Thanks to the reader who writes “You’ve yet to be deemed censorable by China/Google,” and affirms that this site is still the number one search result at http://www.google.cn for “Right Wing Bob.” And welcome to the millions of Chinese now getting all their news about the outside world from RightWingBob.com. The first thing you need to know: out here in the Occident, we’re all obsessive fans of this Bob Dylan guy. His is the prism that shapes our reality.

Joking aside, Google’s kow-tow to the Chinese government is contemptible, of-course. And in the light of their recent resistance to varying attempts at interference or data collection by both the U.S. Government and the E.U., they are effectively demonstrating that they are only willing to compromise their precious database and their high-minded principles if asked to by a communist regime.

Assumptions were already common about the inherent leftist tilt of Google’s founders and operators, but this double-standard regarding censorship (unacceptable if sought by western democratic governments; “just tell us what you’d like us to leave out!” if sought by commies) is pretty stomach-churning. What is this if not a kind of romanticization of communist motives for censorship, versus what others might do in the realm of, for example, obscenity? And Google, more than anyone, was surely in a position to leverage their position and make a stand for freedom of information.

This website uses Google in a variety of ways. It still appears to be the best functioning search engine around, and serves my purpose for this site better than any alternative I know right now. I’ve found Gmail convenient and useful. I run some Google Ads in an attempt to harvest a few pennies. I’m not about to hop precipitiously on a politically-motivated boycott of the some of the best web technology available, but I’m reviewing my options, no doubt like a lot of people. Basically, by doing what it is doing, Google is damaging its public persona and reputation, and competitors should take note and should take advantage.

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While we’re at it, the Google search of the day must be “Bob Dylan antichrist,” by which some curious surfer found this site a little while ago, ranked at number three on the Google Hot 106,000. I trust that this surfer had his/her fears allayed … but who knows?

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