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Google Caves to Porn-Weary China

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Posted on Jun 21, 2009
Flickr / phauly

Is China experiencing a pornography epidemic? Beijing’s obsession with porn blocking now rivals its attempts to stifle political dissent. On top of censorship software soon to be packaged with every computer sold in the country, China has told Google to limit its search functionality for fear of accidentally helping Chinese users find the good stuff.

Google said it is “taking all necessary steps to fix any problems with our results.”

Cnet News:

The company is also putting some serious effort into making sure it complies with China’s antipornography drive. “We are undertaking a thorough review of our service and taking all necessary steps to fix any problems with our results. This has been a substantial engineering effort, and we believe we have addressed the large majority of the problem results,” Google said.

Just in case those efforts don’t work, China still plans to require PC companies to install desktop monitoring software later this year, according to a separate report in The New York Times debunking claims earlier in the week that China was reconsidering the requirement in the wake of security problems with its Green Dam software.

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By Alan E., June 22, 2009 at 7:32 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

christian said “If the perverted porn industry
had been banned in America we would not be experiencing the many varied abuses our young people
are being subjected to.”

Right, like all those incidents in the Catholic Church wouldn’t have happened if their was no porn for the priests and nuns to look at.

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RAE's avatar

By RAE, June 22, 2009 at 4:38 am Link to this comment

Nothing like putting a lock on the cookie jar to fire up everyone’s curiosity and ingenuity.

I wonder how many millennia it’s going to take before it sinks in - a FEW - maybe 1% or 2% of any population - would even bother to look at “porn” more than once or twice.

EVERYONE ELSE COULDN’T CARE LESS.

What is with “authority” when they just assume they can curtail the freedom to choose for 99% to prevent #1 from getting at their vices?

Reminds me of the old English saying - “The British didn’t ban bear baiting because it did so much damage to the bears but because it gave the onlookers SO MUCH PLEASURE.”

But go ahead… those who want to look at porn WILL LOOK AT PORN no matter how many millions “authority” spends on preventing them from doing so. It’s like prostitution - blow a few billon on it - won’t make a damn bit of difference.

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By christian96, June 22, 2009 at 4:36 am Link to this comment

Thumps up for China!  There are some things that
should be banned.  If the perverted porn industry
had been banned in America we would not be experiencing the many varied abuses our young people
are being subjected to.  We have weak ignorant
corrupt leaders in Washington who refuse to protect
our children and instead serve their own selfish
WANTS.  One day people will read about America in
their history books and shake their heads saying,
“Why did their leaders let this happen?”

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By Dar, June 21, 2009 at 10:56 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Their right.

Every society has the right to ban pornographic materials.

That such software maybe used to ban politcal criticism, doesn’t not negate the tool or its primary prupose.

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A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
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