Richard Metzger, whose Wall the photos was removed from, has shared additional details about the incident over at BoingBoing, which illuminated possible reasons for the images removal:

On Friday afternoon, one of my fellow bloggers at Dangerous Minds, Niall O’Conghaile did a quickie cut-n-paste blog post about a “kiss-in” protest scheduled for that night in London at a pub where two young men had been asked to leave earlier in the week because they were kissing. You can read Niall’s post here. He decided to use the above photo because he felt that it was inoffensive (Some outlets have reported that this photo came from the London “kiss-in” page on Facebook, but this is not true, it was Niall’s choice and he found it on Google Images).

I posted this to my own Facebook wall as a matter of course. I put up all of the Dangerous Minds content on my wall. Sometime mid-day is when this would have gone up.

I didn’t really pay that much attention to the matter, but before we went to sleep that night, my wife Tara McGinley, who also blogs at Dangerous Minds, mentioned that this heavy metal kinda guy “Jerry” had written a bunch of childish and homophobic things about this picture on my Facebook wall, saying that he found it “disgusting.” Predictably, a bunch of people jumped all over him and right around 10:30pm Tara noticed that “Jerry” had deleted all of his comments and vamoosed.

The next morning I woke up around 6am to find a note from Facebook waiting for me with the ominous subject “Facebook Warning” informing me that I had posted “abusive material” which they had removed.

Metzger presumes that “Jerry” reported the image/post as sexually explicit, and that set into motion some internal processes at Facebook that led to its eventual removal. (We’ll come back to this in a moment.)

Meanwhile, buried on the 6th page of comments from Metzger’s original post complaining of the photo’s removal is a comment left by “Facebook Communication, providing the following sterile message (screenshot):

Comment from Facebook: The photo in question does not violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and was removed in error. We apologize for the inconvenience.

While this comment from Facebook has been lauded as a grand apology (and I, too, mistakenly thought that The Advocate had actually received an official statement from Facebook), Metzger doesn’t let them off the hook that easily:

The so-called “apology” touted by the likes of Perez Hilton, Pink News, The Advocate and even mainstream news sources like AOL, Huffington Post and Gawker, as if some kind of “victory” had been won by the LGBT community was nothing more than generic “Oopsie! We goofed” text left by a low level Facebook employee six pages in on the comments to the original Dangerous Minds post. …This supposed “apology” was nothing more than a “comment.”

…Furthermore, it’s not saying anything specifically about a gay kiss. This generic text could also refer, for example, to a photo of a breastfeeding woman that someone reported as “abusive” (their word not mine) to Facebook’s censors. Don’t break out the champagne so fast, folks.

I similarly bemoaned in my original post on the lack of any official comment, blog post, press release, or broader explanation by Facebook on how such an “error” happened, what kind of content review processes are in place, or any promise to take better care. I have heard from private, unofficial Facebook sources that “This was all a misunderstanding. None of the content was against our TOS”, but nothing else has been publicly stated on the matter.

So, where does this leave us? Even if we accept Facebook’s generic explanation as both accurate and sufficient in this instance, many unanswered questions remain. Critical questions, indeed, considering the cruel dichotomy of Facebook’s mission to “[Give] people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” and its unquestioned power to control the platform, and thus the conditions under which people are allowed to share.

Below I provide set a open questions related this incident, and I look forward to a public dialogue with Facebook to help address these issues and hopefully resolve some of these concerns.

1. What exactly happened? I think the first issue that needs resolution is an explanation of what exactly happened here. While we can’t expect Facebook to provide details of every case of content removal, this particular situation has caused significant concern — and misinformation — that it deserves specific attention. Facebook should let us know if the image was reported as offensive, and whether an employee then decided to remove it. I suspect a suitable, public explanation can be provided that won’t divulge any private or proprietary information.

2. What was the process? Assuming that the image was indeed removed by an employee (and not just some automated process), we deserve an explanation as to how that process works. Earlier versions of a help page noted that a “A Facebook administrator looks into each report thoroughly in order to decide the appropriate course of action”. The same page now indicates that “we remove reported content that violates our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities”. What internal processes exist to make these decisions? Who is authorized? What kinds of definitions and guidelines are provided to determine if something is offensive? Is it a single person who can decide, or must multiple people concur?

3. Has the help page changed? As previously noted, the screenshot of the relevant help page notes the URL string as “/help/?faq=17292″. If you visit this page now, the description has changed. Now there is no mention of a Facebook administrator, and the answer merely states “No, we remove content reported that violates our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities“. Either I’m not able to find the correct help page (and I’ve been trying), or Facebook recently changed the text. We deserve an explanation as to whether this language has been changed, and why. What is originally incorrect (that no administrator actually looks into each report), or has the process now been changed that makes that language obsolete?

4. Have any other processes changed? In general, has this incident prompted any other changes to internal processes within Facebook for dealing with reported content. What kinds of discussions have emerged in the wake of this controversy?

I hope to hear from Facebook, and will share whatever I can.

I few days ago, Facebook removed a photo of two men kissing from a user’s Wall due to an apparent violation of the site’s terms of service. Here’s the message the original poster received from Facebook:

Hello,

Content that you shared on Facebook has been removed because it violated Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Shares that contain nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content, are not permitted on Facebook.

This message serves as a warning. Additional violations may result in the termination of your account. Please read the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities carefully and refrain from posting abusive material in the future. Thanks in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

The Facebook Team

This act of censorship has received considerable attention (some worthwhile discussions here, here, here, and here). Certainly, it is within Facebook’s right to try to control the type of content shared on its platform, and there are some social good to be gained through content filtering and censorship (i.e., you might want to censor child porn, or links to malware sites, etc).

But there are some fundamental concerns with this case, that point to a growing censorship problem within Facebook.

First, the message sent to the user indicated that “Shares that contain nudity, or any kind of graphic or sexually suggestive content, are not permitted on Facebook.” However, if you review the site’s much lauded Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, that particular language is not present. The Statement does include the directive “You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence” (3.7). Again, this is probably a reasonable restriction (although not completely without controversy). That said, no where in the Rights statement does it prohibit, or suggest a prohibition, on “sexually suggestive” content. It merely restricts pornography and nudity. Therefore, not only does Facebook misquote its own Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to the user when justifying the removal of content, it misapplies said Statement.

Elsewhere, in the site’s Community Standards page (and I’m not sure how Facebook has resolved the attitudes and preferences of a “community” of 600 million users into a single shared set of standards), it notes that “We have a strict “no nudity or pornography” policy. Any content that is inappropriately sexual will be removed”. Again, the photo includes neither nudity nor pornography. How it violates the community standards remains baffling.

Second, let’s assume for a moment that the Statement does include mention of “sexually suggestive” content as mentioned in the warning to the user. Does the photo in question fit that description? Two fully-clothed adult men kissing in public? (FWIW, the two men are actors, as the photos is a promotional image from a popular British soap opera.) While the image does convey emotions and affection, and perhaps might elicit arousal for some, the image is really no different from the thousands (millions?) of similar images of male-female kisses that exist on Facebook. Why this is considered “sexually suggestive” to such an extent that it mandates removal is beyond me.

Third, it appears that this removal was done by a (at least one) human being, and not by some automated process or algorithm. The original contributor provides a screencap of a description in Facebook’s help page answering the question “Does Facebook remove everything that gets reported?”. The answer provided indicates that “No. A Facebook administrator looks into each report thoroughly in order to decide the appropriate course of action…” Based on this, it appears that a human took a look at that photo, and decided it was indeed sexually suggestive or pornographic, and then removed it. I think I’d almost rather it had been an algorithm, as it is quite troubling that a Facebook admin, wielding such power, would arrive at this conclusion.

Now, interestingly, the screenshot provided of this help page notes the URL string as “/help/?faq=17292″. If you visit this page now, the description has changed. Now there is no mention of a Facebook administrator, and the answer merely states “No, we remove content reported that violates our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities“. Did Facebook just change this language in reaction to this event? I’ll try to find out.

Fourth, if we assume that a human is indeed deciding what is “sexually suggestive” and removing photos based on his/her judgement, who is this person (or team of people), and what standards are being used? I’ve already done pretty simple searches on Facebook and found plenty of images much more sexually suggestive than this one (including nudity) — and these all remain. What does “sexually suggestive” even mean? Just suggesting the existence of human sexuality in general? Does a hug with a contemporary sex symbol count? Seriously, though, while the desire to restrict nudity and pornography is reasonable, a standard of “sexually suggestive” is almost impossible to define, and apply evenly across 600 million users, each with their own sexual predilections.

Now, there are reports that Facebook has apologized and restored the image. A statement from Facebook is provided in the Advocate: “The photo in question does not violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and was removed in error…We apologize for the inconvenience.” That’s it. No blog posts, press releases, or broader explanation by Facebook on how such an “error” happened, what kind of content review processes are in place, or any promise to take better care. This lack of proper communication and contrition is very disappointing, but not really surprising.

What makes this entire situation even more troubling, however, is the news that Facebook is reportedly in discussions with the Chinese government in an attempt to bring the social network to the China. And, like Google, Facebook will have to play by China’s rules to get this done. This means Facebook will need to implement a much more robust and aggressive content filtering and censorship policy to abide by China’s wishes to limit it’s citizens’ access to information (and I’m sure the Chinese government would love to have access to Facebook’s logs of user profile and usage data, especially related to dissidents, etc). Such a move would hardly be honoring Facebook’s mission to “[Give] people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”. In fact, Facebook has already noted that it is “allowing too much…free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before”. For a company dedicated to the open flow of information, expressing concern about too much free speech is counter-intuitive and problematic.

Google has struggled with its decision to engage in censorship within China, and ultimately left (although not really in a stand against censorship). Frankly, I’m not left with heaps of confidence that Facebook will be taking the proper path when it comes to global expansion into markets where censorship is the norm. If the way they treated a simple gay kiss is any indication, this could get messy.

UPDATE: I’ve reached out to a few contacts at Facebook with the message below, specifically seeking comment on whether the FAQ page has changed in lieu of these events. I’m awaiting a reply.

Dear Facebook:

While investigating [1] the recent controversy surrounding the apparent removal of a photo of two gay men kissing, I uncovered a possible change to the content within a relevant FAQ/help page, and wanted to seek confirmation and comment.

Note in this original blog post (4-16-2011) about the controversy [2], the user posts a screenshot [3] of a help page describing how reported content gets reviewed. The answer provided indicates that “No. A Facebook administrator looks into each report thoroughly in order to decide the appropriate course of action…”, and in includes the URL string of the help page: “/help/?faq=17292″

However, if I visit that page today (4-21-2011), the text is different [4]: “No, we remove content reported that violates our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. If a violation has occurred, then you may receive a warning or become disabled, depending on the severity of the violation.”   There is no longer any mention of a Facebook administrator looking thoroughly at each page.

This prompts a few questions:

(a) Can you confirm that there has been a change to the text in this page in recent weeks.
(b) If so, can you describe the internal discussion and process that led to this change.
(c) And finally, have any other pages, or internal processes, been changed in recent weeks due to these events.

Thank you,
Michael Zimmer

[1] http://michaelzimmer.org/2011/04/21/facebooks-censorship-problem/
[2] http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/hey_facebook_whats_so_wrong_about_a_pic_of_two_men_kissing/
[3] http://www.dangerousminds.net/images/uploads/facebookscreenshot.jpg
[4] https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17292

–
Michael Zimmer, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies
Co-Director, Center for Information Policy Research
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
e: zimmerm@uwm.edu
w: www.michaelzimmer.org

Wikipedia’s functionality was returning to normal Tuesday after an internet watchdog group removed the online encyclopedia from a child porn watchlist.

The brouhaha began Saturday, when the England-based Internet Watch Foundation placed Wikipedia on a watchlist because of the encyclopedia’s entry about the German rock band, Scorpions. The cover art of its 1976 album, Virgin Killer, shows a nude young girl on the cover. In response to the blacklisting, British internet service providers filtered out the entry and pushed the site through a proxy server, forcing Wikipedia to halt public edits while the site functioned at a snail’s pace.

“Millions of Britons now have access to all of Wikipedia, and volunteers can resume their important editing work,” said Sue Gardner, executive director of San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia.

The IWF on Tuesday said that, “in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove the webpage from our list.”

Nearly all-British internet service providers follow the IWF filtering guidelines. Wikipedia had appealed the IWF blacklisting. The IWF was bombarded with complaints.

Ironically, news accounts of the filtering promoted the album cover, and it was posted widely on the internet — a factor the IWF said it considered when removing Wikipedia from its censorship watch.

“IWF’s overriding objective is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect,” the group said in a statement

Now, let’s also note that you are good people, always trying to do the right thing, not be evil, and so on. As such, you likely recognize the following statements as being sound and reasonable:

• freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental human rights, and free use of the Internet is protected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom to “receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”
• the rapid provision of full and uncensored information through the Internet has become a major industry in the United States, and one of its major exports, and
• political censorship of the Internet degrades the quality of that service and ultimately threatens the integrity and viability of the industry itself, both in the United States and abroad
• some authoritarian foreign governments such as the Governments of Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam block, restrict, and monitor the information their citizens attempt to obtain
• technology companies in the United States such as Google, that operate in countries controlled by authoritarian governments have an obligation to comply with the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
• technology companies in the United States have [often] failed to develop adequate standards by which they can conduct business with authoritarian governments while protecting human rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression

If you accept these premises, and you’re a company dedicated to making the world’s information accessible and useful to all citizens — while not being evil — it would be appropriate for you to take certain measures to “develop adequate standards by which they can conduct business with authoritarian governments while protecting human rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression.”

To accomplish this, you might reasonably institute policies to help protect freedom of access to the Internet, which would include the following minimum standards:

1. Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.
2. The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.
3. The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.
4. Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.
5. Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.
6. The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.

Seems reasonable, and the right thing to do.

Now, given all of this, it is apparent your company is concerned with how your policies and practices might impact human rights across the globe. So, even if you’re not comfortable committing yourself to the above standards (which would be surprising given your philosophy), you certainly would want to at least:

1. form a Board Committee on Human Rights,
2. provide said committee with funds for operating expenses,
3. adopt regulations or guidelines to govern said Committee’s operations,
4. empower said Committee to solicit public input and to issue periodic reports to shareholders and the public, at reasonable expense and excluding confidential information, including but not limited to an annual report on the implications of company policies, above and beyond matters of legal compliance, for the human rights of individuals in the US and worldwide

That seems reasonable. Of course, you might be concerned about how such a committee might impact company business decisions, so you would be sure to note that the formation of a Board Committee on Human Rights wouldn’t restrict the power of the Board of Directors to manage the business and affairs of the company.

Simply put, the Board Committee on Human Rights would review and make policy recommendations regarding human rights issues raised by the company’s activities and policies. It could be an effective mechanism for addressing the human rights implications of the company’s activities and policies as they emerge anywhere in the world.

These two proposals — taking a stance against Internet censorship and forming a Board Committee on Human Rights — seem reasonable, right? Especially for a company pledged to not be evil?

Well, two shareholder proposals suggest Google take these very actions: Proposal 4 offers the anti-censorship language outlined above, while Proposal 5 suggestions the formation of a Board Committee on Human Rights with the duties and restrictions I note here.

Google is recommending that shareholders vote AGAINST each proposal. (This is the second time Google has opposed the anti-censorship proposal.)

I urge all shareholders in Google Inc. to vote FOR these reasonable and ethical proposals when they receive their proxy statements.

Should a search engine agree to censor its search results as a condition of doing business in a new place? Should an e-mail service provider turn over the name of one of its subscribers to the government of a foreign state without knowing what the person is said to have done wrong? Should a blog service provider code its application so as to disallow someone from typing a banned term into a subject line?

They call for companies to work together to come up with “a common, voluntary code of conduct to guide the activities of individual firms in regimes that carry out online censorship and surveillance”:

The code that this group develops will most likely set out broad, common principles. These principles ought to contain enough detail to inform users about what to expect and to hold the companies to a meaningful standard, but without being so prescribed as to make the code impossible to implement from company to company and from country to country–especially in a fast-changing technological environment. This ever-changing context means that the code must continually evolve, taking on new challenges to speech and privacy, and ensuring that companies’ responses are both dynamic and treated as internally driven organizational priorities. The code should also provide a road map for when a company might refuse to engage in regimes that put it in a position where it cannot comply with both the code and with local laws.

Palfrey and Zittrain are part of such efforts already in progress: Google, Microsoft, Vodafone, Yahoo and TeliaSonera are actively working together on a code in conjunction with various NGOs and academic groups. It will be interesting to see where this leads…

Although freedom of speech was guaranteed by the 1997 Constitution of Thailand, Lèse majesté laws remain largely in effect, making any criticism of the King a crime. Well, guess what. Some YouTube videos were deemed critical of His Majesty, and the Thai government temporarily blocked the site and threatened to sue Google. Of the twelve “offending” videos, six were removed by the original uploaders, two were defended by Google (to their credit) as being legitimate political commentary, but four are being removed by Google in order to appease the Thai government officials.

Honestly, I don’t understand how the public can so easily raise arms against foreign entities who “hate our freedoms,” yet allow companies like Google to capitulate to other foreign governments who are persistent violators of these most basic freedoms.

Here’s the full text of the proposal:

Whereas, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental human rights, and free use of the Internet is protected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees freedom to “receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”, and

Whereas, the rapid provision of full and uncensored information through the Internet has become a major industry in the United States, and one of its major exports, and

Whereas, political censorship of the Internet degrades the quality of that service and ultimately threatens the integrity and viability of the industry itself, both in the United States and abroad, and

Whereas, some authoritarian foreign governments such as the Governments of Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam block, restrict, and monitor the information their citizens attempt to obtain, and

Whereas, technology companies in the United States such as Google, that operate in countries controlled by authoritarian governments have an obligation to comply with the principles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and

Whereas, technology companies in the United States have failed to develop adequate standards by which they can conduct business with authoritarian governments while protecting human rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression,

Therefore, be it resolved, that shareholders request that management institute policies to help protect freedom of access to the Internet which would include the following minimum standards:

1) Data that can identify individual users should not be hosted in Internet restricting countries, where political speech can be treated as a crime by the legal system.

2) The company will not engage in pro-active censorship.

3) The company will use all legal means to resist demands for censorship. The company will only comply with such demands if required to do so through legally binding procedures.

4) Users will be clearly informed when the company has acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access.

5) Users should be informed about the company’s data retention practices, and the ways in which their data is shared with third parties.

6) The company will document all cases where legally-binding censorship requests have been complied with, and that information will be publicly available.

If you are a Google shareholder (I am not, at least not directly), please vote in favor of this proposal.

[via Threat Level]

In the Mumbai case:

The Indian Express and other regional media are reporting that Google’s social networking service Orkut will cooperate with the Mumbai Police to share IP addresses of users who post “objectionable content” on Orkut. If reports are to be believed, the police need only email a complaint to Orkut, and Orkut will send back the personally identifying data, no questions asked.

The police are said to be targeting a number of “problematic” Orkut posts, including items that criticize various public figures in India, others that glorify Indian mobsters, and “anti-Indian words.” The latter probably has to do with a group on Orkut called “I Hate India,” which pissed off Indian officials so much, they decided to sue Google over it last October.

And the Brazilian matter:

Google has designed a special Orkut admin tool for deleting or blocking illegal content, and given Brazilian police access to this tool. This means that if you’re on Orkut and you say something that in Brazil could be considered illegal (such as celebrity gossip, Consumerist-style corporate bashing, mistreating animals), the Brazilian police can censor the community where this “illegal” speech is seen.

Much more if you follow the links.

UPDATE: The Indian Times has further details on Google’s cooperation with Mumbai police, noting that Google/Orkut will “not only block those ‘forums’ and ‘communities’ that contain ‘defamatory or inflammatory content’ but also provide the IP addresses from which such content has been generated.”

What does Google censor?
It depends on the country. In Germany, Google censors certain Nazi websites like Stormfront.org, for example. In the US, Google censors sites containing child pornography, Google’s Sergey Brin stated. In China, Google also censors human rights groups, like HRW.org (Human Rights Watch), but many other things as well, like “台独” (Taiwan independence), names of current and past presidents, names of locations, historical events and so on. Due to the broad scope of Google China censorship, the list of queries hitting on censored results is huge, and often unrelated to sensitive issues (except that the censored sites appear in the results).

Does Google disclose the censorship?
Google prints a disclaimer at the end of search results in most cases, though this wasn’t always the case before early 2006. The disclaimer may read “In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed N result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org,” or “In response to a legal complaint we received, we have removed one or more messages. If you wish, you may read the legal complaint,” or (a translation from Chinese) “In compliance with local laws and policies, some search results are not showing.”

Is Google’s disclosure easily visible?
Google decided to put the censorship disclosure at the end of search results (not at the top), a place where many, but not all people, will see it (some people just look at the top results). But clearly if you look out for you can easily find it.

Is Google transparent about their censorship?
Google discloses what they censor when you hit on a specific search result (they didn’t always do this, but they regularly do since 2006). However, Google Inc does not respond to questions regarding how specifically they censor, how the process of censorship is implemented, which blacklists they use, which words are censored, which specific discussions they have with governments, and so on. Google also ignores issues of censorship in their official Chinese blog (according to Human Rights Watch), and in the censorship defense statement made in their official English blog, they do not mention the word “censorship” at all.

Is search results censorship evil?
Whether or not results censoring is evil depends on who you ask. The two basic opposing opinions are:

1. censoring may not be great but it’s the lesser of two evils
2. censoring is evil so needs to be avoided at all circumstances

The proponents of censorship in the Chinese government for example may argue along the lines of 1), that censorship isn’t great but that free speech would lead to greater problems for such a large country where order needs to be provided. Google Inc also argues along the lines of 1), saying that censorship isn’t great but that not getting deeply involved in such a large country as a company leads to even greater problems in the long run. Others argue that 2), a principled approach – allow no evil at all – makes more sense in the long run. Sergey Brin once told CNN that he thinks “both kinds of viewpoints are perfectly valid.”

Is Google China censorship compliant with Google’s informal corporate motto, “don’t be evil”?
I’d argue no, because in order to enter China Google introduced a new philosophy of balancing evil scales. So the most optimistic interpretation is that they now accept smaller evils for a greater good – a more pessimistic interpretation is that this won’t even result in a greater good. However, neither of the two interpretations conforms to a strict “don’t be evil.”

How did human rights or freedom of speech organizations judge Google’s censorship in China?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) demands: “If U.S. companies find that oppressive governments block or impede their Internet services, they should not simply give in to the threat.”

The Human Rights Watch boss Ken Roth told CNN: “Google’s in the vanguard in the United States, and it’s compromising along with the rest of them in China. I’m surprised. I would have expected better from Google.”

Amnesty International says: “’The argument that the companies are ’bringing the internet to China’ is spurious: the internet has been in China for ten years. These companies are simply trying to get a slice of a vast and growing market. And it’s at a great cost: their activities are aiding and abetting government censorship rather than challenging it.”

Reporters Without Borders argued: “US firms are now bending to the same censorship rules as their Chinese competitors but they continue to justify themselves by saying their presence has a long-term benefit. Yet the Internet in China is becoming more and more isolated from the outside world and freedom of expression there is shrinking. These firms’ lofty predictions about the future of a free and limitless Internet conveniently hide their unacceptable moral errors.”

There’s much more…

And stay tuned (hopefully) for news about an exciting collaborative project I’ve involved in regarding Internet censorship and web search engines…