Google has cleverly decided to get around Chinese Internet censors by routing all traffic through its Hong Kong-based site. The company isn’t going to play anymore with a government that won’t let people find information about democracy, dictatorship or Tiananmen Square.
But as a few people have pointed out, Google isn’t completely consistent in its outrage. It has censored search results in one way or another all over the globe. CNN lists the countries: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Burma, Cuba, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, India, Iran, Morocco, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the UAE, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Yes, there’s a little hypocrisy here. But it’s mostly forgivable. Decisions about what to censor in different countries always involve complicated judgment calls. Thailand censors information making fun of the king. Complying with that is lame, but it doesn’t cause active social harm. Censoring pro-Nazi search results in Germany, as ordered by democratically elected governments, may do some social good. So a blanket no-censorship policy is extreme and unworkable.
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