14 DAY TRIAL // On Monday, Chinese authorities warned Google and Baidu, the two largest search engines operating in the country, that they were passable for retaliation from the Communist Party if they continued to promote explicit content on their portals. The former announced that it was in strict compliance with the nation's laws, and said that the threats Beijing made were just a publicity stunt, aimed at proving to the world that no matter how big the company was, it would not benefit from any exception to the rule.
Alongside the two companies, many bulletin boards, blogs, and video-sharing sites received the same type of notifications, in which Beijing qualified their content as “troublesome” and “inappropriate.” Websites promoting democratic concepts and delicate issues, such as that of Taiwan or Tibet, have already been banned, as the Communist Party struggles to keep the vast majority of the population as far away from Western influence as possible.
Chinese website operators say that this type of crackdowns happen regularly, as the government attempts to keep them “on their toes,” and in line with the official policy line that Beijing adopts. During the last Olympic Games, hosted by Beijing, some instances of Internet freedom were allowed by the central rule, as China attempted to prove to the West that living conditions within the world's most populated nation had improved. However, soon afterwards, those unconstraints were put aside, and a strict control of available sites was reinstated.
More than 250 million people browse the web in China, making it the first nation in terms of Internauts. However, all these individuals only have access to a limited number of sites, and cannot access those containing “sensitive” material. Of course, the term “sensitive” is used to define everything that the Beijing authorities deem that way.
Google responded to the charges through its spokeswoman Cui Jin, who said that the site operated within established parameters, and that its search engine did not generate explicit content, nor did it provide direct links to it.