Google Defiant Over Censorship in China

Defenders of free speech reject any controls over the internet. This issue and others were debated by more than 90 countries attending the first Internet Governance Forum in Athens. Companies like Google do business in China despite some censorship, and Google maintains that simply providing a connection is a major first step to creating an open society. To deny access to restrictive regimes only punishes and limits the citizens. Critics often use the example of searching Tiananmen Square on Google versus google.cn: The search of the first site immediately shows the 1989 photo of a young man standing before the tank, and a search of the second shows a photo of architecture without people. But google.cn can’t erase history entirely – hints of the 1989 protest indeed show up within the first 20 results. The conference, with representatives of so many nations attending, serves as evidence of a global respect for the internet and recognition that control over its content can be a powerful political tool. – YaleGlobal