Google censoring

AAP report:

Google has agreed to take down links to a website that promotes racist views of indigenous Australians.

Aboriginal man Steve Hodder-Watt recently discovered the US-based site by searching “Aboriginal and Encyclopedia” in the search engine.

He tried to modify the entry on Encyclopedia Dramatica, a satirical and extremely racist version of Wikipedia, but was blocked from doing so.

Mr Hodder-Watt then undertook legal action, that resulted in Google acknowledging its legal responsibility to remove the offensive site.

Just as I don’t think Google should censor for the Chinese Government, they shouldn’t censor for anyone.

I’m not saying there should be no censorship – but it should occur at the hosting level. It is generally an offence to host material in a country where such material is illegal.

But global search engines should not be bound by national laws. I expect a search engine to tell me what material is available on the Internet.

But upon further investigating, it seems Google has removed links only for google.com.au. I have far less of a problem with that I have to say. Also they have only removed links to the specific page, not the whole site.

But still a slippery slope in my book.