Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Restaurants get off to a quick start thanks to game-changing policies
High service charges on event ticket refunds call for further regulation
Sunday
- Subscribe
Related News
Google runs afoul of effort to battle smut
By Zhu Shenshen |
June 20, 2009, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA yesterday began blocking some Chinese-language search results from Google over concerns that the links contained pornographic material.
The national office responsible for the ongoing crackdown on Internet pornography said it asked the US-based search engine to remove the disputed content.
"We have been continually working to deal with pornographic content -- and material that is harmful to children -- on the Web in China," Google said in a statement sent to Shanghai Daily later last night.
Google met with government officials to discuss problems with its Google.cn service and its links to pornographic images and other content through foreign language searches. The company said it was taking steps to fix problems with the results and would continue to communicate with the government.
Google China officials gathered yesterday to discuss which words should be considered "pornographic," according to a company official who declined to be identified.
"It's so long a list of words that we can't finish it in one day," the Google source told Shanghai Daily.
Also at the request of authorities, Google China canceled its Suggest services yesterday.
The function tries to anticipate what users are typing next and offer suggestions. The fear is that it will suggest links to sensitive content.
On Thursday, the industry watchdog, the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center, said Google was failing to "filter pornographic content from its search engine results under China's laws and regulations."
The move was the latest in China's fight against the spread of online pornography.
China, which has the world's largest number of Internet users at about 300 million, blocked 1,001 Websites for distributing porn and other lewd material in the past month.
Microsoft's Bing search engine was shut down in China for several days after it debuted two weeks ago. The Bing services automatically played video clips in search result pages, even those that contained pornographic content.
Bing now doesn't give any results for a search on "sex."
And starting on July 1, China will require all personal computer makers to pre-install Green Dam-Youth Escort software, which it claims will prevent children from accessing pornographic Websites.
But glitches have been found in the software, and the announcement has generated wide public concern.
Also yesterday, Li Changchun, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee Political Bureau, urged a severe crackdown on pornographic Internet content.
The national office responsible for the ongoing crackdown on Internet pornography said it asked the US-based search engine to remove the disputed content.
"We have been continually working to deal with pornographic content -- and material that is harmful to children -- on the Web in China," Google said in a statement sent to Shanghai Daily later last night.
Google met with government officials to discuss problems with its Google.cn service and its links to pornographic images and other content through foreign language searches. The company said it was taking steps to fix problems with the results and would continue to communicate with the government.
Google China officials gathered yesterday to discuss which words should be considered "pornographic," according to a company official who declined to be identified.
"It's so long a list of words that we can't finish it in one day," the Google source told Shanghai Daily.
Also at the request of authorities, Google China canceled its Suggest services yesterday.
The function tries to anticipate what users are typing next and offer suggestions. The fear is that it will suggest links to sensitive content.
On Thursday, the industry watchdog, the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center, said Google was failing to "filter pornographic content from its search engine results under China's laws and regulations."
The move was the latest in China's fight against the spread of online pornography.
China, which has the world's largest number of Internet users at about 300 million, blocked 1,001 Websites for distributing porn and other lewd material in the past month.
Microsoft's Bing search engine was shut down in China for several days after it debuted two weeks ago. The Bing services automatically played video clips in search result pages, even those that contained pornographic content.
Bing now doesn't give any results for a search on "sex."
And starting on July 1, China will require all personal computer makers to pre-install Green Dam-Youth Escort software, which it claims will prevent children from accessing pornographic Websites.
But glitches have been found in the software, and the announcement has generated wide public concern.
Also yesterday, Li Changchun, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee Political Bureau, urged a severe crackdown on pornographic Internet content.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
