Microsoft’s search engine Bing returns very different results depending on the language chosen. Topics that are under the censorship of the government in China are also omitted in the Chinese version of Bing when outside of China is used.
The news was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian on the basis of research by censuurblog GreatFire. That research shows that Bing is not only in China complies with the requirements of the Chinese government as censorship is concerned. When in China, Bing is used, the user receives another notification that the results are filtered. As elsewhere the Chinese Bing used, that does not happen.
Even though a user in, for example, the US, and even then it search results for terms such as, for example, ‘Dalai Lama’ very different, depending on whether there is in the Chinese or any other language is sought. In Chinese, the top results from a items about a documentary from the Chinese state television, followed by pages of China’s censored version of Wikipedia, Baidu Baike. A search on the English-language Bing produces the official site of the Dalai Lama and his Wikipedia page. Google does regardless of language and location the same, uncensored search results.
Microsoft denies the case. “Due to an error in our system were incorrect notifications to delete for some search, but the results outside of China are and were not adjusted,” says Stefan Weitz, senior executive from Microsoft told Reuters.