Book Censorship in the US

           Book censorship is not a major issue in the United States today as it was in the past. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees freedoms of speech and press. However, obscenity and defamation are restricted in major media outlets by the government. The content of books is regulated by publishers, which generally have more liberal restrictions.

           There are some entities in the United States that want to censor children’s books because of their somewhat controversial content. Some conservative Christian groups want to ban Harry Potter because of its positive portrayal of witchcraft and wizardry. Other groups have more legitimate objections to the obscene or profane contents of other books. Google Book Search gives children access to almost every book imaginable, which makes it harder for parents to regulate what their children read. However, the majority of books on Google Book Search either have a limited preview or no preview at all.

           Google does not censor the books that are scanned or refuse to scan a book because of its contents. It might not scan a book because of copyright issues, or the book could be too difficult to scan. It is not in Google’s best interest to censor the material on Google Book Search. Google is inherently in the business of disseminating information, not limiting it.

Censorship in China           

            China is notorious for its pervasive censorship of books and the internet. The Chinese Constitution allows for freedom of speech and press, but it dictates that the people must defend “the security, honor, and interests of the motherland.” The government tightly regulates information that is published in books and online. Anyone who publishes anything inflammatory or deemed dangerous to state security can be prosecuted.

           Google has offered a version of its site in Chinese for several years, but it was frustrated with the blocks that the government placed on the site. Those blocks made the site very slow or even inaccessible. In 2006, Google launched a new site, Google.cn, which Google has censored itself in order to appease the authorities in Beijing. Censorship is intrinsically against Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto. However, it would be more damaging to pull out of China than to just censor a fraction of the information. A statement from Google said, “While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission.”

           China’s Google restricts access to sensitive terms and web sites, such as Taiwanese independence, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and the exiled Dalai Lama. A search for the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement results in a string of condemnatory articles. Google notifies its users that access to those sites has been restricted though.

           The tight internet regulations imposed by the government inherently affected Google’s approach to their book search in China. In July 2006, Google Book Search made a deal with four publishing houses in China instead of working with libraries as it has done in the United States. Google is trying to avoid intellectual property lawsuits by working with the publishers, since libraries would actually give them access to much more books. The Chinese version of Google Book Search only includes works from Mainland China, which are approved by the Chinese government. This will undoubtedly affect the robustness of China's Google Books collection. This raises the question of whether Google Book Search should comply with the government's censorship policies or whether it should make knowledge widely available to everyone. In the end, the availability of some information is definitively better than no information at all.