lysisanhey., good analysis.a.!!!

   i was just about too do the same sort of pattern ..but you beat me too it. :)-
it would have been nice if they a clear metric formed when you/whoever did this analysis.. at a single glance one can figure out where what stands...

pls 4give typos... worked this comment off a handheld ... :(-

I googled myself (PeterDawson) on both the .com and .cn sites

cn = > 2600 results
.com = >20K results

I also a totally different results in terms of ranking.. actually the results appear more cleaner on the .cn domain

Wow, the results were changing *as I wrote the article*.

At first, [Falun Gong] returned:
- a pro-Chinese result with no censorship notice, but I was automatically directed to a Chinese-web search (the rightmost radio button was activated)
- clicking the left radio button ("all websites", I assume), returned Wikipedia and such on Google.cn

Now, [Falun Gong] returns no more Wikipedia for either radio button.

The radio button "redirect" by the way only happens when you enter this censored keyphrase [Falun Gong]. Entering [Falun Gong2] confuses the algorithm and leaves the leftmost radio button activated.

I am a graduate student from China. I am a completely Google fan and really appreciate the Google culture, in terms of objectivity. I cannot imagine the life without Google, esepcially for my research work (indeed, there was a really hard time that Google.com was completely blocked here, when I can only use Baidu.com, which is a complete garbage). Personally, I am pretty satifsfied with the Google search contents survived the Great Firewall. Though I am able to access the "complete" search results from Google english version, I cannot open and view those forbidden links (once click, the connect will get lost). In such a sense, what Google did not make any difference for my life.

I do not know out of 1.3 billion people in China, how many really care about the contents screened out by Great Firewall or Google.cn. But at least my friends, colleage, and I did not care about these things.

I appreciate the history and society of freedom and democracy in western countries. But China is different. We have no democracy history and are only under correct direction for only 30 years. There are so many problems here now. I belive that China will finally evolve to a much more democracy and fair country some day. But freedom and democracy, in my view, cannot cure the current social ills in China.

Just throw "hl=zh-CN" into the parameter list, and it stays at google.cn, e.g:

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=FreeChina

I think people should read the thread from Wuming. It is absolutely the thoughts of a normal Chinese intellectual at present. It is not Jun. 4th, 1989 anymore. Chinese intellectuals and people have already tasted the bullets, and many died. Any demonstration resulted in only death of people, but gained nothing. We know what we are gonna have when we fight against the goverment. We have no choice but have to shut ourselves up, because we want to survive with our families and friends. We must be dumb. When western people are shouting about how bad the democracy and human rights in this country are, I tell ya, in the mainland, nobody cares, or at least dares. Even the politicians, they dont bother to think too much, and just make up some craps to easily defend themselves. It is not surprised at all that Google has to compromise with Chinese Communist about censorship. Censorship is one of Chinese Communists favorite weapons. Everything should/must be censored in China under eyes of the government. If you want to make money in China, actually sometimes just to survive, you have to get used to this everything-under-censorship fact as we do. Google or other companies will never have any exception. Google is smart that he knows USA is USA, China is China, and which one he can fight against, which one he cant. He wants to make money in China after all. It is not worth angering Chinese government at all. And also it is never his turn to play the role of democracy hero or something else in China. He knows much more clearly than anyone else.

I feel lucky that I can write what I now want to say. And to dear Philipp Lenssen, dont bother this topic anymore. You might be later censored, if you do. :)

It will seriously damage google's PR value, I think (I hope!)...

I wrote on this very same topic, about how providing these government filtered results, such as for "Falun Gong", is far worse than providing no results at all. For this search, Google.cn is a government propaganda mouthpiece.

Here's the article, an open letter to Google:
http://lart.stanford.edu/~shandrew/google-cn-propaganda.html

Interesting article Andrew.

I do not agree with Andrew's comparison. He might have a point, but the comparison [the screen shots] is totally off. I do not know whether it is on purpose (depends if he understands the radio buttons)

The buttons' meaning (in left-to-right order):
1. All websites
2. Chinese language websites
3. Simplified Chinese websites
4. China-based websites

So by selecting the last radio button, you can bet you're going to get pro-government websites showing up.

As for radio button 3, the current Chinese writing system have two kind of glyphs, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. Some younger generation do not understand Traditional Chinese.

Chuanz, the screenshots by Andrew are correct; the rightmost radio button will *automatically* be selected for searches such as [falun gong] even though the homepage by default has the leftmost radio button selected. Trying to change to the leftmost radio button will *not work*. A search for [falung gong2] will confuse Google's algorithm in the sense that indeed, the leftmost radio button maintains its selection. So, when you enter [falun gong] from Google.cn, you will not be able to select "All websites." I was confused by this too at first, and this behavior changed while I was testing yesterday (at the beginning, I sometimes *could* switch back to the left radio button even for searches which would default to the right button).

Andrew, I think you've made an error.

The rightmost radio button is "sites in China"

The leftmost radio button is "all sites on the Web".

The search on "sites in China" gives all the propaganda – unsurprisingly!

The search on "all sites on the Web" is censored, with omissions, but not so extreme.

Oops – I wrote my comment above before reading the last few comments. Too early in the morning, sorry.

Philipp, thanks for explaining! Indeed, if that is the case, Google's "censorship" is more than just selectively removing search results, and I am agreeable with Andrew's. Thanks for adding in the note pointing out Google.cn's behaviour in your later post (Overview of Sites Google Agreed to Censor in China) :-)

Babelfish translation:

Sorry, cannot find website news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/ hi/witness/june/4/ newsid_2950000/2950832.stm the information.

* Seeks the homepageto containhas "news.bbc.co.uk/ onthisday/hi/witness/june/4/ newsid_2950000/2950832.stm"

According to the local law laws and regulations and the policy, the part searches the result not to demonstrate.