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Microsoft blames 'system error' but denies censoring Chinese search results
Source: The Guardian
Microsoft blames 'system error' but denies censoring Chinese search results
Dominic Rushe
theguardian.com, Wednesday 12 February 2014 15.51 GMT
Microsoft has blamed an “error in our system” for producing results on its Bing search engine that appear to censor information for Chinese language users in the same way it filters results in mainland China.
The admission is an embarrassment for Microsoft, which is making a major push to expand its business in China and has just appointed a new CEO, Satya Nadella, who has been a public critic of government surveillance in the US.
On Tuesday, campaigners at FreeWeibo, a tool that allows uncensored search of Chinese blogs, revealed that Bing returns radically different results in the US for English and Chinese language searches on a series of controversial terms, including “Dalai Lama”, “June 4 incident” (how Chinese people refer to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989) and “Bo Xilai”, the former high-flying government official now serving life in prison for corruption.
After initially declining to comment, Microsoft’s Stefan Weitz, a senior director at Bing, issued a statement denying censorship. Weitz said Microsoft had conducted an investigation into the discrepancies.
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Dominic Rushe
theguardian.com, Wednesday 12 February 2014 15.51 GMT
Microsoft has blamed an “error in our system” for producing results on its Bing search engine that appear to censor information for Chinese language users in the same way it filters results in mainland China.
The admission is an embarrassment for Microsoft, which is making a major push to expand its business in China and has just appointed a new CEO, Satya Nadella, who has been a public critic of government surveillance in the US.
On Tuesday, campaigners at FreeWeibo, a tool that allows uncensored search of Chinese blogs, revealed that Bing returns radically different results in the US for English and Chinese language searches on a series of controversial terms, including “Dalai Lama”, “June 4 incident” (how Chinese people refer to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989) and “Bo Xilai”, the former high-flying government official now serving life in prison for corruption.
After initially declining to comment, Microsoft’s Stefan Weitz, a senior director at Bing, issued a statement denying censorship. Weitz said Microsoft had conducted an investigation into the discrepancies.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/12/microsoft-bing-censor-chinese-search-results-system-error
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