Leading Internet search engine Google may have started down censorship’s slippery slope with its policies in several international versions of its website. After legal pressure in Germany and France, the site was recently found to censor approximately 100 extremist racist and anti-Semitic sites on the German and French versions of the site, according to The Boston Globe. Citizens in each country can access the American version of the search engine by simply typing in the .com suffix, but Google’s moves represent a somewhat disturbing trend that could threaten all peoples’ abilities to search Internet sites freely on the world’s most-used search engine.
German and French laws prohibit the production of inflammatory extremist materials, like those on the websites censored by Google. No other search engines have adopted similar policies to those of Google, though Yahoo does censor certain sites in China in order to be viewed on computers there, according to the Globe. Though Google has defended its actions as simply being in the interest of complying with other countries’ laws, there is little stopping such voluntary censorship in the United States.
Censorship on the web is a messy and complicated issue. Though the Internet has been an easy and efficient means for violent extremist groups to spread their hateful messages, their rights to free speech are just as valuable as any other groups. Google should have held free speech and equal access as top values in dealing with the French and German governments.
In addition, regulating which sites can be viewed and which cannot may also be a tough job. Those running the sites in question are likely seasoned computer pros, skilled at evading others’ Internet defenses. Censorship efforts by Google will likely be ineffective as a long-term solution to Internet extremism.
Voluntary filtering should be available to Internet customers should they want to protect their children from incendiary Internet materials. But filtering should be voluntary, available as an option to those who want it. Google should not make the choice for the world’s Internet users.
Google’s censorship efforts in Germany and France have started them down dangerous paths which could have negative implications for the world’s most used Internet search engine.
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