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The Halo Of Free Speech
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Freedom; Posted on: 2009-11-26 17:28:58 [ Printer friendly / Instant flyer ]
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Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. --Salman Rushdie
There has been an uproar online this week over a
racist cartoon of Michelle Obama depicted as a monkey. The image
originally appeared on an obscure Chinese blog called "Hot Girls," but
catapulted to prominence when it turned out that it was also the first
hit for "Michelle Obama" on Google Images.
As you might expect, there were a rush of calls for
Google to remove the offensive image, but the search giant refused.
(Don't run to your computer to look for it now - you won't find it
there anymore; but not because Google capitulated, the Chinese blog
took it off.).
Google is aware that it is on an extremely slippery slope here.
Give in to one pressure group and every other one will be clamoring for
the search engine to get rid of any picture or article that offends
someone's sensibilities. The world's most popular site simply mirrors
the information available on the Web, tabulating all of it according to
a complex set of algorithms. If it was to start judging that
information, it would lose all relevance. The only exception is when
Google is forced to remove links for legal considerations.
Continue...
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News Source: haaretz
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