China renews Google's license to operate its site
Wolfman, can you confirm this?
This seems like another hopeful sign for China.
This is pretty much what I was predicting would happen many months ago, when this whole brouhaha started. There'd be a lot of public posturing; a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiating; and in the end, they'd reach a conclusion where the gov't would save face and look while they are in control, while Google would win important concessions.
In this case, one item not commented on often is that Google is the
only large internet company in China that is not at least partly controlled by a Chinese company. Every other major player has been forced to make concessions that have allowed Chinese companies to gain greater and greater control over their operations.
I am personally convinced that the core issue here was not one of censorship, or of being hacked...but rather one of being able to maintain autonomy within China. Censorship was a very handy tool for them to put major pressure on the gov't.
Publicly, Google's had to kowtow a little to the gov't, backing off on some of their non-censorship principles. But I'm very certain that in the dark recesses of gov't corridors, Google won important concessions that help guarantee they can retain their autonomy.
In my opinion, they played a very sharp, very hard game...this is the way business is done in China. This is the way that Chinese do things all the time...but most of the foreign companies don't have the guts or stamina for a face-down like this. It was a big risk -- the gov't
could have shut them down entirely -- but like all big risks, if successful, it has a big payoff.
Ha! Not likely. Google has been actively engaged in censorship on behalf of the regime, the only reason they pulled up shop was because China hacked their source code. More likely this is a cosy deal between the regime and the corporation where China promises not to be naughty anymore. There has barely been such a cynical ploy as Google projecting the image that they pulled out of China because of some altruistic commitment to human rights and freedom of speech, something they never gave a **** about BEFORE China hacked their source code.
Being hacked had nothing to do with it, beyond being a convenient excuse. And their source code was
never hacked...it was emails that were hacked. Many other foreign companies had
exactly the same thing happen to them. It really wasn't a big deal.
And in regards to Google censoring...this is partly true, but hardly presents the full picture. Whether Google censors their search results or not, it makes little difference. This became plainly apparent when Google transferred searches to the Hong Kong servers, which don't censor results. Sure, Chinese could get uncensored search results...but when they tried to click on them, they were blocked by the Great Firewall. Something that Google has nothing to do with, and no control over whatsoever.
It wasn't about being hacked (and it certainly wasn't about have "source code" hacked, which never happened!); and it wasn't mainly about censorship. It was, as I stated above, about maintaining autonomous control in the face of significant pressure that had already seen every other major player in China buckle under.
And personally, I have a hell of a lot of respect for the game they played.
Just wondering, what are the ways in which Chinese citizens can bypass censorship? (I assume many of them do, it's not as bad as North Korea)
Tons of ways. Software available on every street corner. Constantly moving proxies and virtual networks. The only real accomplishment of censorship in China has been to educate Chinese how to get around it.
Are other search engines censored as well?
Are their cell phones' internet connections censored as well?
All internet in China is run through gov't-controlled servers. And those servers have among the best software in the world for monitoring and censoring the internet as people use it. Its not just an issue of blocking particular sites (which they do with great regularity)...it is intelligent software. If, for example, there is a thread in the JREF that uses too many key words (Tiananmen Square, human rights, and massacre for example) beyond a certain frequency, then I will be unable to access that thread...it'll be automatically blocked. Yet I'll still be able to access the rest of these forums.
All search engines in China are required to censor their results (they can't get a license if they don't agree to do so, and will be in violation of Chinese law)...but it doesn't make that big a difference, since as I mentioned above, even if you could see all the search results, the ones the gov't doesn't want you to see will still be blocked by gov't filters.
