It was mentioned in class yesterday that 'Google is political'. I'm not sure what Dr. T was referring to precisely. Was he referring to the case of Google's self-censorship for China in 2006?
To begin with, Google's mission is supposed to be 'to organize the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible'. However, in order for Google to operate in China, it had to kowtow to the political pressure in China. Sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre had to be filtered from Google's search results. As such, information such as this is no longer 'universally accessible'. In its defense, Google reported that the move was for a greater good. If Google search is not available to one-fifth of the world's population, it'll be compromising their mission even further.
To most users, Google is 'altruistic'. It provides free information very quickly. However, let's not forget that Google is running a business afterall. The service is available free of charge to us only because the advertisers are paying for it. Without one-fifth of the world's population clicking away on the advertisements on Google's site, will it still be able to sustain its business?
I feel that for now, whilst Google search is free-of-charge, I shall just enjoy it. But, I would be mindful that it's not there to serve my purpose or my quest for information. It exists because it's serving some people's pockets.
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I'm not sure if what Google is doing wrt to China can be considered political, but you are right it is a business at the end of the day. They will do what makes sense for their business.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing to keep in mind is that, nowadays most people assume that the search responses provided by Google to be the most accurate. What the average Net user fails to understand is the mathematics (perhaps science as well) behind the search. Depending on the search keywords, the rule for finding the answer is ever so slightly different. And who decides this rule ... Who none other than the people behind Google.
Can we take for granted that they will always gets the results "correct"? Why, isn't the definition of what is correct also a very subjective answer? Things to ponder, wouldn't you say?
Thanks. Yes, I do agree with you that we can't take for granted the search results we get. For example, Google's pages are ranked by popularity and may be skewed towards some topics. Also, there are some websites which pay to have their links come up on the top of the results page. Guess it'll be wise to use different search programmes as well as various meta-search engines to get a wider range of results.
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ReplyDeleteHi Brenda and Arun,
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me join in. It’s really great amidst our busy-ness and rushing around here and there, to be able to discuss some serious issues of common interest with like-minded people.
I would say that the move was political on the part of China and Google too, in the following sense. It would restrict information for the users in that they would not get a balanced view of a situation (eg. Tiananmen Square Massacre) and that to me would definitely be a political move - it would be restricting information which would enable a user to assess the situation fairly (according to I guess, his personal/cultural/socially and perhaps internationally influenced standards) and act or not act accordingly - to oppose, to not vote the government in the next election etc. (if he ever decides to be active) - I'm saying all this under the rather broad assumption that many people are nowadays, using online sources to get news, do research, keep updated on events happening locally and around the world.
de-knees =D