Censored By Google

Google’s recent spat with China over political censorship has brought to light Google’s reportedly transparent policy of censoring search results from many countries including Germany, Turkey and Thailand. “In Turkey, it’s a crime to defame the country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk or to ridicule ‘Turkishness.’ So Google restricts access to videos that the government of Turkey deems illegal on google.com.tr. In Germany, France and Poland, it is illegal to publish pro-Nazi material or content that denies the Holocaust. To comply with those countries’ laws, Google does not display links to those sites on its search results pages on the company’s German site google.de, French site google.fr or Polish site google.pl. And in Thailand, denigrating the Thai monarch is against the law, so Google blocks YouTube videos in Thailand that ridicule King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Google controls nearly two-thirds of the world’s search results, making it the Internet gateway for most people. As a result of that clout, Google’s censorship policies are closely watched. That heady responsibility is also one of the reasons why Google may exit China, which has stringent censorship rules.”