Technology Current

Google Vs China

The fight for free speech and one?s freedom to access information has begun to come into the limelight on the global stage in the recently developed conflict between Google and the Chinese government. China, a country known for a strict stranglehold on its allowances to its citizens, has been confronted by Google, an Internet giant unyielding in its belief that information should be available to all.

Google has stated that the Chinese government must allow Google to operate without the restrictive censorship which blocks the population, including students, from having access to desired information. Google is already the search engine most commonly used by Chinese students as it is more reliable than Chinese engines.

China is in disagreement with this notion and favors keeping up the practices of censorship that the government has held in the past. Google has made it known that they would take the drastic step of pulling their business completely out of a large market like China if censorship is not lifted.

On a grander scale, there is a fear that this move would upset the political ties between China and the United States. China has stated however, that they don’t anticipate this happening. Hillary Clinton addressed the issue as well, noting that the United States and China differ on their opinion in regards to free access to information, and that those countries that choose to practice restriction of information risk isolating themselves from the world.

Google’s hope is that the withdrawal from China will cause other companies to push for China to abandon its censoring ways, and pull out of China as well. In this clear arm twisting of the Chinese government, the hope is that China will be pressured into changing the ways in which they attempt to control their citizens’ access to information.

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