Microsoft Corp has blamed human error after its search engine, Bing, blocked image and video results for the phrase “tank man” — a reference to the iconic image of a lone protester facing down tanks during the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square — on the 32nd anniversary of the military crackdown.
Users reported that no results were shown for the search query in countries including France, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland and the US, according to Reuters and Vice News.
References to the pro-democracy protest movement have long been censored in China, where the government maintains strict control over the Internet, but the censorship by Bing extended to users outside China’s “great firewall.”
Photo: AP
Microsoft said the issue was “due to an accidental human error and we are actively working to resolve this.”
Smaller search engines, such as DuckDuckGo, that license results from Microsoft faced similar issues around “tank man” searches and said they expected a fix soon.
Rival Google showed many results for the famous image when the “tank man” search was performed on Friday and yesterday.
The incident came amid China’s crackdown on Hong Kong, where it banned the Tiananmen Square anniversary vigil for the second year in a row, and growing concern over the extent to which China can exert economic pressure to enforce its censoriousness overseas.
Just last week, US actor John Cena made a public apology for referring to Taiwan as “a country,” an offense to China, which insists that Taiwan is not an independent state.
US-based tech companies have long struggled to balance their desire to operate in China’s enormous market with the censorship demands of the government.
Microsoft Bing is one of the few foreign search engines that are accessible in China, because the company has agreed to censor results for sensitive terms such as the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square or Falun Gong.
In 2016, the New York Times reported that Facebook was working on a secret tool that would allow a third party to censor the platform for Chinese users in exchange for Beijing allowing Facebook to operate within the country.
UKRAINE, NVIDIA: The US leader said the subject of Russia’s war had come up ‘very strongly,’ while Jenson Huang was hoping that the conversation was good Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump had differing takes following their meeting in Busan, South Korea, yesterday. Xi said that the two sides should complete follow-up work as soon as possible to deliver tangible results that would provide “peace of mind” to China, the US and the rest of the world, while Trump hailed the “great success” of the talks. The two discussed trade, including a deal to reduce tariffs slapped on China for its role in the fentanyl trade, as well as cooperation in ending the war in Ukraine, among other issues, but they did not mention
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,
GLOBAL PROJECT: Underseas cables ‘are the nervous system of democratic connectivity,’ which is under stress, Member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols said The government yesterday launched an initiative to promote global cooperation on improved security of undersea cables, following reported disruptions of such cables near Taiwan and around the world. The Management Initiative on International Undersea Cables aims to “bring together stakeholders, align standards, promote best practices and turn shared concerns into beneficial cooperation,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said at a seminar in Taipei. The project would be known as “RISK,” an acronym for risk mitigation, information sharing, systemic reform and knowledge building, he said at the seminar, titled “Taiwan-Europe Subsea Cable Security Cooperation Forum.” Taiwan sits at a vital junction on
LONG-HELD POSITION: Washington has repeatedly and clearly reiterated its support for Taiwan and its long-term policy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday said that Taiwan should not be concerned about being used as a bargaining chip in the ongoing US-China trade talks. “I don’t think you’re going to see some trade deal where, if what people are worried about is, we’re going to get some trade deal or we’re going to get favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan,” Rubio told reporters aboard his airplane traveling between Israel and Qatar en route to Asia. “No one is contemplating that,” Reuters quoted Rubio as saying. A US Treasury spokesman yesterday told reporters
RSS