Google Censorship
There has always been a huge fight between media companies and the internet. The internet makes it so easy to access productions by these companies that many people just find what they want online rather than buying it. In some ways, music or videos illegally downloaded can be superior to any version one could buy; download a movie from iTunes and you have one severely limited file type that may dissapear if you do the wrong thing. Torrent a movie and you can have it in any format you want, no restrictions. This creates a huge problem for the media companies, and they have spent years trying to stop it.
These companies have made a new attempt to inhibit illegal downloading. They have convinced Google to censor some torrent related searches. Sound like the end of an age, right? No more freedom on the internet? Wrong!
The censorship Google has placed might not even be there. All that has been done is that certain words or phrases (such as bittorrent) will not auto complete. I tested this out myself, and Google even instructed me to hit enter to see the results. However, when I put in "illegal download Avatar," it gave me a ton of options to pick from (and even auto completed it for me). The entire thing seems like just a political struggle. I imagine a conversation between the media companies and Google.
The MPAA says, "Hey, your helping people steal from us, and if you don't, you are going to make an enemy you don't want!"
So Google says, "Ok," and then precedes to do as little as possible just to say that they tried.
It isn't like this censorship is a first. Google has censored inappropriate topics from auto completing in the same way to shelter people from accidentally winding up with something on the screen that they didn't want. The difference is that the only people who will be looking to download a movie or cd will know what they are looking for, and simple censorship like this does nothing. The only thing it is doing is creating over dramatic reactions; read some of the comments in the original articles. This situation could cause some concern about future censorship (one thing leads to the next), but I doubt the scene will even be anywhere near what it is now by the time it gets to that point.
Original article:
Google Begins Soft Censorship Of Arbitrary Piracy-Related Queries
These companies have made a new attempt to inhibit illegal downloading. They have convinced Google to censor some torrent related searches. Sound like the end of an age, right? No more freedom on the internet? Wrong!
The censorship Google has placed might not even be there. All that has been done is that certain words or phrases (such as bittorrent) will not auto complete. I tested this out myself, and Google even instructed me to hit enter to see the results. However, when I put in "illegal download Avatar," it gave me a ton of options to pick from (and even auto completed it for me). The entire thing seems like just a political struggle. I imagine a conversation between the media companies and Google.
The MPAA says, "Hey, your helping people steal from us, and if you don't, you are going to make an enemy you don't want!"
So Google says, "Ok," and then precedes to do as little as possible just to say that they tried.
It isn't like this censorship is a first. Google has censored inappropriate topics from auto completing in the same way to shelter people from accidentally winding up with something on the screen that they didn't want. The difference is that the only people who will be looking to download a movie or cd will know what they are looking for, and simple censorship like this does nothing. The only thing it is doing is creating over dramatic reactions; read some of the comments in the original articles. This situation could cause some concern about future censorship (one thing leads to the next), but I doubt the scene will even be anywhere near what it is now by the time it gets to that point.
Original article:
Google Begins Soft Censorship Of Arbitrary Piracy-Related Queries
Comment (1)
January 28, 2011 at 9:16 PM
RIAA reminds me of that guy you occasionally meet at work or in one of your classes, who is just looking for a fight. You walk past him in the halls, he goes "What? WHAT?!? You want some of this?" despite the fact that you weren't doing anything wrong.
Unfortunately, he just complained to the supervisor/hall monitor, and they've been forced to come over to you and say in a low tone, "I'm really sorry, but could you try not to make him angry? He has some issues in dealing with anger, and I don't want to see anyone get hurt..."
Nice post, I laughed when I read it. Keep it up!
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