to tweak if you want to mimic the real google.cn search behavior in China.
Also WHY EVERY WESTERNER USE TIANANMEN AS A TESTING KEYWORD?
tiananmen maybe famous in the west, but in Chinese it has other definitive meanings. Who the f__k would link a square with a massacre?
My theory is Google does not censor Tiananmen. e.g. the Chinese blog http://liblog.blog.163.com/blog/static/53679382200981773143/ It's not because Google censors it, but because there are just very few Chinese blogs or pics named TianAnMen.
Tiananmen is just insignificant. During culture revolution people shooting each other with guns even mortar on streets, machine guns were pretty common to guard important facilities. My college even had a f__king cannon installed on the main building.
If you really want to test censorship in China, use a real keyword, like this one
http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%C4%C9%C3%D7%B1%C8%D1%C7+%BA%FA%BD...
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%E7%BA%B3%E7%B1%B...
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=天安门...
(Tian'anmen Square incident 1989)
That looks quite censored to me (ymmv if you access this from outside the PRC).
Like the man standing in front of the tank? I'm sure my girlfriend (who is a native Beijinger) would like to blog about that, but she wouldn't dare. She occasionally tells me about how one of her grade school classmates got hit by a stray bullet and died at Tian'anmen. She lived near the Square and heard the gunfire as a child and her sister's got a drawing she made of the freedom statue that was put up there. I could see all of those things going into blog posts, except they don't put them there because of fear of retribution. So I think there is censorship around the term, and I think it's a valid search query.
You see, what I mean is that Google does not really censor this Tiananmen keyword too hard, but it's really there's not many Chinese content about 'tiananmen'. Because people would not write about that particular keyword.
The real heavily censored keyword about Tiananmen is this
http://203.208.37.99/search?q=%E5%85%AD%E5%9B%9B%E4%BA%8B%E4...
> That looks quite censored to me
Try this one http://203.208.37.99/search?q=89%E5%AD%A6%E6%BD%AE
Like I said, the domestic Chinese see things from a different angle, because westerners don't see it does not mean it didn't happen or Chinese didn't know.
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&newwindow=1&q=天...
Page 7 has one entry, etc.