internet - How the Google China crisis gets out of hand

(later also at Tidbits)
When Google launched last week its localized China-service the unavoidable mayhem looked manageable. The blogosphere reacted angry when do-good Google started a censored service, RSF issued their compulsory condemnation and mostly it takes a day or two before other issues keep us busy and the storm blows over. Chinese internet users certainly had little clue what the brouhaha was about. They enjoyed the highly popular service by Google.com and while it looked odd the same company launched next to their excellent service an incapacitated one, since the global service was also available in Chinese, few Chinese bloggers thought it was worth the upheaval.
But the launch offered the world outside China an excellent way to see for the first time how search engines can airbrush reality. Depending on a person's hobby, they discovered the China service was rather generous in blocking results. Christians discovered "Jesus Christ" was blocked, and beer drinkers found beer was blocked. Other hits were teen pregnancy, dating, homosexuality and jokes.
And just when the prolonged crisis seemed to die out, the Google senior policy council Andrew McLauglin came with a statement on the official Google-blog that made things even worse.

Google users in China today struggle with a service that, to be blunt, isn't very good. Google.com appears to be down around 10% of the time. Even when users can reach it, the website is slow, and sometimes produces results that when clicked on, stall out the user's browser. Our Google News service is never available; Google Images is accessible only half the time. At Google we work hard to create a great experience for our users, and the level of service we've been able to provide in China is not something we're proud of.

Most IT-companies simply shut up when they get into hot water in China. While that is of course a despicable PR-policy, telling lies is only slightly better. Google.com has been doing an excellent job in China and was for sure no excuse to launch Google.cn. Marc van der Chijs writes from Shanghai:

Google.com normally works very well in China, and it is faster than the other foreign search engines that I sometimes use. Google News never available? I guess Google's senior policy counsel has never been to China, because it works fine here. And Googles Images only available half the time? Except that some search terms are blocked, it is always accessible from Shanghai.

The real problem Google has created for itself is that users can see how search engines are able to manipulate search results. Who can from now on believe that whatever search results we see - also outside China - are a true reflection of reality or the product of a corporate strategy?
Here are the best wishes of your search engine.

Update: Google has been fixing some of the issues, C-Net writes.

It's not entirely clear what caused the initial version of Google.cn's embarrassing bugs, which had caused Microsoft sites and the University of Pennsylvania's engineering school to vanish from search listings.
One potential explanation is that Google had been using a version of its "SafeSearch" software, which it describes as adult-site filtering technology that "checks keywords and phrases."

They have also blocked the site of Essex Countie, because it has 'sex' in its name. Life is not easy when you are new in the censorship business.