Black and White Cat

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When I started writing this, Google.com was blocked in China. That didn’t last. It never does. Google.com is often blocked on and off for a few minutes each time. The purpose of this is to gently nudge people away from the unrestrained world of “unhealthy information” and towards the much more controlled Google.cn and Baidu. This time the block lasted well over an hour, though, which is unusual. It’s now blocked again. Now it isn’t. And now it is yet again.

This may or may not be related to the coordinated campaign launched by the GONGO* China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (CIIIRC) and CCTV against Google.cn’s “lewd links.”

(*GONGO: government-organized non-governmental organization or government-operated non-governmental organization.)

CCTV’s Focus Interview shock-horror report last week thoroughly exposed Google’s evil plot to corrupt young Chinese minds with smut. If, it was revealed, some innocent youth typed “boobs” into Google.cn’s image search, he or she would be presented with this deeply offensive page:

Not anymore. Google.cn no longer allows an image search for “boobs” so I had to get that screen grab from the Chinese edition of Google.co.uk. It’s not terribly offensive, really. Those pictures are less pornographic than many British Christmas and birthday cards. A Baidu search for “breasts” (Baidu had rushed to remove “boobs” as searchable image item), however, produced this clean and wholesome page:

Then there was Google.cn’s other dastardly technique intended to lure its unsuspecting users into a den of vice: at the time of CCTV’s broadcast, an innocent search for “son” resulted in suggestions for other searches that included sex between sons and mothers. Google wasn’t actually suggesting this. It just happened to be what a large number of Chinese-speaking people were looking for at that particular time - a disturbing thought. They weren’t looking for it the next day, however, which makes me wonder if someone had set up a bot to conveniently produce this result on the very day of CCTV’s report.

So what about Baidu? It had quickly disabled this function for the word “son” so I tried a different search term: the letter “b”. Baidu helpfully suggested that I might also want to search for “馒头b” which I’m told means “bulging cunt.” Purely in the interests of research, I clicked on this and Baidu offered me further choices: would I like “white, hot, bulging cunts,” “beautiful girls’ bulging cunts,” “beautiful young girls’ bulging cunts” etc, etc. Clicking on any one of these… a seemingly endless chain of onanistic possibility opened up for our hypothetical youth. By Saturday evening, Baidu had discovered this and stopped suggesting any alternative searches for the letter “b”. For some reason, a Baidu image search for “馒头b” produces a page of pictures of Brian from the TV show Queer as Folk:

CIIIR and CCTV’s apparent double standard - attacking Google.cn, while ignoring Baidu - was quickly noted on the internet. One of the first to point it out was Jason Ng at Kenengba, translated into English by Oiwan Lam at Global Voices.

However, while many people considered this to be a very bad thing for Google.cn, Hecaitou saw it as a masterful PR coup by Google China’s president, Kai-fu Lee:

My ever-increasing respect for Mr Kai-fu Lee

After CCTV began to expose Google for the large amount of obscene content in its search results, my respect for Kai-fu Lee simply knew no bounds. The agility of his mind and the ingenuity of his PR skills simply lead one to wonder if he has come down from another planet; to have actually been able to make CCTV give Google free advertising.

Many people have associated the exposé of Google with the earlier exposé of Baidu at the beginning of the year. So, why don’t we take a look at the accusations CCTV has made against these two search engine companies:

Baidu — auctions off the top places in its search results, which include a large number of false advertisements.
Google — the search results include a large quantity of pornographic and obscene content.

You see what I mean? Baidu offers false advertisements, especially advertisements for medicine. This is an extremely serious accusation because taking the wrong drugs or going to the wrong doctor can kill people. What is the actual effect of pornographic and obscene content? Has there ever been a news report that in such-and-such a place a bunch of youths have died of dehydration from masturbating over Google?

As for the great mass of netizens, what is the most powerful motivator for them to visit a website? Sexual desire, of course. By far the largest number of searches on English Google are for “sex.” On Baidu, searches for pornographic films occupy an equally dominant position. The effect of a news item cannot be appreciated simply by looking at its literal meaning. HeeHeeTV’s condemnation appears to be moral criticism. However, most netizens fully grasp the underlying message: only Google’s got what they want! For the 270 million internet users, even the great mass of netizens who don’t even know how to copy and paste, this is a bright light to guide their path.

After years of hard struggle, Google’s share of China’s search engine market has finally exceeded 30%. However, Baidu still controls nearly 70% of the market. But that’s OK now. After this piece of news, netizens finally know where they can go to find what they most want to see. When you consider the reach of CCTV, with the whole country’s media following up on the story and all the major news websites making it their top item, this is an excellent example of negative news turning into good promotion. Countless numbers of website owners dream of such exposure, but this good fortune fell into the hands of Google. Thinking about the huge increase in traffic this will generate is enough to make one gasp in amazement.

The precise timing of this exposure, first criticizing Baidu for its false advertisements, then waiting until after Google had launched its Mp3 search, its Web Options and its Site Navigator and only then exposing it, shows that HeeHeeTV’s love for Google must be strong and deep [真是情深得紧]. Considering all of this, it’s impossible not to have a profound respect for Mr Kai-fu Lee. It’s not just that he knows where netizens’ G-spot is, causing tens of millions of willies to beat a path to his door. More than this, he understands how to grasp the media in the palm of his hand, enticing them all into his snare. We can now predict that Google’s share of the market will soar this year. Who knows how many stock options the honorable Kai-fu will exercise….

Surely, at Google’s next Christmas party, when the honorable Kai-fu accepts his award as man of the year, his first sentence will be: “Thank you, CCTV.”