Google moves search service out of mainland China in 2010
This article was first published on March 22, 2010
'Great Firewall' unmoved by Google's action
Google's decision to move its simplified-Chinese search service to an uncensored site in Hong Kong grabbed headlines around the world yesterday, Sunday March 21, 2010, but it meant little to tens of millions of mainland internet users and failed to change the censorship regime it set out to challenge.
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Hours after the California-based internet giant made public its decision to end self-censorship in China, the famous image of the 'Tiananmen tank man' did not pop up on screens across the nation – as some anticipated earlier. Nor were mainland internet users denied Google service altogether – as others once feared.
Visitors to Google.cn are being automatically redirected to Google's Hong Kong site, which provides uncensored search results in English, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. Mainland users can the search service as before, with sensitive results blocked by the central government instead of Google.
For millions of mainland users, the subtle difference is negligible. In sharp contrast with the fanfare two months ago when Google dropped a bombshell by announcing it planned to 'pull out' from the mainland to protest against excessive internet policing and hacking activities, its latest announcement generated little buzz.
For those living inside the notorious 'Great Firewall of China', 'Google's new home in China' is not a Promised Land where information flows free. To get forbidden information, they have to do what they have always done–use proxy servers to bypass the government censorship, also known as 'scaling the wall'.
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'It creates a bit [more] inconvenience but it will not change my life at all,' said Li Wei, a 25-year-old computer engineer who was one of a few dozen onlookers gathering at Google China's headquarters in Beijing.
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