How Microsoft Bing Censors the Middle East | Hacker News Reader

How Microsoft Bing Censors the Middle East

eff.org

If they censor too much it's "problematic" because they're overreaching and deciding for the people. If they don't censor enough then it's "problematic" because they're culturally insensitive to the local sense of decency, they're imposing western standards or somesuch. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

I think that's BS. They're an American company, providing a product that people can feel free not to use if they're so inclined. They're not imposing western standards; that's like saying McDonald's is "imposing" a western diet by selling hamburgers in Riyadh.

People have absolutely made that argument before.

As examples, look at Kong Qingdong in China and Vladimir Zhirinovsky in Russia. Two of the better known people who like to make these sorts of arguments.

Its called Cultural Imperialism. I'm not saying it makes sense, but you're underestimating human ingenuity for making silly arguments.

A better analogy might be a western outlet which, outside of that country, normally sells something which is considered illegal.

"Damned if they do and damned if they don't" doesn't mean damned by the same parties. They are in hot water with the authorities if they bring in the contraband, and vilified by some of the local users and human rights activists if they don't.

McDonald's customizes their menu in many parts of the world. I'm pretty sure they still don't serve beef or pork anywhere in India.

Correct:

  India is the first country in the world where McDonald's
  does not offer any beef or pork items. McDonald's has 
  developed a menu especially for India with vegetarian 
  selections to suit the Indian palate, and has also re-
  engineered its operations to address the special 
  requirements of vegetarians. Special care is taken to 
  ensure that all vegetable products are prepared 
  separately, using dedicated equipment and utensils.

- http://www.mcdonaldsindia.com/aboutus.html

They do serve serve chicken though.

What about lamb and goat?

In 1999 I ate a mutton burger in McDonald's in New Delhi. Not lamb but pretty close.

Nope. Although I was not allowed to go to McDonald's when I was a kid, I haven't seen anything with lamb or goat lately.

That's why I think the Tor project is so important.

It gives people within those cultures an ability to access information they're not supposed to be able to, while also helping protect them from those in power.

Yes - I think it'd be great if American companies didn't build the censorship or surveillance infrastructure for these countries and I think it's wrong that American companies enable these governments to do this to their own people, but at least through Tor we can side step the cultural imperialism argument.

Only those who want it will seek it out.

Edit: If you're interested in running a non-exit relay, check out this guide I made - it's pretty easy to do (plus you get a cool shirt after 60 days).

https://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/6567/how-do-i-manual...

American companies also support their own government's efforts to imprison people for visiting the wrong websites (gambling, piracy, child porn, etc). Isn't it a bit arbitrary to accept that in America but not other countries? You may think free political speech is important, but it can cost a lot of lives if it leads to a civil war or widespread riots. Not all countries are stable enough to cope with those risks.

> There is absolutely no excuse for a company—particularly one that has made commitments to free expression by being a founding member of the Global Network Initiative—to regulate speech beyond that which is required.

Absolutely is a big word. Here is a technical excuse: the search index is collected and classified by algorithms. The algorithms are not perfect in their classification, and so there has to be a margin for error.

> Neither Egypt nor Lebanon, for example, block most sexual content or require intermediaries to do so.

See, weasel word: most. So they do block some sexual content? If you want a fine-grained filter to just block that particular sexual content, you have to improve the robots. That costs time and money, and creates risk. Maybe it's easier and legally safer to just block all sexual content and be done with it. In other words, over-zealous filtering, or at least some of it, could be the consequence of cool pragmatism and nothing more deeply sinister.

Bing (and Google) block some sexual content everywhere. Try searching for child porn and tell me what come up.

A black van outside. Gee, thanks!

Yes, the default is "SafeSearch" enabled. Bing and Google filter for everyone... it's not opt-in. You opt-out, as would people living in "strict markets".

I don't believe bing/google are required by law in the U.S. to do this (correct me if I'm wrong)... so the e.f.f. arguments are a bit hypocritical by not including, essentially, the rest of the world.

But in some of these regions, you cannot opt out. Safe search upholds censorship laws.

There is absolutely no excuse for a company—particularly one that has made commitments to free expression by being a founding member of the Global Network Initiative—to regulate speech beyond that which is required.

Your search results aren't speech. While I am opposed to almost all censorship, I can't get too worked up about this, because Microsoft understandably doesn't want to get prosecuted/ sued/ protested against in countries with much more conservative social norms. Of course, Bing is just a delivery service for information about what sort of things exist on the internet, but given the well-known human proclivity to 'blame the messenger' and Microsoft's global reach caution is understandable.

Maybe this points to a larger problem - the primary way to navigate the web today is centralized search engines. So much so that when you disable the address bar search features in browsers, people stumble quickly. While search results aren't speech, they are how people get to speech.

Absolutely. It's a real problem and if I were in a country where search results are censored (by the government) or restricted (by the search vendor) I would certainly be doing whatever I could to find a way around that. This is unfortunate because now all the legal risk falls on me (eg if I am caught using Tor or somesuch) and a search engine operator is much better able to bear the legal risk and uncertainty than individual citizens of a repressive country or region.

On the other hand, I don't think the search firm is obliged to put itself or its employees in legal or political harm's way by exporting their home country's standards of free speech. Even in the US, I see Google is regularly blamed for providing results that are deemed racist or offensive even when those results are skewed by the behavior of users, deliberate or otherwise.

While search results aren't speech, they are how people get to speech.

At least in the USA -

You aren't guaranteed a platform for your speech, and you aren't guaranteed other people will listen to you. All you are guaranteed is that the government won't persecute you for saying it.

So a private company that does not promote your speech, is not a violation of the 1st Amendment.

Literally no one is saying that it is.

> Your search results aren't speech.

In the US they certainly legally are, and as a curated list of "relevant" results, I'm curious what else you think they might be?

(I don't believe that's what the article is referring to, though, instead it's Bing as an overeager gatekeeper of what people should see)

I think you misunderstand the case in question, but I'm also responsible for a poor choice of words.

If you're talking about the Coastnews case, then the speech in question is that of the search engine operator, eg Google, Bing or whoever - not that of the person conducting the search. This is what I meant when I say 'Your search results' but on re-reading I can see that this only confused matters.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/court-agrees-that...

So let me put it this way: Your search results are not part of your free speech, but of the search engine operator's. If a firm chooses not to share information with you because of where you live, the firm is exercising its own right to free speech, notwithstanding the fact that you end up getting less information than you hoped for and that this is undesirable for you.

A lot of websites are censored around the world, and it's not just from search results: you can't access the actual sites. In the middle east, it's porn. In China, no Facebook. In France, it's Netflix. I see no reason why this is on Microsoft.

the problem though is that they use strict Saudi Wahabi standards for relatively liberal countries like Lebanon and Egypt.

Microsoft is going above and beyond what is required of them in terms of censorship.

Don't dating sites have an 18 year age limit despite different states having different ages of consent, etc? It's just easier than making a fine grained filter.

Not sure. Although I have seen many sites and companies have contests where it's not applicable to certain provinces or states. Also I think states vs countries is a bit different. Why not then just apply the saudi standards to our content as well?

Netflix is not censored in France. I'm sitting in my coach in Avignon right now watching Breaking Bad while reading HN.

You beast, you.

True of all the big players in the region, at least the Gulf.

Source: someone who spends far too much time there.

Those should stop doing so at one moment, leaving faulty governments choosing between sticking to their hypocricy and working internet.

They would almost definitely choose working internet for themselves and nothing for the general population.

Let them try if they can get away with that.

Regimes like that already did and they already do. And besides, how do you ask shareholders to accept just pulling (which is what this would be) from a market on ethical grounds?

No, you'd have to get a law from the US government to make companies take such losses on ethical grounds. Some companies might of course pull from the US market to avoid pulling from the world's dictatorships, but probably not the big American ones.

I wonder if disconnect.me provides access to uncensored search engines. And there's always Tor and VPN services.

I find that hard to believe. Doesn't Google take a hard stance on freedom of speech issues?

Short answer: No. Long Answer: Not really, no.

Search for a confederate flag on google shopping.

If you want to come into my house and use the internet, that's fine. But you will do so through my firewall. If the EFF then writes an article about my 'restrictive' firewall. I'll tell them to politely fsck off.

I am not condoning the filtering of search results, and never will. In the grand picture we all know that this censoring gig never works. But where does the EFF get this idea that they have the right to berate a company and insinuate that they disobey a governments rules/laws/standards in their own country? It's a bit much 'aint it?

If you read the article carefully, they are berating Microsoft for going above and beyond the specific legal requirements per country.

>"There is absolutely no excuse for a company—particularly one that has made commitments to free expression by being a founding member of the Global Network Initiative— to regulate speech beyond that which is required" .

You are misunderstanding the EFF - they are not asking Microsoft to disobey the government but for Microsoft to not go overboard with the censoring. Currently they are censoring more than they are being asked to ('beyond that which is required' bit).

It's like they are adding more restrictions to your already restrictive firewall - restrictions that you didn't ask for. To answer your question: no, it's not a bit much.

They should have used the word "problematic" in the first paragraph so I could have closed the tab sooner.

If they don't censor countries will just block them, it's the same fiasco Google had with Google years ago. Frankly I think it's better to censor and be there than to not be there at all. At least then people can maybe find ways around the filters to get the information they deserve to have unfettered access to.

I think what you mean is "Google with China"?

You are correct, I can't fix the typo now. Too much time has passed, I guess.

During the Reddit debacle many people were pointing out that private companies are free to remove anything they want and it doesn't constitute censorship. So this is certainly not a free speech issue if MS goes above the bare legal requirements, right? They're just removing/hiding objectionable content.

It's not a legal free speech issue, but it is a free speech issue for those of us who like free speech.

Seriously, pornography counts as "free speech" now? Please guys, can't we fight for something worthwhile?

If I had to give my opinion, I'd say that I actually find it quite laudable that Microsoft bothers to heed local values. It shows respect (and a good sense for business), kinda like not selling pork in the UAE...

I live in a harmonized country where we get to use a harmonized version of bing. It filters out many legitimate search requests, not just porn. You might search for something completely innocuous that happens to have the word girl in it (e.g. the TV series golden girls from the 80s), and it will be harmonized, I mean censored.

The filters are necessarily inaccurate and will affect legitimate search queries. You probably wouldn't use them in your western country even if you were a conservative Puritan.

I understand that it can be a pain for the users - but unless the filter out a lot more than the original article says, I find the label of "censorship" and "free speech impediment" highly exaggerated.

About 5% of my searches are blocked based on keywords alone, and none of those are meant to be pornographic. I believe, and have found from my own experience, that censorship is impossible without collateral damage. It is unavoidable.

Yes absolutely everyting counts as free speech. That's the whole point. Neither you, nor anybody else gets to have an opinion on the content on behalf on anyone else. Porn is merely an example. Once you allow one through there's always a way to expand it. We've seen this often enough now for it not to be a simple platitude or a slippery slope argument.

Of course in addition to trusting someone else's opinion you also have to trust their competence.

surprised ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138565

Reply on news.ycombinator.com