2010年1月18日星期一

Has Google.cn really stopped censoring search results?

I don't think so.

Let's search for "法轮功" (Falun Gong):

A bunch of search results are returned. However, on the first page:
1) All results are web pages published by state-run media.
2) The opinions expressed in these web pages are completely one-sided. They all imply that Falun Gong is an evil cult. (For the record, I do think Falun Gong is a cult.)
3) The disclaimer "据当地法律法规和政策,部分搜索结果未予显示" (in accordance with local laws and policies, part of the search results are not displayed) still appears at the bottom of the page.

Now, let's search for "六四事件" (the June 4th incident). Some reported that after google.cn stopped censoring, "六四事件" became a hot query item on google.cn. Here is the first page of search results:
Note that:
1) Only four results were returned. This clearly has nothing to do with the default behaviour of the search engine, for, if you type in some non-political search entries (such as "C++"), you will get about 10 or more results per page.
2) All four displayed results are originated from mainland Q&A sites ("Sogou Q&A" and "Baidu Knows") or state-run news agencies (Xinhua, China Daily). These pages do not really contain much information (if any) on the June 4th incident.

What about the next few pages? See the image of the third page below for instance. There is still no meaningful information or web page from overseas. Also, although this is just the third page, two out of the five results are already irrelevant to the June 4th incident.
Changing the query item to "八九六四" (June 4th, 1989) is only marginally better. Below is the first page of the search results. There are seven results. Six of them are apparently relevant, but still none of them explains what the June 4th incident really is.

2 則留言:

黑人 說...

其實公告解禁當日隔了幾個鐘已經「回復正常」了

The suffocated 說...

乜原來已經「回復正常」咁多日……我真係「背」,謝謝指點。