back to article Microsoft denies reports of scrubbing Chinese-language Bing searches

Microsoft's Bing search engine is returning suspiciously pro-state results for Chinese-language searches even when those searches come from outside of China, activists claim. The Guardian noted that a number of Chinese-language activist blogs are reporting that the results they have been seeing on Bing searches from within the …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lying liars at M$oft selling out to Chinese govt

    What did they get out of it??

    1. Charles Manning

      Put away the tinfoil

      More likely Hanlon's Razor applies:

      "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

      If you're going to think this is deliberately done for some payment then you'd have to ask yourself what Google/Apple gave them to screw up TIFKAM so badly.

      1. Old Handle

        Re: Put away the tinfoil

        I don't think that's a fair comparison. One is building a house with no supports so it falls down. The other is building a house with no supports on one side so it falls over and crushes your neighbor's house.

        Sure either one could be pure stupidity, but one is more suspicious than the other.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    not necessarily deliberate

    It seems to me they're being a little bit quick to jump on Microsoft for this.

    I imagine the quantity and nature of material on the Dalia Lama and other issues in both English and Chinese is significantly different. So it seems more likely to me that the search engine is just basing its results on what it finds in each language. Considering that most Chinese content will come from China, and will obviously be heavily censored, a search engine is probably going to give the Dalai Lama less prominence if relying purely on what it finds in Chinese.

    Similarly, I would imagine a search for EastEnders is unlikely to produce the same quantity and prominence of results in Chinese as it would produce in English.

    1. Queasy Rider

      Re: not necessarily deliberate

      Did you not read the article? Google searches don't return such language specific biased results, but Microsoft's Bing does. By identifying myself as a downvoter, I'm probably opening myself up to future retaliatory votes, but hey, have a good day. One downvote for you cap'n.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: not necessarily deliberate

        "Google searches don't return such language specific biased results, but Microsoft's Bing does."

        So, you're saying that bing is more advanced than Google? If I search in English, I want English biased results, if I search in French I want French biased results. I would have thought that Google had got that one dealt with and monetised by now.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: not necessarily deliberate

      Um... the whole point is that some searches IN CHINESE are being censored OUTSIDE CHINA. That said, I agree that the most likely explanation is a back-end screw-up.

  3. Mikel

    Oh sure

    Honest mistake. Anybody could a done it. We believe you. Honest. Go on, back about your business. Don't you have some Scroogled ads to work on?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like