China 'blocks Google news site'

[R.A. Hettinga]

Reminds me of Imperial Russia's railroad gauge, which was different from
the rest of Europe's, maybe the whole world's, on purpose, to prevent
attacks. Common trick, lots of countries did it, though it impedes lots of
progress at the border besides military progress toward your capital. You
have to offload *all* the freight, both ways, and put it onto new trains,
for instance. Way worse than going from diesel to electric, like they did
at New Haven, for instance, where you used to just change engines. More of
a symptom than a cause, of course.


Anyone want to take bets on China, though? I think the "Great Firewall"
will choke, or more be likely ignored, long before China will block all
truth at its border, instead of mere efficient transit prices for foreign
trade. But then I was a "Polly" during the Y2K thing, too.

Oh. Wait...

(Yeah, I know, I was *dead* wrong about Jim Bell getting a guilty verdict.
Surest way to be wrong is to make a prediction, and all that...)

Cheers,
RAH
Oddly enough, the Aussies had exactly this railroad gauge problem about
half way across their southern coast. I think they've fixed it since,
though I'm not sure.
--------

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/4056255.stm>

The BBC

Tuesday, 30 November, 2004, 16:39 GMT

 China 'blocks Google news site'

China has been accused of blocking access to Google News by the media
watchdog, Reporters Without Borders.

 The Paris-based pressure group said the English-language news site had
been unavailable for the past 10 days.

 It said the aim was to force people to use a Chinese edition of the site
which, according to the watchdog, does not include critical reports.

 Google told the BBC News website it was aware of the problems and was
investigating the causes.

 Chinese firewall

China is believed to extend greater censorship over the net than any other
country in the world.

 "  China is censuring Google News to force internet users to use the
Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news
reports "
 Reporters Without Borders


 A net police force monitors websites and e-mails, and controls on gateways
connecting the country to the global internet are designed to prevent
access to critical information.

 Popular Chinese portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com maintain a close eye
on content and delete politically sensitive comments.

 And all 110,000 net cafes in the country have to use software to control
access to websites considered harmful or subversive.

 Local versions

"China is censuring Google News to force internet users to use the Chinese
version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news
reports," said the group in a statement.

 "By agreeing to launch a news service that excludes publications disliked
by the government, Google has let itself be used by Beijing," it said.

 For its part, the search giant said it was looking into the issue.

 "It appears that many users in China are having difficulty accessing
Google News sites in China and we are working to understand and resolve the
issue," said a Google spokesperson.

 Google News gathers information from some 4,500 news sources. Headlines
are selected for display entirely by a computer algorithm, with no human
editorial intervention.

 It offers 15 editions of the service, including one tailored for China and
one for Hong Kong.

 Google launched a version in simplified Chinese in September. The site
does not filter news results to remove politically sensitive information.

 But Google does not link to news sources which are inaccessible from
within China as this would result in broken links.

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'