On Impending Censorship

[Tsen]

Just a thought for you. If you didn't catch that, the first is the Google Image search, on the USA version of Google, for Tiananmen. The second is China's Google's search, with the identical term, "Tiananmen" after their recent move to censor search results. Open for discussion.

[braha_kahn]

no words just some smilies:

[♥Mark]

Censorship? On the internet? Blasphemy! I think I might just be switching search engines out of spite.

[Tsen]

Google was very reluctant to comply. They certainly put up more of a fight than Yahoo!, which caved in so quietly there wasn't even a news release on it. Coincidentally, here's the Yahoo! version of the same US/CN comparison. Also, Yahoo! allows the government to access to records of who accessed said searches. Meanwhile, part of Google's agreement was that Google could put a notification on the bottom of the search results notifying the user that there was censored information on the page. Yahoo! didn't do that. What I'm most interested in is the similarities to the US. Thanks to the oh-so-glorious Patriot Act and similar movements by the US government, they're now pressing, even claiming the right, to review Google's search results. Google's resisting, since they have a reputation for providing information along with anonymity and protection of individual's rights, but the government's threatening to subpoena the information if Google doesn't give it willingly. I think, last I heard, Google compromised and only gave lists of randomly selected search results, with no user's identities included, but I could be wrong. Still, I shudder to think that we may be facing similar censorship in the future. Hell, we could be experiencing it to some degree right now, and just not know.

[♥Mark]

I'm glad I'm in Canada, the land of the free.

[Gwendolyn]

First off, I want to say that I do not agree with cencorship. I would like to note, however, that China is a communist country that is slowly becoming democratic. I think as China changes, it's citizens are being allotted more and more freedoms, slowly but surely. If that Government dumped too many freedoms on it's people, their government would completely crumble instead of being able to go through with the change. This is also a country that didn't allow an internet connection within so many miles of schools and such...So isn't some internet better than none? I think Google thought that if they didn't do this, the citizens would be stuck without anything, and perhaps later, they'd keep doing trying to do away with the cencorship little by little. Just a thought.

[The Blue Meanie]

Originally posted by Gwendolyn First off, I want to say that I do not agree with cencorship. I would like to note, however, that China is a communist country that is slowly becoming democratic. I think as China changes, it's citizens are being allotted more and more freedoms, slowly but surely. If that Government dumped too many freedoms on it's people, their government would completely crumble instead of being able to go through with the change. This is also a country that didn't allow an internet connection within so many miles of schools and such...So isn't some internet better than none? I think Google thought that if they didn't do this, the citizens would be stuck without anything, and perhaps later, they'd keep doing trying to do away with the cencorship little by little. * Just a thought. Just another thought: change in China will not be slow. China is too big, too regionalised and localised, and too diverse. The central government is too weak and struggling already to maintain hold on whatever power it has. Change in china will be widespread, violent, chaotic, and very, very, VERY dangerous both two its inhabitants and the outside world. When it happens, the world is going to KNOW. I'd also like to add that Gwen's comment about China "becoming democratic" indicates a strong underlying (mis)conception of almost all western political philosophy: the idea that Democracy is somehow the natural conclusion, the logical and "morally superior" conclusion that all countries should be striving towards. I disagree. Just as with the monarchies of earlier centuries, Democracy is seen by its contemporaries as somehow a "superior" for of governemtn, a logical end. But in reality, it's just another phase. There is NOTHING inherantly superior, morally and politically, about democracy. That the west, America in particular, seems so determined to force its political ideals on other countries is worrying at least... at worse, it's dangerous. VERY dangerous. Furthermore, it'll only lead, in the long term, to more instability, and more cultural (and likely military) conflicts.

[Gwendolyn]

I really thought that China was going to become a democracy....I don't think that democracy is superior, morally or otherwise. What do you think they're changing to? I think if they continue to be communist, that's cool, but a big change is inevitable. And they are going to try to take the changes slow....They might not end up that way, but they are attempting.

[Lucifer Sam]

China's alot like a box of chocalates in a nuclear fission reactor. They melted a long time ago, and pretty sume, the whole thing is going to burn to the ground with angry Valentines rioters.

[wombing]

*faugh* goddam censorship.

[xcrissxcrossx]

You have the Pirates bay in your bookmarks

[Tsen]

Yup! And Mininova. I prefer PirateBay, but I always have to block images w/Firefox so that it's safe to get on at home. The ads aren't kiddie-friendly.

[wasup]

I use http://www.torrents.to/torrents/music_torrents/ It's basically everything else... you can select from a list and switch between sites if it's not at one site. Though if you are worried about cleavage on piratebay not being kid-friendly... then I strongly suggest NOT to go on torrent reactor (there's a button to remove the ads though) PS/edit: I find isohunt to have the best stuff... mininova has a lot of seeders for popular stuff... but isohunt has a lot of things to select from... and piratebay I try not to use much anymore because it has like an average of about 2 seeders per file I use isohunt now and it's MUCH faster. and it also definetly has safe ads

[bradybaker]

http://www.torrentspy.com/ That's my personal fav. PirateBay and mininova have a lot of popular stuff, not so good for more independent, lesser known stuff.

[Tsen]

Torrents.to apparently hosts its ads from the same source. I went there before reading your warning, but no ads popped up, so I'm guessing that I already had the host blocked. Either way, thanks for the links, I'll try those sites in the future.

[wasup]

Originally posted by Tsen Torrents.to apparently hosts its ads from the same source. I went there before reading your warning, but no ads popped up, so I'm guessing that I already had the host blocked. Either way, thanks for the links, I'll try those sites in the future. torrentreactor is a different site than torrents.to... what warnings did ya mean?

[Tsen]

Though if you are worried about cleavage on piratebay not being kid-friendly... then I strongly suggest NOT to go on torrent reactor (there's a button to remove the ads though) [/b] That, but I didn't realize that you were referring to two different sites.