GOOGLE has been accused of ‘self censorship after it emerged the firm has stopped notifying users in China that they may be searching for censored keywords.
A Google feature that warned users about banned or sensitive words was dropped after a protracted battle with Chinese authorities over search.
Google confirmed on Monday that it had turned off the function, citing concerns over user experience. However, campaign have hit out at the move, claiming it is ‘self-censorship’ from the search giant. The controversial feature was introduced in May last year, and sparked a cat and mouse game between the company and the Chinese authorities. Within 24 hours of the launch of the feature, technology known as the ‘Great Firewall of China’ was blocking the function, according to campaign organisation Greatfire.org. Google began to offer suggestions about possible sensitive or banned keywords in China at the end of May last year, after complaints that its service was erratic. Google engineers found that certain queries by users led to error messages or website disconnection. For example, search on the Chinese character ‘jiang’, which means ‘river’, but is also a common surname, was blocked after erroneous rumours about the death of former president Jiang Zemin. Google scrubbed the search suggestion function in early December, and has also removed ‘help’ documentation that explained how to use the feature, Greatfire.org said in a blog post. A source in China said Google decided it was ‘counterproductive’ to continue the technical dispute, despite several attempts to get around it. Google has had a rocky relationship with the Chinese authorities since January 2010, when the company said it may shut down Chinese operations due to a ‘sophisticated and targeted’ cyber attack.
Google said at the time that it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine. The company began to redirect search queries from mainland China to its Hong Kong website. The ruling Communist party, led by Xi Jinping, last month announced moves to force internet users to fully identify themselves to service providers, raising fresh concerns about freedom of speech in the country.                            –MOL