Bing Censoring Chinese Search Results? Should There Be A Bing Boycott?

Boycott Microsoft Bing by Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times claims Microsoft is “sacrificing the integrity of Bing searches so as to cozy up to State Security in Beijing.” It is believes that Microsoft is censoring their search results to appease the Chinese government.

Microsoft responded to this criticism with their blog post named committed to comprehensive results. Microsoft said they fixed a bug over the summer and discovered a new bug over the weekend with image search and using Simplified Chinese characters outside of the PRC. Microsoft said the “bug” will be fixed before the Thanksgiving holiday, which is this coming Thursday.

Kristof from the New York Time doesn’t seem to believe Microsoft and says he is “very skeptical” that this “bug” will be fixed properly. Kristof has shared dated screen captures of the queries that generated “bugs” or censored results.

Censorship, search engines and China have a long history. China, Censorship & Google Redux from Greg is likely one of the more recent write ups we have on the topic.