Future of IR's | Main | Virtual Words and Education
December 02, 2008
Is Google Censoring?
As if information professionals needed another reason to question the validity of a Google search, the New York Times has a thought provoking article about Google's censorship policy. Google, being the multi-national company that it is, has to contend with a variety of international views and laws concerning censorship. Often, instead of supporting free speech, Google will simply remove the "offensive" links or videos (Google owns YouTube, after all) from their search returns.
Information professionals have often focused the energy of their struggles against patron over-reliance on Google and other internet search engines in the direction of the quality and validity of search returns. However, another important aspect of our professional lives involves standing up for free speech- so chalk up yet another reason to wean patrons from Google. Google, due to their dominance as a search provider, is setting themselves up as an international communications watchdog removed from any official oversight. In their defense, Google knows their present policies are unsustainable for the future. But will they do anything about it? Stay on your toes, librarians!
(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)
~Ross G.
Posted by colldev at December 2, 2008 06:17 PM