Defiant China web users back Google

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BEIJING: Chinese Internet users flooded the web yesterday appealing for Google not to close down its operations in the country after the US giant’s ultimatum to Beijing over censorship and cyberattacks.1226

“It’s not Google that’s withdrawing from China, it’s China that’s withdrawing from the world,” one Internet user said on Twitter, a sentiment echoed in other tweets.

Google announced on Tuesday it would no longer censor search engine results in China and possibly pull out of the world’s largest online market, complaining about cyberattacks and censorship by the communist regime.

China-based cyber spies struck the Internet giant and reportedly more than 30 other firms in an apparent bid for computer source codes, intellectual property, and information about human rights activists around the world.

Chinese online users have been flooding Twitter even though the micro-blogging website is currently blocked by Beijing — evidence that savvy Web surfers can easily circumvent the “Great Firewall of China”.

The authorities in the world’s most populous nation regularly block content and websites they deems politially objectionable in a vast censorship system in a country with an estimated 360 million online users.

Social networking site Facebook and Google’s video-sharing system YouTube are also blocked.

“I’m strongly asking Google to stay, the government is really too overbearing” said one posting on Baidu.com, Google’s chief rival in China. “I’m not a worshipper of foreign things, and I deeply love my country, but the government cannot be too excessive!”

On Sina.com, another popular Chinese web portal, reaction was also strong.

“If Google disappears from China, how will intellectuals look for information?” said one online user.

Others, however, were more sceptical. — AFP