An important essay by the New York Times’ Public Editor about the limits a Western news organisation should go to when appeasing dictatorships. I understand the dilemma but surely being able to write freely is paramount. And if one can’t write that, say, the leader of Singapore is an autocrat, then how much influence can…
Showing all posts tagged Google
Google slaps down Australia
Is Australia trying to look foolish or do they truly want to look like a bumbling authoritarian state? The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has launched a stinging attack on Google and its credibility in response to the search giant’s campaign against the government’s internet filtering policy. In an interview on ABC Radio last night, Senator…
Google helps clarify what web freedom should mean?
Does the web need a bill of rights? Jeff Jarvis writes in the Guardian that Google’s recent move in China is significant: Google’s business strategy is dead simple: the more we use the internet, the more Google makes. If governments are allowed and enabled to restrict freedom on the internet to a lowest common denominator…
The Age on Google’s move highlights the role of China’s censors
My following article is published today in the Melbourne Age: About 100 Chinese citizens gathered outside Google’s Beijing office this week to sing the popular tune Grass Mud Horse. They paid their respects to the web giant after it announced the closure of its censored Chinese search engine and redirected users to a Hong Kong-based…
Beijing is nervous and insecure and Google has made it worse
Evan Osnos, writing in the New Yorker, laments the rise of a supposed new super-power: As Americans living in China at this moment in its history, many of us have fashioned an image of a country that is moving—in its own shambling pattern of fits and starts—toward something better for itself and the world. Sure,…
Google: we haven’t really shut-down our Chinese business
The New York Times praises Google’s decision to (finally) challenge China’s draconian censorship laws but Google’s David Drummond, the company’s chief legal officer, offers James Fallows at the Atlantic an insider’s view: It may not be quite obvious that this is not really a “shutdown” of either our operations in China or of our mainland…
Iran did not have a Twitter revolution
The BBC World Service has published my following article about the internet in Iran (originally published on BBC Persian last week): The face of murdered Iranian woman Neda Agha Soltan, killed by a bullet in the Iranian capital Tehran, echoed around the world. Like this, the vast majority of iconic images that documented Iran’s disputed…
Google and China, a relationship that ain’t over yet
Not so fast in believing that Google has completely ended its censorship regime in China: Google’s operations and long-term prospects in China were shrouded in confusion , as it emerged that it is still censoring search services for its partners because of contractual obligations. The world’s leading search engine hoped to resolve two months of…
ABC Triple J Hack on Google and China
The news that Google is leaving China is causing headlines around the world. I was interviewed about the ramifications of the decision on yesterday’s current affairs program Hack on ABC’s Triple J: