Google caused quite an uproar last week when it announced that it intended to stop censoring search results on its localized version in China. Its decision is commendable, yet, even as it takes up this fight, Google censors its results in a number of countries, including some European ones, to abide to the local laws. One country which has been especially adamant in filtering content on the Internet is Australia, a move which Google has been critical of in the past. Yet, it has now agreed to remove a link to an Encyclopedia Dramatica entry which some found racist and offensive.
As the story goes, aboriginal man Steve Hodder-Watt came across a rather disturbing web page when searching for the words "Aboriginal and Encyclopedia" the entry for 'Aboriginal' on Encyclopedia Dramatica, a wiki dedicated to 'alternative' views on any number of topics. It's highly satirical in nature and often goes to extremes to shock its readers. Linked in part to the
Anonymous group of the infamous 4chan, its open and unrestricted nature leads to entries regularly blurring the lines between satire and racial slurs. As further evidence of its apparent evil nature, Google lists 666,000 results for the 'encyclopedia dramatica' query.
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