Obeying International Governments

Everyone knows that media censorship varies across countries. China is one of the strongest countries when it comes to censorship. In addition to seemingly harmless media like Disney movies, China also greatly censors Google. It’s easy for other countries to ignore this censorship, as it doesn’t necessarily affect other countries. But it effects Google, which deals with all countries. 

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that China’s new license with Google requires that the search engine will no longer automatically redirect users to Hong Kong’s Google site, which is not censored. 

Zhang Feng, director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's Telecoms Development Department, discussed at a news conference the impact of this new license. 

“The rectification and reform in the annual application basically conforms to regulation,” Zhang said. 

When companies as influential as Google succumb to countries as strict as China, it has a significant impact on the way the world views censorship. At the same time, it would be wrong for Google to deny China its own search engine site simply because they don’t agree with the country’s regulations. We need to acknowledge other countries’ cultures and understand how our own rules and regulations may differ from others’. However, this strategy may become difficult when countries’ rules and regulations cross paths. When do we need to intervene when it comes to international governments? And when do we need to respect the political views of other countries?