[WikiEN-l] Google bows to censorship

[Anthony]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 10:00 AM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Google has agreed to take down links to a website that promotes racist
> views of indigenous Australians.
> > Aboriginal man Steve Hodder-Watt recently discovered the US-based site by
> searching "Aboriginal and Encyclopedia" in the search engine.
> > He tried to modify the entry on Encyclopedia Dramatica, a satirical and
> extremely racist version of Wikipedia, but was blocked from doing so.
> ...
> > Mr Newhouse said Google agreed to take the link down after he filed an
> official complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
> > "Lo and behold they agreed last night to take down the sites."
>
>
> http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/google-agrees-to-take-down-racist-site-20100115-maxd.html
>
> I'm so torn. On the one hand, the hypocrisy is blinding - filtering
> its search results is exactly what Google was doing in China. On the
> other hand, it's Encyclopedia Dramatica...
>

If censoring some things (like "the most offensive sorts of racial
vilification you could possibly find"), and refusing to censor other things
(like an historical account of a pro-democracy demonstration), is hypocrisy,
then let me be the first to say that I'm in favor of hypocrisy.