Google--good at search, bad at censorship

I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news, so I'll just fill you in and let you decide:

There has been a lot of hubbub recently over Google's creation of a self-censored search option(www.google.cn) for tightly restricted China, such as here.

Curious to see how this censorship would work in practice, I chose a suggested topic of controversy, "Falun Gong" and headed over to check it out. My first result was:

Falun Dafa & Falun Gong - [ 翻译此页 BETA ]
Falun Dafa and Falun Gong: what they are and why the Chinese government is terrified of them.
www.religioustolerance.org/falungong.htm - 14k - 网页快照 - 类似网页

hmmmm. Personally, I might have censored that. Clicking on the page I quickly found tidbits like these:

"The movement has experienced horrendous levels of persecution in China."

and

"The Chinese government has relentlessly suppressed religious groups since achieving power in 1949. The rest of the world is most familiar with its oppression of non-registered Christian groups. However, the government has also persecuted many types of new religious and spiritual groups, including the Falun Gong. In fact, its suppression extends beyond such groups to include organizations that teach only simple meditation and gymnastic techniques. The government appears to fear any national group that is capable of organizing its followers into direct action"

hmmmm. Again, I might have censored that.


I guess Google just needs a little more practice at not giving you the information you're looking for.