Is Google censoring in the United States?
Are they applying the same standards to American internet users as they are to their Chinese users?
Do I care?
A story about Google censoring parts of their video service in the United States has been making the rounds, but as it turns out, the censoring is done by the content suppliers themselves, and not by Google. One of the video is about American troops detonating discovered IEDs (improvised explosive devices) planted by resistance fighters along the roadside in Iraq.
How? Well, for some [utterly inexplicable] reason, Google video gives users the option to "ban" viewers in certain countries from viewing their content:
So, if you arbitrarily decide that you want everyone except those pesky Bulgarians to see that video of your cat making funny faces for 9 minutes, you can just click on their country name and anyone using an ISP in Bulgaria will instead get a "This video is not playable in your country".
By passing the responsibility for censorship to the individual providers, they are avoiding the same controversy that is plagueing them with their Chinese search engine. Will it come back to haunt them, though?
In my opinion, this is a step backwards for information sharing and open access. What benefit could there possibly be to preventing videos from being viewed only in certain countries? Let alone the fact that a crafty internet user will be able to view them regardless, it doens't make sense to make your content available to one country and not to another. If you create content, and put it out to the public, you need to accept the fact that it will be, well, public. A simple checkbox on Google won't keep it from getting into the hands of those who want to see it regardless of whether you want them too or not. Once that content is posted to the Internet, your control - if not your ownership - of it is broken.
Can anyone see the rationality in allowing video content providers to decide which countries their content is not accessible?
Comments
well then it's an
well then it's an interesting political tool, no? it's bit broad and senseless, but say anyone in the world who is against the US presence in irak made their content unavailable to US citizens, as a kind of grassroots message... i'm just thinking that asking questions is a good thing. and US citizens should be asking more questions than they are (i'm generalizing, of course). then again, most US citizens are already cut off (voluntarily or not) from so much information...
Hmm... I can see how you can
Hmm... I can see how you can come to that conclusion, and it's an interesting point.
I think that all in all, making content available to the widest range of people possible - global, free access to all information - would be far more effective than adding to the already-monolothic censorship in the media.
pfff. this reminds me of all
pfff. this reminds me of all the sites/services that are meant for usa citizens only - how many friends do i have with a 90210 zipcode? a LOT. there is simply no realistic way to restrict information once it exists. but in the words of Maude, "how the world still dearly loves a cage". it's beyond me.
(and yes my cats make funny faces...)
Right, except this time it's
Right, except this time it's turned around. Content providers (like you and me) can now select which countries our content can be viewed from.
While I (and probably you as well) feel it would be absurd to let anyone short of "the entire world" view what we make, the fact that some people aren't allowing their videos to be viewed in the United States is causing many Americans to ask questions.