Overseas Chinese news website, Boxun, revealed on August 19 that Microsoft’s newly launched search engine, Bing, provides completely different search results in China compared to its U.S. version. Bing provides obviously filtered and selective search results in accordance with Beijing’s point of view.
What’s worse is that the situation remains the same even outside of China as long as the Chinese version of bing.com is used.
Boxun criticizes Microsoft for violating the rights of Chinese worldwide to the free flow of information. The head of Boxun, Wei Shi, told Radio Free Asia, “Disappointed, of course. Several major U.S. companies have provided the censored Chinese version of their search engines, which give the Chinese different search results from outside China, and filters out a lot of information. Those companies, to put it bluntly, are like villains colluding together. There’s nothing we can do about what they’ve been doing except for informing people about the phenomenon and giving our opinion. One day, this industry must answer to us.”
When keying in, “Boxun” the first hit of the search result in the U.S. Bing version is the Boxun website, which is not seen in the Chinese version of Bing. The only hit in the Chinese version of Bing that mentions Boxun is: “The Ministry of Health refuted rumors of bird flu in China from Boxun-Politics-People’s Network.”
The reporter also tested this phenomenon in Hong Kong. When typing “Radio Free Asia” into the search, the result in the U.S. version of Bing is a direct web link to RFA. Whereas, the Chinese version of Bing only provides links to contents negatively criticizing RFA by the Chinese regime.
Blocked Then Re-Instated When Compliant
In mainland China, Bing only provides the Chinese version. The U.S. version is not available. A web user in Guangzhou City named Bei Fong, believes that this is how Bing ensures its survival in the market by yielding to the Chinese regime. He says, “Bing.com in China will automatically connect to the Chinese version of Bing. But once you bypass the blockade (the Great Firewall) using one of several portals, both Chinese and U.S. versions are available. If you select the U.S. version, you’ll find some unfiltered information. Google was punished (by Beijing) not long ago. We could easily find out based on the Google incident if [Bing is] not cooperating with the officials about content. Even business survival will be an issue. It’s folly to talk about capturing the market.”
Aiming at capturing at least 13 per cent of market share in China, ambitious Microsoft launched the Bing search engine in simplified Chinese, with large-scale publicity on June 1. Within a day, Bing was blocked by the Chinese regime. According to a number of reports from portal technology channels and network resources in China, the blockade was related to so-called “pornography and adverse information that are searchable in Bing,” which means that Bing did not process information filtering according to the relevant laws and regulations in China when the target audience is mainland Chinese.
The immediate response from Microsoft, according to vice president of MSN China, Liu Zhengyu, is that Microsoft established a joint venture, Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology Co., Ltd, to conduct domestic Internet service and that Microsoft will strictly employ censoring of online content in accordance with Chinese policy and regulations.
After a week, Bing.com was reinstated in China. The web server was changed from a Japan IP to Beijing Telecom. As for the changes in the content filtering settings, none are available.
Other international websites such as twitter.com, flickr.com, and youtube.com that were blocked by the Firewall at the same time Bing was blocked, don’t seem as lucky or don’t react as quickly as Microsoft — they are unseen on the Chinese Internet.
Bei Fong says that Microsoft has a track record of bowing to the Chinese regime. “Bing.com was one of the few international networks that regained viewers after the June 2 and 3 blockade.”
“Microsoft has conducted censorship for many years in collaboration with the Chinese regime. For instance, both Lian Yue’s blog, “the Eighth Continent” and my own blog site, “Raving Intoxication” were filtered out of MSN in 2007 or earlier. They are not accessible in China, but are in Hong Kong.”
