Yellow Journalism: New York Times Calls for Bing Boycott Over Chinese Results

November 25, 2009 by admin
Filed under Search Engines

Nicholas Kristof took to the pages of the New York Times to call for a boycott of Bing. Yes, Kristoff is attempting to create the news instead of just cover it, and yes, that goes against the fundamentals covered in any Journalism 101 class.

Kristof claims that Bing is cozying up to China and serving up censored results. Kristof even admits that Google is serving up some censored results, but only calls for the Bing boycott.

Bing admitted that it still has some “bugs” when it comes to results in Simplified Chinese characters.

Listen, it’s not easy doing the search business in China. The country is constantly banning internet properties and overreacting to content it feels threatened by. The challenges are many, and there’s no perfect answer. I suspect all search engines will have to constantly examine how their results will play in China, especially as the political landscape changes.

Many outside factors aren’t exactly helping U.S. companies, as humorously depicted in a Saturday Night Live sketch this past weekend (NSFW).