Google Right to Take Stand Against Censorship

In light of the recent earthquake in Haiti, the majority of Canadian citizens are not only reaching out to help those devastated by the disaster but also gratefully counting their own blessings. We, as Canadian citizens, may not have everything, but most of us have more than enough. The people of Haiti had almost nothing to begin with, even before the seven-point-zero magnitude earthquake ravaged most of the poverty-stricken nation. The heart-wrenching photos showing the rubble, the chaos, the dead bodies lining the streets, the crying children, say it all. We can only imagine what the people of Haiti are dealing with in the aftermath of this tragedy.

Whenever a horrific tragedy happens outside of Canada- the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the 2007 California wildfires- it tends to fill Canadians with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and relief because we live in a country that is relatively free from major natural disasters and has the resources to deal with such events when they do occur.

But Canadians often take for granted the other, less obvious things we are blessed with in our everyday lives. I don’t have to go to Haiti to know how bad things are, because I can read about it online and view photos of cities in ruin. As I sit here and write this, I don’t have to worry that my work will be censored, as long as I don’t drop any F-bombs. Anyone who wishes to read this column is free not only to do so, but also to express their opinion about it without fear of going to jail. So many people throughout the world do not have these same rights. There are countries where people who question government leaders go “missing,” or turn up dead. There are places in this world where journalists are thrown in jail because they do not adhere to the government’s guidelines about “acceptable” content. Even the advent of the World Wide Web, an unlimited source of information about everything and anything, has not changed this in many countries.

In China, Google Inc. is threatening to pull google.cn, Google’s China-based site, over recent email-hacking and censorship. Google announced it will no longer censor search results in China, in light of the news that hackers in China attempted to access the Gmail accounts of known dissidents and human rights activists. While there is no concrete proof the Chinese government is behind the hacking, it’s certainly not a stretch of the imagination. China’s never been the most open country when it comes to freedom of speech. Topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and Tibet are blocked online by what has been called the “Great Firewall of China.” The government blocks online sites it does not approve of, such as gay dating sites. Many newspapers in China are government-owned, meaning writers are under certain restrictions. Censorship appears to be on the rise; China is now allegedly blocking racy text messages sent by users of China Mobile and China Unicom, the two biggest mobile phone networks in the country.

Some of Google’s critics suggest China can live without Google. However, in 2002 when Beijing completely blocked out Google’s main site, people freaked out. Scientists, in particular, argued that they needed Google to do online research. The government caved and allowed censored access to Google. The amount of people in China using Internet has grown substantially since then, meaning the government will likely face increased protests if the country does allow Google to pull out. In 2009 alone, the amount of people online in China grew by 30 per cent, for a total of 384 million users. Many of the new users are certainly the youth of China, many who have recently expressed their devotion to Google by leaving flowers outside Google offices in Beijing following the news that the company may be closing down Google.cn. The company currently has a 30-percent share of the online market in China.

China certainly isn’t the only country that censors what its citizens can say and read. However, due to 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing, China’s growing foreign investment and the sheer volume of people facing censored information, China is now the poster child for government censorship. Pulling its operations out of China is a bold move by Google but it is certainly the right move. The entire concept of the Internet is the very antithesis of censorship; it should not be used by any government to limit the knowledge of its users.