Google Agrees to Censor Encyclopedia Dramatica Entry in Australia

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-01-17-n25.html

by stakent • 17 years ago

88 82 17 years ago

beamso2• 17 years ago

I couldn't find the chillingeffects mention through google.com.au, nor the article through google.com. Looks like it was buried by the news stories.

vinutheraj• 17 years ago

Yea now you have to try Aboriginal and Encyclopedia Dramatica to get the chillingeffects mention !

whatusername2• 17 years ago

http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=17460

If you search for Aboriginal Encyclopedia on google.com.au it shows up down the bottom.

barredo• 17 years ago

I wonder when will Australian Gov Hackers try to hack some australians gmail account and Google threatens to leave Australia.

nzmsv• 17 years ago

Or someone pretending to be a government hacker. That would restore the lulz balance :)

pmorici• 17 years ago

Since the censoring in question is the result of legal action by an individual and not a government the appropriate thing to do would be to just block all Google access from the complainer.

stakent• 17 years ago

Hmm, maybe court sholud not wait for his third action and block his (and his family) access to the internet?

apower• 17 years ago

And where do you think the LEGAL basis coming from? Thin air? It's backed by and enforced by the Aus government.

camccann2• 17 years ago

I find it deeply worrying that something can be censored based on the complaints of someone who would take Encyclopaedia Dramatica seriously.

ratsbane• 17 years ago

I agree. And by censoring part of ED the Australian government will give the impression of having implicitly approved of all of the parts they haven't censored.

beamso2• 17 years ago

ED is on the ACMA blacklist apparently.

BrentRitterbeck2• 17 years ago

Hmmm... Google must be the market leader and making a profit in Australia.

ubernostrum2• 17 years ago

Or they're just doing the same thing they've always done in all non-China countries: removing search results when the country's legal process tells them to (they remove results in the US over DMCA requests, for example) and linking to Chilling Effects to show a copy of the complaint.

BrentRitterbeck2• 17 years ago

So please explain how China's censorship is fundamentally different. Does not a sovereign nation have the right to control things that may be fundamentally destabilizing to the country as a whole? I know I'm playing devil's advocate here, but it is an interesting question.

EDIT: Note, I am 100% against censorship.

blhack• 17 years ago

When searching Google Australia for [Aboriginal and Encyclopedia], there will be a disclaimer at the bottom reading “In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s)...

If you go here: http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=aboriginal+encyc...

You will see no such warning. (At least I didn't)

EricBurnett5• 17 years ago

Try http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=aboriginal+encyc... , which will be more likely to get the link(s) in question. At the bottom I see that 4 links were removed.

Predicting what links will show up for who is hard, especially now that personalized results are used.

knorby• 17 years ago

I suppose this is a question for an Australian, but what stops someone from just using google.com instead of the .com.au address? Seems like if I see that warning in the US, the filtering isn't done by origin of the request, at least on this level.

tokenadult6• 17 years ago

Thanks for giving the specific link to the Australian site for Google, which now shows the search you linked to turning up lots of coverage of the controversy mentioned in the submitted article. That too is a better outcome than having someone blunder on a site not meant to have serious information when performing a search that might be expected to turn up reliable information.

mbreese• 17 years ago

This is the actual Chilling Effects page:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=17460

It actually has very little information...

tokenadult6• 17 years ago

So a source with no reference value whatsoever no longer appears DIRECTLY as a Google result for certain kinds of searches that might be expected to turn up reliable information. I thought that was a big part of what Page Rank was all about in the first place. Would that the same thing would happen to the many crank pages that turn up in searches on medical topics.

karzeem• 17 years ago

It's not really a question of how relevant ED is. The issue is that a government had Google censor something which is well within the bounds of free (albeit offensive) speech.

tokenadult6• 17 years ago

Governments (courts) also enforce judgments for defamation, but we don't call that censorship either. One way I like to exercise my free speech is to be careful in my use of legal language, and to remind readers here that not every action that keeps something from being Web-indexed or posted, even if it is an action taken by a government, is properly called "censorship." What happened here appears to be Google responding to a citizen complaint under an Australian law that I might indeed disagree with, but which does not constitute a prior restrain on what is published on the Web, and indeed has not stopped the website in question from continuing to be posted.

After edit: Google also removes on its own initiative spam links from its search results. No one seems to complain about this except the spammers. I think that is great customer service, except that Google recently needs to do more of that. That too is not censorship. It is simply Google deciding what its business model is for delivering search results. You have the right to operate a website. Google also has the right to operate a website. Google decides whether or not to comply with applicable local law if there is some legal issue raised by its serving up search results in a particular place. If Google really doesn't like local law, it can use its bully pulpit to advocate a different law, or hire lawyers or lobbyists to change the law.

zck2• 17 years ago

Google isn't a pure reference site. It exists to show users things they're searching for. If people want to find the Encyclopedia Dramatica article for Aborigines when searching for "Aborigines and encyclopedia", Google should show it.

tokenadult6• 17 years ago

Encyclopedia Dramatica is still the top result for a search on "Encyclopedia Dramatica."

http://www.google.com/search?q=Encyclopedia+Dramatica

Currently, lots of good stuff shows up on a search for "Aborigines and encyclopedia,"

http://www.google.com/search?q=Aborigines+and+encyclopedia

so no harm, no foul.

Evgeny• 17 years ago

Great. I have never heard about this Encyclopedia Dramatica before but now I'll definitely have a read.

potatolicious• 17 years ago

It's basically a chronicle of everything that has ever happened on 4chan.

I too disagree with this censorship, but man, subjecting yourself to torture is not the answer!

chancho• 17 years ago

Don't miss the article on shitting dick nipples.

s3graham• 17 years ago

Me either! Parts of it seemed quite funny, but inconsistently so.

EricBurnett5• 17 years ago

I'm not sure I even want to mention it, but I highly recommend you stay away from the article called 'offended' if you find it linked anywhere, unless you are the kind of person who likes visiting shock sites. Consider yourself warned.

RevRal• 17 years ago

Please heed this advice. And don't allow yourself to get tricked into clicking an innocent link that leads to the ED offended page.

For every link on ED, roll over it and take a look at its URL at the bottom of your browser. This'll keep you from being trolled into the offended page. Also, the contrast between URL and hyperlink text is one of ED's sources of irony.

For example, hyperlink text that says "actual news" might lead to ED's "serious business" page.

jonny_noog5• 17 years ago

I just don't know what to say anymore. As an Australian, I am ashamed and baffled at the way my government has been handling Internet policy lately.

Their treatment of the issues betrays a astounding naivety that I find of increasing concern. On the face of it, it's always for a good cause... won't somebody think of the children! We need to censor all the bad sites on the Internet! Some guy feels slighted by a racial slur on some website that no one takes seriously! We must ban it from Google! We can't be seen to be endorsing racism!

The sentiment is always admirable but the reaction betrays an complete misunderstanding of both the online culture and the technological infrastructure that supports it.

The sad thing is I know first hand that there are people in the Australian Government who can and do give better advice that should ostensibly lead to better government decisions in the online space. It just seems like their voices are being disregarded. I suspect the main reasons for this are:

a) Certain politicians refusal to accept that the reality of the Internet does not fit their limited understanding of it.

b) Politician's desire to use the Internet as a political football.

Perhaps it really is time to move to Estonia.

daniel-cussen2• 17 years ago

Consider Chile.

etherael3• 17 years ago

Your last line had me blinking. Is there a mass exodus of Australians to Estonia planned or did you just happen to stumble across my earlier post my plan to do exactly that?

jonny_noog5• 17 years ago

I remembered your earlier post. You made Estonia sound pretty good. :)

zmimon2• 17 years ago

The answer is b). I suspect they fully know how stupid their policies are (Stephen Conroy has pretty much admitted it on live TV). What they are attempting is classic 'wedge politics': pick an issue on which your opposition is passionately divided 50 / 50 and take an extreme position on one side or the other. The internal damage it causes in the other side far outweighs any damage it causes to your own.

illumen2• 17 years ago

hello,

I do agree with you mostly, and in general I think that censorship is hardly ever good. In this particular case censorship was a force for good.

As an aside, Google was running 'used aborigines' adverts from ebay for quite a while. Do you think these adverts should also be allowed to run?

Australian society mostly takes a very dim view of racism, and especially racism towards the aborigines. Our elected representatives and the people of australia put in place laws such that this type of thing does not happen.

However the government and politicians did not make this particular case of censorship happen - the courts of law made it happen. I think most of society agree that it is a shit thing that google was doing in this instance.

Google has in place limits to stop things like pornography showing up, with it's safe search feature. This is already a form of censorship based on the values of countries like the USA.

Where do we draw the line? Obviously sociopaths shouldn't be able to say whatever they like to millions of people if their words will cause harm. How about spammers bent on selling their products? Google already blocks some of the spammers. As do they block malware serving sites, and sites that don't play by googles rules of what constitutes a good web page. Make a website more google friendly, and google will reward you with higher rankings. Put more google messages (adverts) on your pages, and get more people to see them, and google will pay you more money. How about companies abusing trademarks or abusing copyright? Are those censorship too?

Do we take the values of a multi national corporations(ie google)? Isn't that a form of cultural imperialism? What is to stop the courts abusing their power? There are many processes in place to try and let all sides of society have their input into what the courts do. What is to stop google from abusing their power and imposing their views on people who do not want them? ... glibly, I guess the answer to that is adblock.

I don't think you can have a 'censorship is always wrong' approach, or a 'totally abusing censorship in terrible ways' approach either. Reasoned arguments by courts of law are an answer - to find out where censorship is appropriate and where it is not.

The people who made that site should get a dog up em.

pwmanagerdied6• 17 years ago

It's satire. If you can't cope with that, please off yourself for the good of the rest of us.

jonny_noog5• 17 years ago

Well dude, if it were up to me, I would have a "censorship is always wrong" approach. No exceptions. I realise this will never come to pass, but that's none the less how it would be if it were up to me. Censorship is never a force for good in my opinion.

As an aside, Google was running 'used aborigines' adverts from ebay for quite a while. Do you think these adverts should also be allowed to run?

I had not heard about this, but honestly I could not care less. If people just ignored this shit rather than pandering to the trolls, maybe there'd be no incentive for them to keep doing it.

Google has in place limits to stop things like pornography showing up, with it's safe search feature. This is already a form of censorship based on the values of countries like the USA.

And this censorship would be gone too, if it were - once again - up to me.

I think you must see where I draw the line now, i.e. I don't draw it. I can imagine that many people may think my view extreme, what about the children and all that? Well, that's what parents are for.

Whether a sociopath is able to say whatever they like on the Internet or not doesn't bother me in the slightest. Because I am an independent person who thinks for myself and feels quite comfortable judging for myself whether I wish to read the writings of a sociopath.

But more than anything else, I was actually commenting on the technological naivety of the people involved in this particular situation. Were I inclined to get a bee in my bonnet about satirical racism on the Internet, would I think having the offending material removed from Google is really any kind of satisfactory outcome? Can people still get to the offending content? Certainly. Do more people know about it now than could have ever possibly known about it previously? Yes.

My point is that no matter how tightly the Conroys of this world try to clamp down, there will always be cracks that are exploited. No matter how "clean" the feed, there's always going to something on the Internet that offends someone. Instead of worrying about where the line is drawn, we could start worrying about taking personal responsibility for ourselves and our children and leave everyone else free to do the same.

EricBurnett5• 17 years ago

>Google has in place limits to stop things like pornography showing up, with it's safe search feature. This is already a form of censorship based on the values of countries like the USA.

You are confusing their quest for relevance with censorship. Google filters out pornography from most search results in general under the assumption that pornography results are not desired. If, however, you do wish to view pornographic content, you can always search for pornography related topics directly, in which case pornographic results will be returned.

Turning on Safe Search, a user controlled option, will try to do a stronger job filtering the results. A notification is displayed that safe search is on, and the user can always choose to turn it off. This is not 'censorship', it is a useful tool for their users.

mhansen• 17 years ago

Mr Hodder-Watt then undertook legal action, that resulted in Google acknowledging its legal responsibility to remove the offensive site.

How does Google have a legal responsibility to remove a site from search results?

randomwalker• 17 years ago

Because laws are different from country to country. Of course, I share the view that it is a retarded law in this case, but it is a law nonetheless, and one that Google must obey if they want to play in Australia. I believe the legal term is 'intermediary liability.'

This issue has been popping up in different countries all over the world in the last few months. Most notably in China, of course, but also in India, France and Italy, where Google executives are in fact facing the possibility of jail time. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/... and http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h-40ArK-e....

The role of Internet middlemen in enforcing copyright was a key legal issue in the last decade. It appears that censorship will be the analogous issue for the next decade. We seem to have reached a relatively happy middle ground with copyright—middlemen have some responsibility, but a strong form of copyright protection has proved unenforceable, forcing many industries to innovate or die. We can hope that a similar thing will happen with censorship, with oppressive governments either collapsing or being forced to allow free speech.

daniel-cussen2• 17 years ago

link to offensive article: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Aboriginal

Warning: extremely racist.

pwmanagerdied6• 17 years ago

Who gives a damn if it's racist, the entire site is a joke!

artichokeheart2• 17 years ago

Well, for one, me. Racism even on a joke site is still racist. As far as I'm concerned, and I know I'm not alone, racism is not acceptable in any form.

philk2• 17 years ago

From the article:

"It portrays indigenous Australians in the most unsavoury light possible, and you wouldn't want a child stumbling across it," he told ABC Radio.

I'm getting really sick of people playing the "won't somebody think of the children" card.

vaksel2• 17 years ago

children were probably the ones who created that content in the first place

philk2• 17 years ago

Never let reality get in the way of a good moral panic.

nfnaaron• 17 years ago

1. Wouldn't it be better/safer/something if it were easy to find such sites, so that nicer people can know just what they're up against? If I wanted to do something about cockroaches in my house, I'd like to be able to find the cockroaches.

2. karzeem, in another comment, says that the site is within the bounds of free speech. Sincere question from a non-Australian: does Australia have constitutional or otherwise legally protected free speech? In other words, is free speech a strong legal argument in Australia?

zmimon2• 17 years ago

> does Australia have constitutional or otherwise legally protected free speech

No. Australians have no direct freedoms at all. What rights they have are "implied" indirectly from other things such as that the federal government shall not restrict trade between the states (it's hard to trade if you can't talk ...). People talk from time to time about strengthening individual rights, but most Aussies couldn't care less and due to mandatory voting those that don't care will vote down just about any constitutional amendment making it extremely difficult for such reform to ever happen.

EricBurnett5• 17 years ago

Not entirely correct. Australia ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is part of the United Nations.

From Wikipedia: "While not a treaty itself, the Declaration was explicitly adopted for the purpose of defining the meaning of the words "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" appearing in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states. For this reason, the Universal Declaration is a fundamental constitutive document of the United Nations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_...

vaksel2• 17 years ago

here is a question, do people actually have to go to google.co.au, or does Google redirect them there when they go to google.com?

mahmud2• 17 years ago

Google redirects you.

tokenadult6• 17 years ago

Google redirects you.

Are you writing that from Australia? To the contrary, I find that I can search with any country's version of Google, including non-English versions, from here in the United States.

Could Australian participants confirm or deny the quoted statement? I thought other comments posted to this thread earlier already stated that Australians can search Google from any of Google's national sites.

cousin_it2• 17 years ago

Sometimes I hope all bleeding-heart activists will eventually see how governments use their actions as a pretext to expand censorship more and more... but then hope goes away and reality sets in.

Google Agrees to Censor Encyclopedia Dramatica Entry in Australia

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