Google Refuses Censorship (except for China)
The Inquirer today released a story about Google’s reluctance to remove racist blogs from Blogger. They state that Blogger has become a popular tool for neo-Nazi organizations Down Under and that groups of non-racist have been “rebuffed” in their attempts to get Google to take down these blogs.
I don’t think that Google standing firm on this issue is surprising. But, we can see where the slope gets slippery. First, Google has willingly censored their tools before for China. This sets a dangerous precedent for the company.
There has also been situations where a countries laws have prevented racist material from being on a website, like in the case of Yahoo auctions and Nazi memorabilia in France.
So if Google did give in to the “non-hate” groups, and started removing opinions that most of us find in bad taste where does that leave us? Who decides what’s in bad taste? Censorship in any form leads to restrictions of freedom. And your right to swing your arm ends where someone’s nose begins. If people don’t like racist websites, perhaps they shouldn’t go to them.
My concerns would lay more in sites like these passing as legitimate news sites. For example, check out the “facts” at the site MartinLutherKing.Org. The same type of people that have JewWatch.com ranking so highly for the word Jew runs this site. That was a big story a couple years back.
As bloggers we know that we should always think about what we read and not assume it’s always accurate. Education is the answer, not censorship.
October 27th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Feel the love ! The neo-nazi websites which are “allowed” is the same as most islamic blogs anyway… the anti-semetic thingy is everywhere in the internet (or was George Bush right in using “internets”?) Whatever, I would think that neo-nazi blogs and sites and those jihadist sites SHOULD be censored by google if if has any sense of decency!
February 11th, 2007 at 12:22 am
If these sites do exist, what are they trying to do? Recruit members or brainwash people into embracing their creed? I don’t think they will go near that target even if Google does not censor them. Users are much too wise to be misled by these groups.