Tibetans, their supporters, and Google users worldwide are outraged by Google's decision to join hands with the Chinese Government in its propaganda efforts. Google has launched a web search platform custom-built to the Chinese authorities' specifications that blocks access to information about Tibet, human rights, and other topics sensitive to Beijing. In doing so, Google isn't just helping the Chinese Government by censoring "sensitive topics." What Google is in fact doing is enabling the Chinese government's propaganda by returning search results tailored to Beijing's repressive policies. Searching for "Tibet" will bring up only official Communist Chinese disinformation on Tibet. Searching for "Dalai Lama" will only bring up sites portraying him as a "splittist."

What's more, under the Chinese totalitarian regime, the internet is a critical tool for Chinese and Tibetans to improve their political situation. The effect of Google's partnership with the Chinese govermnment will be to thwart these efforts by denying them the information they seek.

Google has become an active partner in the Chinese government's efforts to repress its own citizens along with Tibetans, Uighurs, Falun Gong practitioners, and anyone else standing up to Chinese authorities and demanding human rights and self-determination.

Read Students for a Free Tibet's press release responding to Google's announcement.

Other Resources:

The Open Net Initiative's study "Internet Filtering in China 2004 - 2005"

• "China operates the most extensive, technologically sophisticated, and broad-reaching system of Internet filtering in the world. The implications of this distorted on-line information environment for China’s users are profound, and disturbing...While there can be legitimate debates about whether democratization and liberalization are taking place in China’s economy and government, there is no doubt that neither is taking place in China’s Internet environment today."

109th Congress - House Resolution 2216 "Global Internet Freedom Act"

• Section 2, (5) "The government of... the People's Republic of China... among others, [is] taking active measures to prevent their citizens from freely accessing the Internet and from obtaining international political, religious, and economic news and information." (5/10/2005)
  

The Open Net Initiative's bulletin "Google Search & Cache Filtering Behind China's Great Firewall"

• On Google PRE-google.cn (Note: Now Google DOES filter search results with under China's guidance) : "Neither China's keyword filtering nor the mechanism used to filter the Google cache is specific to Google. China's usual Internet controls apply when users search for specific keywords in Google: their connection to Google is terminated and they receive no results from their search. Thus, while China's filtering affects Google searches, the system is entirely independent of Google." (8/30/04)

Reporters Without Borders "Internet Under Surveillance: China"

• "The Chinese authorities use a clever mix of propaganda, disinformation and repression to stifle online free expression. Initial hopes that the Internet would develop into an unfettered media and help liberalize China have been dashed. What has happened in China has shattered generally accepted ideas. The Internet can indeed become a propaganda media. On its own, it will not suffice to support the emergence of democracy in any significant way. And it can be totally controlled by a government that equips itself to do so."
  

Berkman Center for Internet & Society - "Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China"

• "The Chinese government and associated network authorities are clearly continuing to experiment with different forms of blocking, indicating that...Chinese network filtering is an important instrument of state Internet policy, and one to which significant technical and human resources continue to be devoted." (3/20/2003)