Social Media Marketing

Google and China continue to fight over Internet freedom in the communist nation. Google is trying to stay as clear of government control as possible; China wants to control information flow with a heavy hand.

The standoff began earlier this year Google when gave up its deal with China to filter Internet searches after what it called a “cyberattack” by the Chinese, and, instead, “automatically redirected Chinese users to google.com.hk, which is maintained on the company’s servers in Hong Kong,” reported the New York Times. Chinese officials responded to the redirect by threatening to cancel Google’s Internet operating license.

China devotes “enormous manpower to censorship, filtering out material based on keywords,” says Eddan Katz, international affairs director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Other countries do so as well, he said, such as Thailand, Turkey, Malaysia and Afghanistan. They also advance censorship by “pressuring third parties, Internet service providers (ISPs) and search engines, to do the work.”

Google is in a “tit for tat” game with China’s government, he said. “It remains to be seen if China relents.”

The immediate effect could bear on an upcoming visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to the Obama White House. Because Google has close ties to Mr. Obama, the visit could be difficult if the censorship issue isn’t yet resolved.

In the meantime, America needs to watch its own leaders regarding Internet freedom: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., told a news program on June 20: “Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need to have that here, too.” No, we don’t. The Internet is so integral to our lives today that shutting it down would be like blocking every road in the country.