Filtering of Forbidden Words and Search Results - Where Does Pressure For Filtering of “Inappropriate” Keywords Come From?
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Freedom of speech and thought seem to be pretty vague concepts when commercial and political interests are at stake. Filtering (or pressure for filtering) comes from many directions. One of the most well known cases is Google against the Chinese government. While using the same search query from different locations does produce a slightly or visibly different set of search results, and this can be defended by stating that the results were sorted based on their (geographic) relevance, in China the case was different. An entire set of search results used to be substituted with another set of links. Or when users tried to search Google, they were redirected to other, “convenient” search engines. The second technique was easily noticeable, while the first one was a more subtle manipulation. Similar issues about search results censorship and manipulation have been reported in Saudi Arabia.
But sometimes the most worrying forms of filtering go unreported. For instance, it is a common practice for employers to monitor the Internet activity of their employees. If there is a mechanism for substituting search results at the gateway of the company, and this goes unnoticed, it is likely that this practice is more widespread than people may realize. Probably there are no agreements between companies and search engines to filter search results for their employees, simply because search engines will never risk their reputation by indulging in such an activity. Still, one can bet that there has always been, and will continue to be, pressure from companies to make search engines exclude from the visible part of Web information companies feel is “inappropriate.”
Similar cases of pressing Google to exclude information involved the Church of Scientology (which attempted to make the search engine not show results they deemed inappropriate) and the French courts (over showing results for Nazi-related sites). Since these cases were loudly discussed in the media and they attracted a lot of attention, they become known to the general public. How many similar cases are never discovered and discussed, and go unnoticed for years?
Besides governments, companies, and organizations, pressure for filtering comes from parents as well. Keeping in mind all the violence and pornography on the Net, it is not surprising that parents take measures to prevent their children from seeing stuff that may be harmful to their mental health. The way parents exercise control over their children's browsing activity is generally by directly banning particular sites, search strings or access to search engines as a whole rather than substituting search results (often by using software or with the assistance of their ISP).
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