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posted by Dopefish on Monday February 17 2014, @12:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the trust-but-verify dept.

AudioGuy writes "A Guardian reporter, Rebecca MacKinnon, has some interesting insights on how Chinese censorship may be inadvertently leaking into Micosoft's Bing Search engine.

"After conducting my own research, running my own tests, and drawing upon nearly a decade of experience studying Chinese Internet censorship, I have concluded that what several activists and journalists have described as censorship on Bing is actually what one might call "second hand censorship". Basically, Microsoft failed to consider the consequences of blindly applying apolitical mathematical algorithms to politically manipulated and censored web content. The algorithm deployed by Bing may be mathematically sound, but it fails to protect online freedom of expression. Bing failed to take into account the political reality of Chinese government censorship and its broader impact on the shape of the Chinese Internet. Without adjustments to how simplified Chinese websites based outside of mainland China are "weighted," exiled and dissident online voices inevitably lose out. Put it another way: an apolitical mathematical formula automatically amplifies Chinese government censorship to all people searching for simplified Chinese content anywhere in the world, not just in China."

Apparently Google had the same problem, but has managed to write code to prevent these side effects."

 
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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by ticho on Monday February 17 2014, @12:06PM

    by ticho (89) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:06PM (#597) Homepage Journal

    After reading TFS, I was left in darkness regarding what exactly is Bing doing (wrong) here. If it's the case for someone else as well, know that TFA explains it better. Who knew, right? :)

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by clone141166 on Monday February 17 2014, @12:20PM

    by clone141166 (59) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:20PM (#612)

    I hate to defend Micro$oft at all, but in this case I also can't see exactly what they are doing wrong? Simplified Chinese based searches are producing fewer results because there are fewer links to those pages in mainland China (albeit the lack of links being a result of Chinese government censorship). A search algorithm has no political affinity... how is Bing supposed to know if a page has fewer links to it because it has been censored internally in China or just because the page is unpopular in general?

    • (Score: 1) by ticho on Monday February 17 2014, @12:24PM

      by ticho (89) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:24PM (#617) Homepage Journal

      You're correct, of course. My mistake. What I meant was what exactly they are doing to cause the effect discussed in TFA.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by xlefay on Monday February 17 2014, @12:27PM

    by xlefay (65) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:27PM (#620) Journal

    From what I understand, pages that are "lesser" ranked in China (or not ranked at all) also carry that weight in search from other countries

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheSage on Monday February 17 2014, @12:42PM

    by TheSage (133) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:42PM (#627) Journal

    I'm trying an EE metaphor:

    The typical Page Rank algorithm works like an amplifier - giving you the main signal and ignoring the noise. The problem is, when there is an additional signal which is not as strong as the main signal. In the unmodified algorithm it gets discarded as if it were noise. This is basically the error Bing is making. Google, on the other hand, has modified the algorithm to allow for two or more signals to emerge.

    Hope that makes sense

    • (Score: 1) by clone141166 on Monday February 17 2014, @12:48PM

      by clone141166 (59) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:48PM (#634)

      That is a very nice analogy, if I hadn't posted a comment on this story already I would mod you up :)

    • (Score: 1) by tangomargarine on Monday February 17 2014, @05:40PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Monday February 17 2014, @05:40PM (#882)

      -1 Needs More Cars ;)

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"