Google Under the Gun

摘要

When web surfers from the city of Shenzhen, in southern China, visit a government web-site, they are greeted by two adorable cartoon figures, a tiny policeman and policewoman with friendly smiles, no noses (for some reason) and huge melting blue anime eyes. These little rascals' names are Jingjing and Chacha (jingcha is Mandarin for police), and they are there to remind Web surfers to behave themselves because the Internet cops are always watching. Westerners tend to think of the Web the way we think of the moon: it looks the same everywhere, and when you're on it you can pretty much do whatever you want. But seen from China, the Web is very different. Beijing employs a force of 30,000 Internet censors 24/7, blocking access to many sites expressing nonapproved opinions on hot-button issues like Taiwanese independence and the Falun Gong reli- gious sect. When Western Web surfers search for images of "Tiananmen" on Google, they get row upon row of tanks, the indelible afterimage of the tragedy of 1989. Do the same search when you're in China, and you get a snapshot of U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and his wife posing in Tiananmen Square on a p.r. trip.