Bing Censoring All Simplified Chinese Language Queries

boggis writes "Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times journalist, is calling for a boycott of Microsoft's Bing. They have censored search requests at the request of the Chinese Government (like certain others). The difference is that Bing has censored all searches done anywhere in simplified Chinese characters (the characters used in mainland China). This means that a Chinese speaker searching for Tiananmen anywhere in the world now gets the impression that it is just a lovely place to visit."

not really

[siddesu]

DNRTFA, but I just did a search in Simplified Chinse for Tiananmen, and the first couple of hits referenced the massacre. Links to Wikipedia and bloggers discussing the events also popped up. I am not in China, FWIW.

Re:contrast

[h4rm0ny]

well if their goal was to differentiate from google, i guess "don't be evil" is a good place to stand apart.

Google also censor results in China. Search for Tiannamen Square or Falun Gong on google.cn and you find just the same whitewashed results as with Bing. The difference is merely one of implementation. Google has done it by censoring the results in their country-specific site. Bing have done it by censoring results when you search using a language form popular in mainland China. It's hard to say conclusively which is least effective. With Google you can search via one of their international sites to get around it. With Bing you can enter search terms in a different language such as English. Both are, of course, subject to the Great Firewall of China interfering when you follow results to places like Wikipedia etc. which is not the fault of either Google or Bing.

So in summary, Google innovates and Microsoft copies. Not much change there, but unfortunately they have both sold out to the Chinese government. Neither is clean.

Re:not really

[TeethWhitener]

Yeah I did a search on Bing [bing.com] for "" ('six-four,' a mainland reference to June 4, 1989, the date the army was deployed in Tiananmen Square) in simplified chinese and the tank man picture was still there under images. Though I'm also not in China. For comparison, the same search in google.cn [google.cn] yields a message at the bottom of the page saying something like 'According to local laws and policy, some search results are omitted.'

Some quasi-scientific experiments

[phoenix321]

Assuming we have an Internet surfer searching for information about Tiananmen square.

Inputs can be "Tiananmen" or tian1an2men2 in simplified Chinese (which will not render on /. due to missing UTF8 support)

Compare the Google returns for searches
http://www.google.de/search?hl=cn&safe=off&q=tiananmen&btnG=Search [google.de]
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=cn&safe=off&q=tiananmen&btnG=Search [google.cn]

http://images.google.de/images?hl=cn&safe=off&q=tiananmen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi [google.de]
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=cn&safe=off&q=tiananmen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi [google.cn]
(note the difference in the TLD, safe search is off in all cases)

Wildly different results, the CN domain returning no image of Tank Man and the DE domain returns nothing BUT him.

Trying that again in traditional Chinese:
http://images.google.de/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&start=0 [google.de]
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&start=0 [google.cn]

Results almost identical, with only a slight variation in their order.

http://www.google.de/search?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw&start=0 [google.de]
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw&start=0 [google.cn]

Results again wildly different. Both searches now return Chinese content, but the DE domain prominently features a YouTube link to our good old friend Tank Man, while the CN domain prominently features a city map and Baidu links, which are guaranteed to not contain something about Tank Man, I can assure you.

This get's more pronounced if we search for Tiananmen in Chinese AND the year number 1989, which simply must return some content about the protests if the search engine itself is any good.

http://images.google.de/images?hl=en&safe=off&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%201989&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi [google.de]
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=en&safe=off&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8%201989&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi [google.cn]

Same result: both searches return pages entirely in Chinese, but the DE domain return a Chinese photo of the protests first and the CN domain returning only photos of The Party Leaders and happy soldiers.

Let's compare the results with other TLDs
Russia:

Google still the best option for Chinese people

[seshomaru samma]

In China you can easily switch to google.com and get the same results as the rest if the world. You can search google.com in Chinese. Bing does not allow you this luxury if you are from China. It switches to English and changes the background picture but gives you the same Chinese government results if it knows your IP is from China. BTW- Chinese people know about Tiananmen They have satellite dishes with Taiwanese channels that spend 50% of their air time criticizing the mainland (the other 50% is sex and celebrities)

Re:Chinese

[elnyka]

While the Chinese political system was rapidly turning to the end of its dynastic cycle (the pattern is pretty consistently recurrent in Chinese history), the wounds were not self induced.

The mix of colonialism and outright invasion together with cultural shock from military defeats sent China into a state of coma.

Much of the setbacks of China in the past two centuries was about drinking too much western coolaid. Not that the western ideas were worthless, but the political reforms that were supposed to "modernize" China was so laced with immature imitation of western ideology that they basically failed one by one. (Not unlike what's happening when the US tried to set up a government in Iraq)

If there's a rational explanation to China's deaf ears on petitions to human rights, freedom, democracy and the such, it's not because of some evil agenda, but rather the fact that it was tried, and didn't work out. Yes, maybe they didn't try hard enough, but nobody's in a hurry to take those risks again.

I hardly see early 1900's warlordism and subsequent fuck ups like the Cultural Revolution as the result of western cool aid. Human rights, freedom and democracy had never been tried out. The only that had ever been tried was industrialization. But human rights, freedom and democracy? When were they tried? And certainly there had been Chinese polities that have enjoyed them to various degrees of success (Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.)

Everything that has been tried in mainland China has been about twisted concepts of modernization and industrialization, during the unraveling of the Qing dinasty (or more like a lip service as reaction to Western/Japanese interventionism.) It was pretty much non-existing with the warlords period and during the Sino-Japanese war. And then, they went at it again with the establishment of the PRC within the frame of failed ideologies and false, snake-oil sociology.

At no point there has been a single entity or polity in Mainland China that has tried human rights, freedom and democracy. Ergo, they can't claim they have given up on them because they are failed concepts.

Re:The NYT reporter misses the forest for the tree

[oDDmON oUT]

Why? Couldn't he just buy one [wikipedia.org], like Bill did in the first place?

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[Jeeeb]

Trying that again in traditional Chinese:
http://images.google.de/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&start=0 [google.de]
http://images.google.cn/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%97%A8&btnG=Search+images&aq=f&oq=&start=0 [google.cn]

I don't speak (or read) Chinese but I do know Japanese and can recognise simplified vs traditional characters. I'm pretty sure that search is in simplified characters. I replaced the "men" with the Japanese "mon" which is identical to the traditional Chinese "men" and the results changed significantly. Link:

http://images.google.de/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80&btnG=Search+images [google.de]

Re:Some quasi-scientific experiments

[sdiz]

IThe footer of google.cn reads "According to local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not shown." (google translation)

"Tibet oppression Han" -- simplified chars

[John Guilt]

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=%E8%A5%BF%E8%97%8F%E6%8A%91%E5%88%B6%E9%9F%A9&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=5b7cf21b103219ea [google.com] ...returns >1.4M results http://www.bing.com/search?q=%E8%A5%BF%E8%97%8F%E6%8A%91%E5%88%B6%E9%9F%A9&go=&form=QBLH&qs=n [bing.com] ...returns Sweet Fanny Adams Yes, the Chinese Google site is as bad, but at least a Chinese user can potentially hit an external Google site with one tunnel/proxy or another. (Note: I'm not a terrible bigot, though I'm probably as bigoted as average: I do not blame all Han Chinese for the oppression of the Tibetan people, and of course there are some Han willing to risk extreme punishment to help them; however, one of the ways Tibetans are being oppressed is by the massive settlement of the country by Han Chinese, and beside I wanted as inflammatory a non-obscene word-set as I could for the experiment.)

Re:contrast

[sharperguy]

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=tankman&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&aq=f&oq= [google.cn]

619,427 censored individuals in NYC, as of 2007

[h00manist]

The New York metropolitan area contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, enumerating 619,427 individuals as of the 2007 American Community Survey Census statistical data, including at least 6 Chinatowns, not to mention fledgling ethnic Chinese enclaves emerging throughout the New York metropolitan area.

Re:contrast

[budfields]

Pardon me, but what if the Chinese searcher in question doesn't know English? Also, to my eyes at least, worldwide censorship is certainly worse than limited in-China-only censorship, necessary to do business in China at all, which can be easily avoided by Chinese citizens.