HRoth - 7:00 pm on Feb 16, 2006 (gmt 0)

I am curious how many people who are criticizing Google have decided to no longer do any business with Google. I saw only one post about someone pausing their AdWords for one day. What a blow against the machine. If you believe that Google really is evil for following the Chinese government's dictates, then you should no longer do any business with Google whatsoever, including removing your site from their search engine. Leaving it in there means you are benefiting from their practices, including their caving to censorship.

After I found out how easily people in China circumvent this censorship, I thought this was a tempest in a teapot.

In the US, of course, we have no censorship, which is why we can feel so free to look down on China and the rest of the world and give them what for. That's why the press can show any pictures and tell any stories whatsoever they want about the war in Iraq instead of having to be embedded, better known as caving to military censorship. Oh, wait--we DO have censorship here, but it's okay. I mean, the whole thing about the military having the right to prevent any reportage about Iraq they feel like is just about protecting our troops. Just because the press was able to say whatever they wanted during Vietnam doesn't mean they should do that now. I mean, if they could write or show whatever, people might be even more against the war than they already are, and our government wouldn't like that. Freedom of speech can only go so far. Sometimes censorship is good. It is if our guys do it, anyway, but not if Google or China does it.

Gee, maybe the NSA can teach the Chinese how to close up those gaps in their firewall, eh?