If you use Bing, you may find it difficult to search for people who are considered politically sensitive in China, even if you are in the United States. The Citizen Lab, a research lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School, analyzed Bing’s autosuggestion system and found that names of Chinese party leaders and dissidents don’t automatically appear as they usually do when you start typing. They are apparently the second largest category of names censored by autosuggest, alongside names associated with pornography and eroticism.
The lab found that the censorship applies to names typed in Chinese characters and in English letters. In addition, it affects not only Bing but also Windows Start menu search and DuckDuckGo, which uses Bing’s autosuggestion system. Perhaps more importantly, it applies to several regions of the world, including China, the US, and Canada. Some of the most prominent examples of names Microsoft does not autocomplete include President Xi Jinping, human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, and the Tankman, the nickname for the unidentified Chinese man who famously stood in front of the tanks exiting Tiananmen Square.
Last year, Microsoft was given flak after reports emerged that it was blocking searches for Tank Man in countries such as the US, France and Singapore. Microsoft attributed it to “accidental human error” when addressing the issue. Jeffrey Knockel, senior research associate at Citizen Lab, called censorship rules spilling over from one part of the world to another a “danger” when Internet platforms have users around the world, The Wall Street Journal reports. He added: “If Microsoft had never been involved in Chinese censorship operations in the first place, it would be impossible for them to move to other regions.”
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