this isn’t black and white google is censored and yandex isn’t. they both censor in different ways. try the same searches on both you will see different results. i use yandex for some searches they are better at
It reminds me of a firewall joke, you use an American firewall to protect against the Russian backdoors, then a Russian firewall to protect against the American backdoors, and so on.
that's because different countries have rules about what things can be shown with commercial satellite imagery. Canada for example has a way longer list than the USA does if that surprises you (potentially to avoid foreign conflict) which includes the max resolution and sale of imagery of taiwan, spratly islands, conflict zones in the middle east and more.
I suppose you don't call removal of LGBTP+ elements from the media released in Russia/China/MENA "censorship" either, just private companies exercising their rights, right?
> I suppose you don't call removal of LGBTP+ elements from the media released in Russia/China/MENA "censorship" either, just private companies exercising their rights, right?
I would call it censorship. But in those examples you listed, I would attribute it to the government and not the company. Because by removing those elements, they are not "exercising their rights to do so", they are "complying with local laws and regulations by doing so".
For a specific example: in Russia, "propaganda of homosexualty" (which includes something as trivial as explicitly acknowledging that one of the main characters is attracted to a person, or people in general, of the same sex) is against the law and is heavily punished.
So in reality, those companies only have two options: sell their product with those elements removed for that specific market or become unable to legally sell their product in that market at all.
Is it censorship? I would argue "yes", but I wouldn't say that the censorship is done by the company. If that action was required in order to be in compliance with local laws and regulations, I would call it for what it actually is - government censorship. After all, they are the ones making those laws and regulations that decide what is allowed and what needs to be removed.
Google can censor. Censorship is necessarily performed by an entity with the power to restrict information conveyance, but it is not necessary for them to be a government.
It is true that it is impossible for Google to violate the 1st Amendment (unless they were nationalized first).
And how exactly is Google prohibited from censoring? By definition?
They're a private company. They can do whatever they want within the limits of the law. And the law doesn't say anything about not publishing something. Which can be done for purposes of censorship.
>And how exactly is Google prohibited from censoring? By definition?
They're not a publisher. You have zero ability to post anything to Google, so there is nobody to be censored. They're an aggregator, and any aggregator can display whatever information they want.