You probably already read about it, but it’s hard to keep Google’s very public withdrawal announcement out of any blog that involves foreigners and China. I don’t know if it’s evidence of anything, but to find a news result in Chinese I actually had to go search Baidu this morning instead of Google, even though the subject is clearly on the minds of Google China searchers [highlighted search suggestion: 谷歌退出中国 = “Google withdraws from China”]:
Caution: while the neck-up pics are safe for work, the language really isn’t
In language, one generation’s mispronunciation becomes the next generation’s standard.
In the case of China, one generation’s mispronunciation, intentional or not, becomes the next generation’s mythical animal. A short history: Continue…
Per previous post that Google Buzz would soon be blocked in China…
On a serious note, here’s what legal blogger Don Cruse says about the state of Buzz privacy, making a different China connection:
So, a few days ago your email address book and list of recipients was private information. It would have been downright scandalous if someone had broken into Google and stolen it — even if just for a few dozen targeted accounts of Chinese dissidents. But today, Google has used that same information to seed a new social network that by default makes these links publicly searchable? Wow.
If you’re paranoid and pseudonymous online (hey, don’t point fingers) you should go immediately to his post to learn how hard Buzz makes it to keep your information private. Thumbs down for Google on this one.
On a completely cynical note: how long before someone argues that Buzz is Google’s compromise for staying in country: “We’ll just have everyone out their own circle of friends!”
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I don’t want it to be right but it probably is: ULN at chinayouren predicts Google Buzz will be harmonized and fast, the only question being how quickly.
Personally, I had to invoke my own personal Buzz firewall the first day the service appeared in my gmail. As I squandered precious brain time on update-after-amusing-update, I suddenly realized the Buzz Unread count was growing faster than I could read, let alone actually get other work done. So I turned it off — i.e. dug deep into gmail options and eliminated the Buzz category from my sidebar.
Still, I’d rather not see it blocked, since I agree that has ominous implications for gmail itself.
Language connection? Oh, that’s part of ULN’s predictions in Step 6 of the Google Buzz doom sequence:
More than 50% of the words on GBuzz worldwide are in mandarin characters, and about 10% of them are some form of 妈/逼 word construction (mother /cunt). Continue…
