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Re:Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Wi... by seanmcdirmid on Saturday January 02, 2016 @10:39PM (#10829391)
> But why is it bad that a commercial party wants to respect local laws?

Let's say for sake of argument that it is not bad. But what are those laws? What does the law say and how do you interpret it? The way China does censorship is very vague: "don't allow anything indecent (by any standard) or that disturbs social harmony (in any way)." Oh, and there is no such thing as safe harbor, you must pro-actively check that user content abides by these vague standards. It is also quite arbitrary, here is an example of a picture that is banned in China as indecent:

http://imgur.com/e6HCmXq

Why? Because of people were comparing that image to this:

https://thenanfang.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/parade-06....

Now how the heck are you supposed to follow that law?

USA censorship is more like "child porn is bad, report it at once if you find it." It is an incredibly different form of very clear content restriction. It is not a vague threat hanging over your head all the time.

Re:Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Wi... by slavik81 on Saturday January 02, 2016 @11:41PM (#10829530)
I'm a little sad that the grand-parent comment was deleted. He raised a topic that needed discussion.
Re:Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Wi... by MVf4l on Sunday January 03, 2016 @05:04AM (#10830108)
You don't have to report anything. Of course you can if you want. You may have heard of the Chaoyang Masses?

Basically following that law is kinda like following the DMCA, you don't know if you are pirating, but if the copyright owner think you are, they'll send you notices, what you can do next is to argue if the contents are legal or just to delete the contents. Though in China it may cost you a fortune if you want to argue if it's legal.

> It is not a vague threat

Well, unless there are people associate normal images and child porn, like someone did to Winnie and Xi. But I don't think it's going to happen widely in the U.S. IMHO, if the Chinese government stop pushing so hard, there will be less cases like insulting their leader metaphorically.

edit: spellings

[deleted]
Re:Bing Goes Full-On Censorship in English Search Results Wi... by microcolonel on Saturday January 02, 2016 @11:07PM (#10829448)
China's wrong, but maybe China would be better off with no search engine than with one which attempts to bias public opinion toward the party.