Call it an act of rebellion. Call it sweet justice. Call it a big F-U to China. Google is poised to dish out a little payback starting January 20th when it censors the words China and Chinese from its search engine. Such extreme action is coming on the heels of what Google insiders have dubbed a sophisticated attack on its search engine by the Chinese government. As a result, after Wednesday no one globally will be able to find China anywhere. It will be as if the country, along with its over 1 billion inhabitants, does not exist.
"I would be perfectly happy if people forgot China was a country," said Google co-founder Larry Page. "We plan on removing China from Google Maps entirely. It just won't be there. I'm serious, not there, not anywhere. I am so shit of their shit. They are not the only ones who can censor stuff!"
This is the first in a series of planned actions against the communist country known for both its inexpensive cuisine as well as its human rights violations (presumably separate issues). A second phase is planned for the early Spring and will see the personal information of all government officials sent to human rights activists. Names and addresses will also be forwarded to the hundreds of thousands who have been geographically displaced over the years by government planned infrastructure projects. Later phases have yet to be announced, but local speculation suggests that Google may flood the cell phones of Chinese officials with up to 200 million fake text messages a day. An insider not authorized to speak with the media has indicated that the following subject lines for the texts are being proposed:
1) America, F-yeah!
2) Is this Mr. Lee's phone?
3) Order #521 for General Tso's Chicken Confirmation
As an extra up-yours to the Chinese government, any users searching for China will be routed to the official tourism pages of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Tibet. This move is generating some concern from local businesses that traffic to their sites will be impacted. Although a valid concern, Google is taking precautions so that only oppressive Communist regimes will bear the brunt of their cyber tactics. Google also has a fully staffed client reposnse unit ready and waiting to respond to inadvertant situations as they initially arise.
Ultimately, only time will tell if Google's new plan to conquer China will work. It is difficult to imagine China completely disappearing from the global consciousness. However, starting tomorrow Google will do its best to redraw the map.
