Microsoft's Bing Bows to 22 Arabic Countries, Blocks "Risque" Words
The world wide web is a little smaller because of Microsoft. Bing now doesn't recognize what Microsoft deems "erotic" searches in Algeria, Syria and other Arabic countries -- 22 countries total. Furthermore, the aggressive filtering blocks gay lifestyle content.
Says the Open Net Initiative (ONI):
Microsoft recently added a new layer of complexity to the ongoing debate regarding the filtering and censorship practices of U.S. search engines via its own search engine, Bing...
Microsoft's Bing, which tailors its search engine to serve different countries and regions and offers its services in 41 languages, has a filtering system at the keyword level for users in several countries. Users in the Arab countries-or, as termed by Microsoft-"Arabian countries"-are prevented from conducting certain search queries in both English and Arabic...
In-country testing has consistently revealed the following:
-Bing filters out Arabic keywords that may return sexually explicit content. Examples of the Arabic keywords found filtered include Arabic terms for "sex," "porn," "intercourse," "breast," and "nude."
- Bing filters out Arabic keywords that could yield Web sites containing LGBT content. Arabic keywords found filtered include terms for words such as "gay," "lesbian," and "homosexuality."
- Bing filters out keywords in various sex-related categories. Examples include Arabic terms for "prostitution," "whore," and "sadism."
- Bing filters out English keywords that could yield sexually explicit Web sites.
Here are the words ONI found were filtered by Bing in 22 predominantly Arabic countries:- sex
- breast
- porn
- nude
- ass
- penetration
- prostitute
- whore
- intercourse
- kiss
- lick
- gay
- homosexuality
- lesbianism
- lesbian
- sadism
The loophole aside, there are a few questions to be asked here:
- Why block searches in the first place?: If a society is truly offended by discussions or descriptions of sex, then its members wouldn't have to worry about seeing it on the Internet via search -- since that would require them actually putting in an erotic statement.
- What's the connection between eros and LGBT searches?: The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community isn't any more linked to terms like "prostitution", "whore" or "sadism" than the straight community. Microsoft may feel like it will make conservative Bing! users feel safer, but it doesn't outweigh the offences to the LGBT customers -- as if people need more reasons to stick with Google.
- How many Arabic users actually care?: Twenty-two countries is a lot. As globalization becomes more prevalent and traditional societies become less conservative, I have to wonder the percentage of the tech-savvy population actually cares about "safe" searching. Avid searchers have been using uncensored tools like Yahoo!, Netscape and, as of late, Google for decades. If they were to be offended, it would have happened already.