November 13, 2006

"[Uncensored] Search": on Censorship and Narrowcasting

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Speranza Nuova said:

As of this morning MrBrown, Tomorrow.SG and the Singapore Government are an unlikely threesome of bedfellows, having been left out of the "[Uncensored] Search". Dunno if the blogger will kena tight slap though...

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "An interesting look at a new search engine. Timely analysis, given that interest groups from Gahmen to Opposition are all trying to develop an Internet strategy in the era of the living blogosphere. Dunno if the blogger will kena tight slap though..."

Link

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Submitted by Anonymous Coward on November 13//2:41pm and published by shianux, Agagooga :: 9380 reads | trackback (2)
Comments 14

Speranza Nuova is simply pointing out that the name of the search engine is misleading. All it really does is limit your search to a couple of pre-selected sites instead of the whole internet. That is far from "uncensored".

Besides, it also shows that the creator(s) have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the S'pore Govt censors the internet. In Singapore's case, censorship is at the ISP level via proxy servers. So the type of search engine you use does not matter. What matters is whether you connect through one of the ISPs here.

Posted by strangeknight on 14 November, 2006 - 5:08pm

If anything is misleading, it is the post itself. People who can't differentiate between limitations and deliberate censorship will be misled.

I don't think an engine is censored just because it is limited, unless it is proven that the search engine deliberately leaves out (undesirable) websites. An untouched engine is uncensored. Size, in this case, does not matter.

Also, just because censorship is done at one level does not mean it cannot be done on another level.

Posted by Bored DOH Hero* on 14 November, 2006 - 5:19pm