Is Google Fulfilling its Mission?

Google makes the claim on its website that the mission of Google is to “organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

Using a number of sources garnered from the internet, a specific analysis of Google’s activities in China will be used to assess the quality of the company’s claim.

Google and Self-Censorship

The search for information will be based on a number of methods:-

1. A search of Google’s website covering its own reporting of news about Google and potential censorship issues.
2. A review of news and other websites (BBC, Guardian, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch) to analyse news coverage of Google and both analyse the messages given and compare them with Google’s own claims.

A PROMPT analysis will be used to rate the stories used to form the analysis and conclusions presented.

News Timeline and sources:-

Using Google’s own search engine and then searches of the BBC, Guardian, Amnesty and HRW sites a total of 11 articles have been found which reflect, in my opinion, a sensible cross-section of coverage. Some 60 results were examined to ensure that they did not have messages significantly different from the sources chosen (the subject is well covered by news sources and, as we will see, Google has been fairly open about what they do and why they do it, so there is no hint of a cover-up or radically contrary news position). The timeline covers nearly 3 years of coverage since the launch of the google.cn website.

The stories chosen are tabulated below:-

Internet news on Google and China

Date	Website	URL	Story Summary
21-Jan-06	BBC News	Google Censors Itself in China	Google admits self censorship on google.cn website
20-Jul-06	Amnesty International	Undermining freedom of expression in China	Amnesty report on roles played by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in supporting China's repression of dissent
27-Jan-07	Guardian	China censorship damaged us, Google founders admit	Sergey Brin admits censorship damaged Google’s reputation
06-Jun-07	Amnesty International	Amnesty warns that Internet 'could change beyond all recognition' unless 'virus of Internet repression' is tackled	"The 'Chinese model' - of an Internet that allows economic growth but not free speech or privacy - is growing in popularity, from a handful of countries five years ago to dozens of governments today who block sites and arrest bloggers."
14-Nov-07	Webpronews	Google Censors China Olympics Criticism	Philipp Lenssen writes on claims by Human Rights Watch
07-May-08	BBC News	Google faces human rights votes	Shareholders try to change Google practices in China, Google argues the best should not be the enemy of the good.
30-Jul-08	BBC News	Which websites has China blocked?	Reports that Google is reporting links to topics like "Tiananmen Massacre" but that some of the links are blocked by the Chinese authorities.
18-Oct-08	Human Rights Watch	How Multinational Internet Companies assist Government Censorship in China	Offers detailed analysis of how google.cn blocks content on subjects which the Chinese Government wishes to block or repress and detailed criticism and quotes for and against Goggle’s activities in China.
Current	Wikipedia	Google China	Wikipedia Article on Google China company history
Current	Wikipedia	Censorship By Google	Wikipedia article on censorship by Google (including China)

The facts which are presented and generally admitted are that prior to the establishment of the google.cn website, google.com was partially blocked by the Chinese authorities. These block included interruption of the availability of the service, slowness and lack of access to many links produced in search results. Google decided that it would setup a Chinese service that complied with Chinese government restrictions on access to internet information in the areas of news reporting, politics and certain Chinese religious movements such as the Falung Gong.

Google was criticised for implicitly suppressing freedom of speech but argued that the benefits of much of its other content being available in China outweighed the issue of self-censorship, given that the Chinese Internet is heavily censored already.

Although there was positive news on accessibility changes made for journalists attending the Olympic Games, it does not appear that there was any relaxation of the censorship applied to the host population of China.

Prompt Analysis

I have performed a detailed prompt analysis on 4 of the above stories to indicate the reliability of the resources used.

Prompt Analysis

	BBC News	Guardian Newspaper	Webpronews	Human Rights Watch
	Google Censors Itself in China	China censorship damaged us, Google founders admit	Google Censors China Olympics Criticism	How Multinational Internet Companies assist Government Censorship in China
Presentation	The BBC website has a clear and highly developed presentational style well suited to the web. The presentation exudes professionalism.	A very clean website. The design reminds us that this is the website of a newspaper and the articles are typically longer than the "précis" presentation of the BBC site.	Fussy website design dominated by advertising.	Lengthy report made available on the internet. Website is obviously that of a major organisation. All the web capture is necessarily in Chinese but lacks sufficient information to allow the reader to form their own opinion.
Relevance	The article is a clear presentation of a relevant story.	Only half the article is on the topic subject.	Provides specific information relating to topic.	The overall article is about far more than just Google but the content on Google is relevant and more detailed than any of the other sources.
Objectivity	Presents arguments from a number of sources and does not draw any unreasonable conclusions.	The coverage of the China issue feels objective, however the item on the Google corporate jet and the threat of the internet to Newspapers are covered in a more trivial manner.	This is more of a blog than a news story and the author is not a professional journalist. However the story reads as objectively presented.	The article is part of a larger report by a major human rights organisation. The report contains detailed research and references to a wide range of sources. However even human rights organisations have an agenda and tend to employ people who believe in their specific cause.
Method	Several sources quoted and obvious signs of relevant research.	Based on direct quotes from Google founder at major economic summit.	Direct research is quoted in the article and the author has written a book on how the Google search engine works.	The article is lengthy and contains considerable research and quotes 152 reference sources. It compares a number of websites from all the major players.
Provenance	The BBC news service is highly regarded, especially internationally	The Guardian is a respected newspaper with a well know left of centre bias. The second half of the article reflects this more than the first.	The article has little provenance unless you trust its author.
Timeliness	The article is clearly dated and represents a clear statement of the situation at the time. The other 2 BBC news items each are relevant to the date on which they were produced.	Clearly dated, produced at time of story as direct coverage of an event.	As a blog, the timeliness is general rather than specific. It was written in the run up to the China Olympics as a general comment piece.	Detailed research on a ongoing issue. Website lacks clear details of date of publication. It is possible to download the complete report which is properly dated.

Other Notes:-

I’ve included two links to Wikipedia, which has a major disclaimer “WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY” as well as admitting lack of peer review (the academically accepted guarantor of reliable content). However the citations used in Wikipedia articles generally allow further research or checks on the accuracy of an article and are often more relevant than searches on Google.

Google self-censorship

Google does not appear to censor content critical of Google. A number of searches were made on Google (see below) and these produced several sources reporting criticism of Google for its admitted censorship in China.

Search links used

http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?tab=all&q=google+olympics

http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?tab=all&q=google+china

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=google+china+criticism&spell=1

Summary

The principle purpose of this exercise has been to use the internet to review allegations that Google fails to meet its own objectives by censoring search content on its Chinese language search site. Each of the sources has been reviewed using the PROPMT methodology and appropriate weight given to the contents of each article. That Google operates voluntary self-censorship of its Chinese site is both proven, and accepted by Google. Google has admitted that its reputation has been harmed but has justified its actions on the basis that the good it can do outweighs the harm caused by censorship (which the Chinese Government would do anyway) and that by censoring themselves the user gets a better experience than if the censorship was applied by the Chinese authorities. Human rights organisations and internet libertarians find this position unacceptable, however history is full of moments were pragmatism achieved more than idealism. Communism in Eastern Europe fell nearly 30 years after the first shoots of liberty sprang up in the Hungarian Spring of 1956 –liberty is ultimately a waiting game.