The Disappearing Of Tank Man, Brought To You By Google

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: Stuff We Like

(AP (file))

Speaking of China, I wanted to bring your attention to a Frontline documentary that discusses the economic, political and social reality of today's China. You can watch the whole thing here, and I would highly recommend doing so, as well as clicking around the above linked Web site.

For our purposes here at Public Eye, I want to focus on the program's discussion of the way in which the Chinese state controls information, and the willingness of some American companies to submit to their demands. Take Google, for example, which has built into the Chinese version of its search engine software which censors results. Consider the iconic image of "Tank Man," the man who stood in front of a row of tanks during the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. The image became an inspiration to people around the world, a symbol of the individual standing up for himself in the face of overwhelming oppression.

If you type "Tiananmen Square" into the Google and do an image search, you get image after image of Tank Man. But do the same in the Chinese version of Google, and Tank Man is nowhere to be seen – instead you get pictures of the square, shots of smiling tourists, and maps. (One result showing the massacre did seem to get through, though Chinese users attempting to click through to these images are unable to do so.) One of the saddest scenes in the Frontline report involved an interviewer showing the image of Tank Man to a group of Beijing university students, who had no idea what it was. One thought it might be a parade. It is estimated that almost no one in China under 20 years old has ever seen the image.

Google is far from the only Western company acquiescing to China's demands in order to gain access to its rapidly expanding market. Yahoo, which also censors search results in China, provided the Chinese state information that helped send a Chinese journalist named Shi Tao to jail for 10 years; Microsoft restricts the content of blogs it hosts in China; Cisco Systems provides China with incredibly sophisticated Internet-blocking and user-tracking technology so that it can better keep an eye on its citizens.

Frontline has much, much more on this. The program is offering a valuable insight into China, not to mention a reminder of the value – and tenuousness – of our freedom of information. Don't miss it.

UPDATE: Check out Barry Petersen's piece on China censoring searches here.