This article titled, “So Long, Dalai Lama: Google Adapts to China” in the New York Times, Joseph Kahn, discusses the censorship of China and its relation to the new Google.com subsidy Google.cn. This site is specifically a Google site for citizens of China because it omits results that the Chinese government does not want its people to see. For example when searching for the Dalai Lama on Google.cn, out the 161 images that come up only a few are truly the Dalai Lama, and they are not even of him in present times. The photos are when the Dalai Lama was a young man meeting with senior Chinese officials before 1959 when China’s People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet and the Dalai Lama fled the country.
Kahn goes on to discuss that many companies have come under fire for helping the Chinese government “police the web.” Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco were among the companies that were involved with China and the web. Yet, according to Kahn, Google had cooperated the most willingly. Google works close with Chinese officials to make sure that results on Google.cn are approved by the government. The main international search engine, Google.com still works in China, yet inefficiently because China has it’s own firewall that does not let people access things that are deemed unacceptable.
However many feel that Google has betrayed its motto, “Don’t be evil.” The new Google.cn even hides what it is censoring. In other words you don’t know even know the topic of what is being censored. On one hand I feel that their should be freedom of the press everywhere because things that are being censored sometimes are useful information. However, if Google wants to work in China it has to respect the Chinese government and their wishes.
