In 2020, following the enactment of a national security law in Hong Kong that gave local authorities greatly expanded surveillance powers, Google said it wouldn’t directly respond to data requests from the Hong Kong law enforcement and instead would have them go through a mutual legal assistance treaty with the U.S.Īssuming it’s not a technical issue, the disabling of Google Translate in much of the mainland could be related to the upcoming National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which takes place October 16. But after state-sponsored hacks and government-ordered blocks on Google services in response to YouTube footage showing Chinese security forces beating Tibetans, Google shut down Google Search in the mainland and briefly rerouted searches through its uncensored Hong Kong domain. In 2006, the company entered the Chinese market with a version of its search engine that was subject to government censorship rules.
Google has a long and complicated relationship with the Chinese government. Google hasn’t responded to a request for comment we’ll update this piece if we hear back. The change is reportedly impacting the translation features of apps like KOReader, a document viewer, for China-based users, as well as Chrome’s built-in translation functionality. According to users on Reddit and site archives viewed by TechCrunch, Google swapped the Google Translate interface at with a generic Google Search page at some point within the last 24 hours. Google appears to have disabled access to Google Translate in parts of China, redirecting visitors to the Hong Kong domain - which isn’t accessible from the mainland.
Update September 30, 2022, 6:48 PM ET: A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch via email that the company has discontinued Google Translate in mainland China “due to low usage.” Perhaps there were ulterior motives, but it’s likely there’s some truth to the statement - in China, Google services usage is a sliver of that of homegrown tech giants like Baidu and Alibaba.
0 kommentar(er)
