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111-547: The Kenya Film Classification Board was established by the Films and Stage Plays Act of 1962 which came into force in 1963, mainly to regulate the creation, broadcasting, possession, distribution and exhibition of films by examining them for content, imposing age restrictions and giving consumer advice about various films. The Act gives the Board the power to approve or refuse to approve films and posters. The Act also states that approval

222-548: A Coca-Cola advertisement containing a passionate kissing scene on the grounds that it "violated family values". The Coca-Cola Company agreed to replace the advertisement. In June 2017, the KCFB ordered a ban on six cartoons airing on Cartoon Network Africa , Nickelodeon Africa and Nicktoons Africa for allegedly promoting LGBT themes to minors. The shows affected are the currently-running Cartoon Network shows Adventure Time , Clarence and Steven Universe , in addition to

333-509: A Pew Research Center and the Columbia Journalism Review survey, "About one-quarter of the local and national journalists say they have purposely avoided newsworthy stories, while nearly as many acknowledge they have softened the tone of stories to benefit the interests of their news organizations. Fully four-in-ten (41%) admit they have engaged in either or both of these practices." Threats to media freedom have shown

444-516: A public company via an initial public offering, listing the company on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol GOOG. At that time Page, Brin and Schmidt agreed to work together at Google for 20 years, until the year 2024. The company offered 19,605,052 shares at a price of $ 85 per share. Shares were sold in an online auction format using a system built by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse , underwriters for

555-517: A $ 250,000 investment. Google received money from two other angel investors in 1998: Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos , and entrepreneur Ram Shriram . Page and Brin had first approached Shriram, who was a venture capitalist, for funding and counsel, and Shriram invested $ 250,000 in Google in February 1998. Shriram knew Bezos because Amazon had acquired Junglee, at which Shriram was the president. It

666-403: A 'certificate of approval' along with its rating of 0 to 4. This scale indicates the 'impact' of the film: "low", "mild", "moderate" or "strong". This then corresponds to the general rating of the film: GE (general exhibition), PG (parental guidance recommended), 16 (not suitable for persons under the age of 16) and 18 (not suitable for persons under the age of 18). After the certificate of approval

777-522: A London's magistrate court in 2015 for being "indecent" and their copies had been removed from the online Tate gallery . A 1980 Israeli law forbade banned artwork composed of the four colours of the Palestinian flag , and Palestinians were arrested for displaying such artwork or even for carrying sliced melons with the same pattern. Moath al-Alwi is a Guantanamo Bay prisoner who creates model ships as an expression of art. Alwi does so with

888-497: A chief executive officer, which had been made verbally during investment negotiations. Eric was not initially enthusiastic about joining Google either, as the company's full potential had not yet been widely recognized at the time, and as he was occupied with his responsibilities at Novell where he was CEO. As part of him joining, Eric agreed to buy $ 1 million of Google preferred stocks as a way to show his commitment and to provide funds Google needed. On August 19, 2004, Google became

999-456: A citation to Li's earlier RankDex patent; Li later went on to create the Chinese search engine Baidu . Eventually, they changed the name to Google ; the name of the search engine was a misspelling of the word googol , a very large number written 10 (1 followed by 100 zeros), picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information. Google

1110-429: A greater risk of casualties among one's own forces and could possibly lead to loss of the overall conflict. During World War I letters written by British soldiers would have to go through censorship. This consisted of officers going through letters with a black marker and crossing out anything which might compromise operational secrecy before the letter was sent. The World War II catchphrase " Loose lips sink ships "

1221-462: A higher chance of collective action. It is not important whether the criticism is supportive or unsupportive of the states' leaders, the main priority of censoring certain social media posts is to make sure that no big actions are being made due to something that was said on the internet. Posts that challenge the Party's political leading role in the Chinese government are more likely to be censored due to

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1332-461: A larger percentage of control over the company to themselves. Larry and Sergey however insisted on taking investments from both. Both venture companies finally agreed to investing jointly $ 12.5 million each due to their belief in Google's great potential and through the mediation of earlier angel investors Ron Conway and Ram Shriram who had contacts in the venture companies. In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California , which

1443-481: A meeting with Page and Brin and his Granite co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. The meeting was set for 8 a.m. at the front porch of David's home in Palo Alto and it had to be brief because Andy had another meeting at Cisco, where he now worked after the acquisition, at 9 a.m. Andy briefly tested a demo of the website, liked what he saw, and then went back to his car to grab the check. David Cheriton later also joined in with

1554-428: A memo throughout the company that argued bias and " Google's Ideological Echo Chamber " clouded their thinking about diversity and inclusion, and that it is also biological factors, not discrimination alone, that cause the average woman to be less interested than men in technical positions. Google CEO Sundar Pichai accused Damore of violating company policy by "advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace", and he

1665-410: A monopoly on the market harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers. In 2022, Google began accepting requests for the removal of phone numbers, physical addresses and email addresses from its search results. It had previously accepted requests for removing confidential data only, such as Social Security numbers, bank account and credit card numbers, personal signatures, and medical records. Even with

1776-1093: A multitude of products and services beyond Google Search , many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email ( Gmail ), navigation and mapping ( Waze , Maps and Earth ), cloud computing ( Cloud ), web navigation ( Chrome ), video sharing ( YouTube ), productivity ( Workspace ), operating systems ( Android ), cloud storage ( Drive ), language translation ( Translate ), photo storage ( Photos ), videotelephony ( Meet ), smart home ( Nest ), smartphones ( Pixel ), wearable technology ( Pixel Watch and Fitbit ), music streaming ( YouTube Music ), video on demand ( YouTube TV ), AI ( Google Assistant and Gemini ), machine learning APIs ( TensorFlow ), AI chips ( TPU ), and more. Discontinued Google products include gaming ( Stadia ), Glass , Google+ , Reader , Play Music , Nexus , Hangouts , and Inbox by Gmail . Google's other ventures outside of internet services and consumer electronics include quantum computing ( Sycamore ), self-driving cars ( Waymo , formerly

1887-480: A research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California. The project initially involved an unofficial "third founder", Scott Hassan , the original lead programmer who wrote much of the code for the original Google Search engine, but he left before Google was officially founded as a company; Hassan went on to pursue a career in robotics and founded

1998-574: A service which searches the text found in books in its database and shows limited previews or and the full book where allowed. Google expanded its search services to include shopping (launched originally as Froogle in 2002), finance (launched 2006), and flights (launched 2011). Google generates most of its revenues from advertising. This includes sales of apps, purchases made in-app, digital content products on Google and YouTube, Android and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings. Forty-six percent of this profit

2109-558: A significant increase in Europe in recent years, according to a study published in April 2017 by the Council of Europe . This results in a fear of physical or psychological violence, and the ultimate result is self-censorship by journalists. Copy approval is the right to read and amend an article, usually an interview, before publication. Many publications refuse to give copy approval but it

2220-455: A study to determine what caused social media posts to be censored and found that posts mentioning the government were not more or less likely to be deleted if they were supportive or critical of the government. Posts mentioning collective action were more likely to be deleted than those that had not mentioned collective action. Currently, social media censorship appears primarily as a way to restrict Internet users' ability to organize protests. For

2331-1034: A third in December affecting the entire suite of Google applications. All three outages were resolved within hours. In 2021, the Alphabet Workers Union was founded, composed mostly of Google employees. In January 2021, the Australian Government proposed legislation that would require Google and Facebook to pay media companies for the right to use their content. In response, Google threatened to close off access to its search engine in Australia. In March 2021, Google reportedly paid $ 20 million for Ubisoft ports on Google Stadia. Google spent "tens of millions of dollars" on getting major publishers such as Ubisoft and Take-Two to bring some of their biggest games to Stadia. In April 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google ran

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2442-459: A years-long program called "Project Bernanke" that used data from past advertising bids to gain an advantage over competing for ad services. This was revealed in documents concerning the antitrust lawsuit filed by ten US states against Google in December. In September 2021, the Australian government announced plans to curb Google's capability to sell targeted ads, claiming that the company has

2553-480: Is also caused by market forces which privatize and establish commodification of certain information that is not accessible by the general public, primarily because of the cost associated with commodified information such as academic journals, industry reports and pay to use repositories. The concept was illustrated as a censorship pyramid that was conceptualized by primarily Julian Assange , along with Andy Müller-Maguhn , Jacob Appelbaum and Jérémie Zimmermann , in

2664-451: Is carried out with the intent of preventing the release of information that might be useful to an enemy. Typically it involves keeping times or locations secret, or delaying the release of information (e.g., an operational objective) until it is of no possible use to enemy forces. The moral issues here are often seen as somewhat different, as the proponents of this form of censorship argue that the release of tactical information usually presents

2775-807: Is extremely controversial, as in the case of the Holocaust (or Holocaust denial ), Bombing of Dresden , the Nanking Massacre as found with Japanese history textbook controversies , the Armenian genocide , the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 , and the Winter Soldier Investigation of the Vietnam War . In the context of secondary school education, the way facts and history are presented greatly influences

2886-432: Is home to several prominent Silicon Valley technology start-ups. The next year, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine. To maintain an uncluttered page design, advertisements were solely text-based. In June 2000, it was announced that Google would become the default search engine provider for Yahoo! , one of

2997-410: Is increasingly becoming common practice when dealing with publicity anxious celebrities. Picture approval is the right given to an individual to choose which photos will be published and which will not. Robert Redford is well known for insisting upon picture approval. Writer approval is when writers are chosen based on whether they will write flattering articles or not. Hollywood publicist Pat Kingsley

3108-922: Is issued, the classification officer records the name of the film, its country of origin, rating and the date of rating and publishes the information in the KFCB classification catalogue. The Board's other activities include licensing film distributors in the country by granting film regulatory licenses to the distributors, and checking for violation of the terms of the license, including "license expiry, sale of unrated movies, sale/showing of restricted movies and misuse of classification labels." [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Kenya Film Classification Board has banned several movies, videos and other content leading to concerns that it may be overstepping its boundaries The Board has been accused of imposing censorship in Kenya, notably when it termed

3219-436: Is known for banning certain writers who wrote undesirably about one of her clients from interviewing any of her other clients. Flooding the public, often through online social networks , with false or misleading information is sometimes called "reverse censorship". American legal scholar Tim Wu has explained that this type of information control, sometimes by state actors , can "distort or drown out disfavored speech through

3330-409: Is not for sale, exhibition or distribution in Kenya. Violators shall be prosecuted." Following the release of Kenyan film Stories of Our Lives depicting Kenya's LGBT community, the Board issued a ruling which effectively banned the film for "obscenity, explicit scenes of sexual activities and [for promoting] homosexuality, which is contrary to [Kenya's] national norms and values." The producers of

3441-561: Is not to be granted to films that, in the Board's opinion, "prejudice the maintenance of public order or offend decency, or... [are] undesirable in the public interest. In addition, the Kenya Information and Communications Amendment Act of 2013 gives the Board the mandate to monitor television stations in order to "ensure content meant for adult audiences is not aired during watershed period (5am – 10pm)." The Board primarily classifies and rates films by examining them and giving them

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3552-705: Is referred to as self-censorship . General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press , radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security , to control obscenity , pornography , and hate speech , to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel . Specific rules and regulations regarding censorship vary between legal jurisdictions and/or private organizations. In 399 BC, Greek philosopher, Socrates , while defying attempts by

3663-446: Is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can find it on websites hosted outside the country. Thus censors must work to prevent access to information even though they lack physical or legal control over the websites themselves. This in turn requires the use of technical censorship methods that are unique to the Internet, such as site blocking and content filtering. Furthermore,

3774-472: Is the still withdrawn " Censored Eleven " series of animated cartoons, which may have been innocent then, but are "incorrect" now. Film censorship is carried out by various countries. Film censorship is achieved by censoring the producer or restricting a state citizen. For example, in China the film industry censors LGBT-related films . Filmmakers must resort to finding funds from international investors such as

3885-576: Is what allowed them to open up their original shop in Menlo Park, California . Craig Silverstein , a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee. After some additional, small investments through the end of 1998 to early 1999, a new $ 25 million round of funding was announced on June 7, 1999, with major investors including the venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital . Both firms were initially reticent about investing jointly in Google, as each wanted to retain

3996-680: The Arab Spring uprisings , starting in 2010. In response to the use of social media in these protests, the Tunisian government began a hack of Tunisian citizens' Facebook accounts, and reports arose of accounts being deleted. Automated systems can be used to censor social media posts, and therefore limit what citizens can say online. This most notably occurs in China , where social media posts are automatically censored depending on content. In 2013, Harvard political science professor Gary King led

4107-578: The Cypherpunks (book) . Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse. This is done out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities or preferences (actual or perceived) of others and without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority. Self-censorship is often practiced by film producers , film directors , publishers , news anchors , journalists , musicians , and other kinds of authors including individuals who use social media . According to

4218-546: The Domain Name System (DNS) a critical component of the Internet is dominated by centralized and few entities. The most widely used DNS root is administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). As an administrator they have rights to shut down and seize domain names when they deem necessary to do so and at most times the direction is from governments. This has been

4329-526: The EU Court of Justice , based in Europe, would also find that Google held an illegal monopoly, in this case with regards to its shopping search, and could not avoid paying a €2.4 billion fine. The EU Court of Justice found that Google's treatment of rival shopping searches, which the court referred to as "discriminatory", was in violation of the Digital Markets Act . In October 2024, Google

4440-565: The Federal Bureau of Investigation on the Hunter Biden laptop controversy . On the platform TikTok, certain hashtags have been categorized by the platform's code and determines how viewers can or cannot interact with the content or hashtag specifically. Some shadowbanned tags include: #acab, #GayArab, #gej due to their referencing of certain social movements and LGBTQ identity. As TikTok guidelines are becoming more localized around

4551-628: The Google Self-Driving Car Project ), smart cities ( Sidewalk Labs ), and transformer models ( Google DeepMind ). Google Search and YouTube are the two most-visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). Google is also the largest search engine , mapping and navigation application , email provider , office suite , online video platform , photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system , web browser , machine learning framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in

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4662-410: The exposé , "How Google Protected Andy Rubin , the 'Father of Android'". The company subsequently announced that "48 employees have been fired over the last two years" for sexual misconduct. On November 1, 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees and contractors staged a global walk-out to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment complaints. CEO Sundar Pichai was reported to be in support of

4773-414: The "Ford Foundations" and or produce through an independent film company. Music censorship has been implemented by states, religions, educational systems, families, retailers and lobbying groups – and in most cases they violate international conventions of human rights. Censorship of maps is often employed for military purposes. For example, the technique was used in former East Germany , especially for

4884-602: The AI race, Google's senior management issued a "code red" and a "directive that all of its most important products—those with more than a billion users—must incorporate generative AI within months". In early May 2023, Google announced its plans to build two additional data centers in Ohio. These centers, which will be built in Columbus and Lancaster, will power up the company's tools, including AI technology. The said data hub will add to

4995-493: The Athenian state to censor his philosophical teachings, was accused of collateral charges related to the corruption of Athenian youth and sentenced to death by drinking a poison, hemlock . The details of Socrates's conviction are recorded by Plato as follows. In 399 BC, Socrates went on trial and was subsequently found guilty of both corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and of impiety ( asebeia , "not believing in

5106-404: The Chinese government, seeing citizens unhappy with local governance is beneficial as state and national leaders can replace unpopular officials. King and his researchers were able to predict when certain officials would be removed based on the number of unfavorable social media posts. Research has proved that criticism is tolerable on social media sites, therefore it is not censored unless it has

5217-408: The Google content network, through a cost-per-click scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website and earn money every time ads are clicked. One of the criticisms of this program is the possibility of click fraud , which occurs when a person or automated script clicks on advertisements without being interested in the product, causing

5328-620: The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) does not support these DNS root providers. Unless the censor has total control over all Internet-connected computers, such as in North Korea or Cuba , total censorship of information is very difficult or impossible to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the Internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Freenet ) protect free speech using technologies that guarantee material cannot be removed and prevents

5439-529: The Islamic figure Muhammad are also regularly censored. In some secular countries, this is sometimes done to prevent hurting religious sentiments. The content of school textbooks is often an issue of debate, since their target audiences are young people. The term whitewashing is commonly used to refer to revisionism aimed at glossing over difficult or questionable historical events, or a biased presentation thereof. The reporting of military atrocities in history

5550-575: The Japanese and PAL Versions of No More Heroes , blood splatter and gore is removed from the gameplay. Decapitation scenes are implied, but not shown. Scenes of missing body parts after having been cut off, are replaced with the same scene, but showing the body parts fully intact. Surveillance and censorship are different. Surveillance can be performed without censorship, but it is harder to engage in censorship without some form of surveillance. Even when surveillance does not lead directly to censorship,

5661-587: The advent of American streaming company Netflix into Kenya a "threat to national security" and a "threat to Kenyan moral values". The Board banned the American movie The Wolf of Wall Street , stating as its reasons the film's "extreme scenes of nudity, sex, debauchery, hedonism and cursing". On their Facebook page, the Board stated, "there is a limit to everything and we believe the Kenyan public deserves better. [Wolf of Wall Street] has been restricted. The film

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5772-524: The advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claimed that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were fraudulent or invalid. Google Search Console (rebranded from Google Webmaster Tools in May 2015) allows webmasters to check the sitemap, crawl rate, and for security issues of their websites, as well as optimize their website's visibility. Google had previously used virtual assistants and chatbots , such as Google Bard, prior to

5883-466: The already operational center near Columbus, bringing Google's total investment in Ohio to over $ 2 billion. In August 2024, Google would lose a lawsuit which started in 2020 in lower court, as it was found that the company had an illegal monopoly over Internet search. D.C. Circuit Court Judge Amit Mehta held that this monopoly was in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act . In September 2024,

5994-540: The already-ended Nickelodeon shows Hey Arnold! and The Legend of Korra , and the currently-running Nickelodeon cartoon The Loud House (These shows have not been banned, as Cartoon Network still shows these shows, but at night) In April 2018, the Kenya Film Classification Board banned a film Rafiki due to alleged homosexual themes depicted in its content. The ban was criticised for stifling Kenyans' creativity, particularly because

6105-399: The approval of the board, as well as any such advertisements from airing during the 'watershed period' of 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. The ban was extended to "advertisements and commercials that feature sexual innuendos and sexually suggestive scenes", as well as those that "glamorise lifestyles and behaviours such as homosexuality, promiscuity and juvenile delinquency". The KFCB used the rationale to ban

6216-501: The areas near the border to West Germany in order to make attempts of defection more difficult. Censorship of maps is also applied by Google Maps , where certain areas are grayed out or blacked or areas are purposely left outdated with old imagery. Art is loved and feared because of its evocative power. Destroying or oppressing art can potentially justify its meaning even more. British photographer and visual artist Graham Ovenden 's photos and paintings were ordered to be destroyed by

6327-451: The ban was a restriction on freedom of speech and "deeply worrying". In 2016, Kenyan music group Art Attack released a remix video of the song Same Love by American hip hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis depicting the life of LGBT persons in Kenya . They uploaded the video directly to YouTube and did not present it for rating by the KFCB. In response, the KFCB banned the video, citing that it "has graphic sexual scenes between people of

6438-536: The basis of the teachings of the religion . This form of censorship has a long history and is practiced in many societies and by many religions. Examples include the Galileo affair , Edict of Compiègne , the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (list of prohibited books) and the condemnation of Salman Rushdie 's novel The Satanic Verses by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini . Images of

6549-648: The case with Wikileaks shutdowns and name seizure events such as the ones executed by the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) managed by the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). This makes it easy for internet censorship by authorities as they have control over what should or should not be on the Internet. Some activists and researchers have started opting for alternative DNS roots , though

6660-669: The censors was punishable by law, even fatal. The Degenerate Art Exhibition was a historical instance of this, the goal of which was to advertise Nazi values and slander others. Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet . It may be carried out by governments or by private organizations either at the behest of the government or on their own initiative. Individuals and organizations may engage in self-censorship on their own or due to intimidation and fear. The issues associated with Internet censorship are similar to those for offline censorship of more traditional media. One difference

6771-567: The challenges it poses to the Chinese Communist Party. In December 2022 Elon Musk , owner and CEO of Twitter released internal documents from the social media microblogging site to journalists Matt Taibbi , Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss . The analysis of these files on Twitter, collectively called, the Twitter Files , explored the content moderation and visibility filtering carried out in collaboration with

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6882-497: The code to implement Page's ideas. Page and Brin would also use their friend Susan Wojcicki 's garage as their office when the search engine was set up in 1998. Page and Brin originally nicknamed the new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. Hassan as well as Alan Steremberg were cited by Page and Brin as being critical to the development of Google. Rajeev Motwani and Terry Winograd later co-authored with Page and Brin

6993-466: The company Willow Garage in 2006. While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, they theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites. They called this algorithm PageRank ; it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site. Page told his ideas to Hassan, who began writing

7104-455: The company was purchased for $ 400 million, yet the source of the information was not disclosed. A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the price. The purchase of DeepMind aids in Google's recent growth in the artificial intelligence and robotics community. In 2015, DeepMind's AlphaGo became the first computer program to defeat a top human pro at the game of Go. According to Interbrand's annual Best Global Brands report, Google has been

7215-445: The creation and dissemination of fake news , the payment of fake commentators, and the deployment of propaganda robots ." Soft, or indirect, censorship is the practice of influencing news coverage by applying financial pressure on media companies that are deemed critical of a government or its policies and rewarding media outlets and individual journalists who are seen as friendly to the government. Book censorship can be enacted at

7326-533: The deal. The sale of $ 1.67 billion gave Google a market capitalization of more than $ 23 billion. On November 13, 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $ 1.65 billion in Google stock, On July 20, 2007, Google bids $ 4.6 billion for the wireless-spectrum auction by the FCC. On March 11, 2008, Google acquired DoubleClick for $ 3.1 billion, transferring to Google valuable relationships that DoubleClick had with Web publishers and advertising agencies. By 2011, Google

7437-419: The development of micro-optics, monolithic integration, and system integration. In December 2022, Google debuted OSV-Scanner, a Go tool for finding security holes in open source software , which pulls from the largest open source vulnerability database of its kind to defend against supply chain attacks. In early 2023, following the success of ChatGPT and concerns that Google was falling behind in

7548-595: The development of the Internet and censorship technologies: A BBC World Service poll of 27,973 adults in 26 countries, including 14,306 Internet users, was conducted between 30 November 2009 and 7 February 2010. The head of the polling organization felt, overall, that the poll showed that: The poll found that nearly four in five (78%) Internet users felt that the Internet had brought them greater freedom, that most Internet users (53%) felt that "the internet should never be regulated by any level of government anywhere", and almost four in five Internet users and non-users around

7659-518: The few tools he has at his disposal such as dental floss and shampoo bottles, and he is also allowed to use a small pair of scissors with rounded edges. A few of Alwi's pieces are on display at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. There are also other artworks on display at the College that were created by other inmates. The artwork that is being displayed might be the only way for some of

7770-408: The film subsequently criticised the Board, stating, "We made this film to [have an] open dialogue about identities, what it means to be Kenyan and what it means to be different. By placing a restriction on this film, the Board has chosen to delay this inevitable conversation." The producers further asked how "exactly...restricting a film, thus stifling a necessary conversation about society, safeguard[s]

7881-598: The film was notable for having been the first Kenyan film to be selected to air at the Cannes Film Festival . Censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech , public communication, or other information . This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments , private institutions. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it

7992-501: The first country to abolish censorship by law . Censorship has been criticized throughout history for being unfair and hindering progress. In a 1997 essay on Internet censorship, social commentator Michael Landier explains that censorship is counterproductive as it prevents the censored topic from being discussed. Landier expands his argument by claiming that those who impose censorship must consider what they censor to be true, as individuals believing themselves to be correct would welcome

8103-451: The first paper about the project, describing PageRank and the initial prototype of the Google search engine, published in 1998. Héctor García-Molina and Jeffrey Ullman were also cited as contributors to the project. PageRank was influenced by a similar page-ranking and site-scoring algorithm earlier used for RankDex , developed by Robin Li in 1996, with Larry Page's PageRank patent including

8214-440: The gods of the state"), and as a punishment sentenced to death, caused by the drinking of a mixture containing hemlock. Socrates' student, Plato , is said to have advocated censorship in his essay on The Republic , which opposed the existence of democracy. In contrast to Plato, Greek playwright Euripides (480–406 BC) defended the true liberty of freeborn men, including the right to speak freely. In 1766, Sweden became

8325-476: The grounds the company had abused a monopoly position in the search and search advertising markets. In December 2019, former PayPal chief operating officer Bill Ready became Google's new commerce chief. Ready's role will not be directly involved with Google Pay . In April 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic , Google announced several cost-cutting measures. Such measures included slowing down hiring for

8436-462: The identification of authors. Technologically savvy users can often find ways to access blocked content . Nevertheless, blocking remains an effective means of limiting access to sensitive information for most users when censors, such as those in China , are able to devote significant resources to building and maintaining a comprehensive censorship system. Views about the feasibility and effectiveness of Internet censorship have evolved in parallel with

8547-741: The information they desire through the use of keywords and operators . According to comScore market research from November 2009, Google Search is the dominant search engine in the United States market, with a market share of 65.6%. In May 2017, Google enabled a new "Personal" tab in Google Search, letting users search for content in their Google accounts' various services, including email messages from Gmail and photos from Google Photos. Google launched its Google News service in 2002, an automated service which summarizes news articles from various websites. Google also hosts Google Books ,

8658-625: The inmates to communicate with the outside. Recently things have changed though. The military has come up with a new policy that will not allow the artwork at Guantanamo Bay Military Prison to leave the prison. The artwork created by Alwi and other prisoners is now government property and can be destroyed or disposed of in whatever way the government choose, making it no longer the artist's property. Around 300 artists in Cuba are fighting for their artistic freedom due to new censorship rules Cuba's government has in place for artists. In December 2018, following

8769-486: The interpretation of contemporary thought, opinion and socialization. One argument for censoring the type of information disseminated is based on the inappropriate quality of such material for the younger public. The use of the "inappropriate" distinction is in itself controversial, as it changed heavily. A Ballantine Books version of the book Fahrenheit 451 which is the version used by most school classes contained approximately 75 separate edits, omissions, and changes from

8880-473: The introduction of new rules that would ban music performances and artwork not authorized by the state, performance artist Tania Bruguera was detained upon arriving to Havana and released after four days. An example of extreme state censorship was the Nazis' requirements of using art as propaganda. Art was only allowed to be used as a political instrument to control people and failure to act in accordance with

8991-481: The launch of a new company, called Calico , on September 19, 2013, to be led by Apple Inc. chairman Arthur Levinson . In the official public statement, Page explained that the "health and well-being" company would focus on "the challenge of ageing and associated diseases". On January 26, 2014, Google announced it had agreed to acquire DeepMind Technologies , a privately held artificial intelligence company from London . Technology news website Recode reported that

9102-573: The most popular websites at the time, replacing Inktomi . In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased an office complex from Silicon Graphics , at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California . The complex became known as the Googleplex , a play on the word googolplex , the number one followed by a googol of zeroes. Three years later, Google bought the property from SGI for $ 319 million. By that time,

9213-666: The name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb " google " to be added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary , denoted as: "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet". The first use of the verb on television appeared in an October 2002 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer . Additionally, in 2001 Google's investors felt

9324-542: The national or sub-national level, and can carry legal penalties for their infraction. Books may also be challenged at a local, community level. As a result, books can be removed from schools or libraries, although these bans do not typically extend outside of that area. Aside from the usual justifications of pornography and obscenity , some films are censored due to changing racial attitudes or political correctness in order to avoid ethnic stereotyping and/or ethnic offense despite its historical or artistic value. One example

9435-402: The national values and norms" and commented that the ban had increased awareness on the film, leading Kenyans to demand that they see the film. The Board also banned American film Fifty Shades of Grey based on the novel of the same name citing as its reasons "prolonged and explicit sexual scenes depicting women as sexual slaves." The ban attracted protests by Kenyan activists, who said that

9546-538: The need to have a strong internal management, and they agreed to hire Eric Schmidt as the chairman and CEO of Google. Eric was proposed by John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins. He had been trying to find a CEO that Sergey and Larry would accept for several months, but they rejected several candidates because they wanted to retain control over the company. Michael Moritz from Sequoia Capital at one point even menaced requesting Google to immediately pay back Sequoia's $ 12.5m investment if they did not fulfill their promise to hire

9657-429: The new policy, Google may remove information from only certain but not all search queries. It would not remove content that is "broadly useful", such as news articles, or already part of the public record. In May 2022, Google announced that the company had acquired California based, MicroLED display technology development and manufacturing Start-up Raxium. Raxium is set to join Google's Devices and Services team to aid in

9768-424: The opportunity to disprove those with opposing views. Censorship is often used to impose moral values on society, as in the censorship of material considered obscene. English novelist E. M. Forster was a staunch opponent of censoring material on the grounds that it was obscene or immoral, raising the issue of moral subjectivity and the constant changing of moral values. When the 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover

9879-516: The original Bradbury manuscript. In February 2006, a National Geographic cover was censored by the Nashravaran Journalistic Institute . The offending cover was about the subject of love and a picture of an embracing couple was hidden beneath a white sticker. Economic induced censorship is a type of censorship enacted by economic markets to favor, and disregard, types of information. Economic induced censorship

9990-578: The protests. Later in 2019, some workers accused the company of retaliating against internal activists. On March 19, 2019, Google announced that it would enter the video game market, launching a cloud gaming platform called Google Stadia . On June 3, 2019, the United States Department of Justice reported that it would investigate Google for antitrust violations. This led to the filing of an antitrust lawsuit in October 2020, on

10101-426: The public mind is seen as one of the central themes of Stalinism and totalitarianism . Censorship is occasionally carried out to aid authorities or to protect an individual, as with some kidnappings when attention and media coverage of the victim can sometimes be seen as unhelpful. Censorship by religion is a form of censorship where freedom of expression is controlled or limited using religious authority or on

10212-609: The region's specific needs and training local talent. The partnership between Google and Saudi Arabia includes collaboration with key stakeholders, such as the Public Investment Fund (PIF), to develop AI applications that will benefit sectors like healthcare, finance, oil and gas, and logistics. The initiative focuses on creating localized AI technologies, with an emphasis on integrating Arabic language capabilities and enabling widespread cloud adoption. Google indexes billions of web pages to allow users to search for

10323-689: The remainder of 2020, except for a small number of strategic areas, recalibrating the focus and pace of investments in areas like data centers and machines, and non-business essential marketing and travel. Most employees were also working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of it even led to Google announcing that they would be permanently converting some of their jobs to work from home The 2020 Google services outages disrupted Google services: one in August that affected Google Drive among others, another in November affecting YouTube , and

10434-446: The same gender as well as depiction of nudity and pornography" and requested that Google take it down from YouTube. However, Google Kenya refused to take it down, saying that they did not have the authority to remove the video. Google's office in Mountain View, California also refused to take down the video but flagged it, deeming it as "potentially inappropriate". KFCB also banned beer and contraceptive advertisements that do not have

10545-461: The search context and the user history. In 2007, Google launched " AdSense for Mobile ", taking advantage of the emerging mobile advertising market. Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page. Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google Ads allows advertisers to display their advertisements in

10656-565: The second most valuable brand in the world (behind Apple Inc.) in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, with a valuation of $ 133 billion. On August 10, 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate named Alphabet Inc. Google became Alphabet's largest subsidiary and the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructuring, Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who became CEO of Alphabet. On August 8, 2017, Google fired employee James Damore after he distributed

10767-596: The widespread knowledge or belief that a person, their computer, or their use of the Internet is under surveillance can have a " chilling effect " and lead to self-censorship. Google Google LLC ( / ˈ ɡ uː ɡ əl / GOO -gəl ) is an American-based multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising , search engine technology, cloud computing , computer software , quantum computing , e-commerce , consumer electronics , and artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in

10878-540: The world as measured by market share. On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes and fourth by Interbrand. It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns , tax avoidance , censorship , search neutrality , antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position. On August 5, 2024, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly over Internet search. Google began in January 1996 as

10989-408: The world felt that access to the Internet was a fundamental right (50% strongly agreed, 29% somewhat agreed, 9% somewhat disagreed, 6% strongly disagreed, and 6% gave no opinion). The rising use of social media in many nations has led to the emergence of citizens organizing protests through social media, sometimes called " Twitter Revolutions ". The most notable of these social media-led protests were

11100-759: The world" and is one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance , data collection , and technological advantages in the field of AI. Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc. , is one of the five Big Tech companies, alongside Amazon , Apple , Meta , and Microsoft . Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California . Together, they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of its stockholder voting power through super-voting stock . The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google

11211-533: The world, some experts believe that this could result in more censorship than before. Since the early 1980s, advocates of video games have emphasized their use as an expressive medium , arguing for their protection under the laws governing freedom of speech and also as an educational tool. Detractors argue that video games are harmful and therefore should be subject to legislative oversight and restrictions . Many video games have certain elements removed or edited due to regional rating standards . For example, in

11322-542: Was put on trial in 1960 , Forster wrote: Lady Chatterley's Lover is a literary work of importance...I do not think that it could be held obscene, but am in a difficulty here, for the reason that I have never been able to follow the legal definition of obscenity. The law tells me that obscenity may deprave and corrupt, but as far as I know, it offers no definition of depravity or corruption. Proponents have sought to justify it using different rationales for various types of information censored: In wartime, explicit censorship

11433-543: Was Shriram who told Bezos about Google. Bezos asked Shriram to meet Google's founders and they met six months after Shriram had made his investment when Bezos and his wife were on a vacation trip to the Bay Area. Google's initial funding round had already formally closed but Bezos' status as CEO of Amazon was enough to persuade Page and Brin to extend the round and accept his investment. Between these initial investors, friends, and family Google raised around $ 1,000,000, which

11544-569: Was fined by Russia with 2.5 decillion dollars for allegedly blocking pro-Kremlin propaganda. In November 2024, Google announced the establishment of a new artificial intelligence (AI) hub in Saudi Arabia, aiming to support the Kingdom's economic growth and technological development as part of its Vision 2030 initiative. This AI hub is projected to contribute up to $ 71 billion to Saudi Arabia's economy by advancing AI-driven solutions tailored to

11655-422: Was fired on the same day. Between 2018 and 2019, tensions between the company's leadership and its workers escalated as staff protested company decisions on internal sexual harassment, Dragonfly , a censored Chinese search engine, and Project Maven , a military drone artificial intelligence, which had been seen as areas of revenue growth for the company. On October 25, 2018, The New York Times published

11766-409: Was from clicks (cost per clicks), amounting to US$ 109,652 million in 2017. This includes three principal methods, namely AdMob , AdSense (such as AdSense for Content, AdSense for Search, etc.) and DoubleClick AdExchange. In addition to its own algorithms for understanding search requests, Google uses technology from its acquisition of DoubleClick , to project user interest and target advertising to

11877-489: Was handling approximately 3 billion searches per day. To handle this workload, Google built 11 data centers around the world with several thousand servers in each. These data centers allowed Google to handle the ever-changing workload more efficiently. In May 2011, the number of monthly unique visitors to Google surpassed one billion for the first time. In May 2012, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $ 12.5 billion, in its largest acquisition to date. This purchase

11988-540: Was initially funded by an August 1998 investment of $ 100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim , co-founder of Sun Microsystems . This initial investment served as a motivation to incorporate the company to be able to use the funds. Page and Brin initially approached David Cheriton for advice because he had a nearby office in Stanford, and they knew he had startup experience, having recently sold the company he co-founded, Granite Systems, to Cisco for $ 220 million. David arranged

12099-629: Was made in part to help Google gain Motorola's considerable patent portfolio on mobile phones and wireless technologies, to help protect Google in its ongoing patent disputes with other companies, mainly Apple and Microsoft , and to allow it to continue to freely offer Android. In June 2013, Google acquired Waze for $ 966 million. While Waze would remain an independent entity, its social features, such as its crowdsourced location platform, were reportedly valuable integrations between Waze and Google Maps , Google's own mapping service. Google announced

12210-459: Was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet's internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet. The company has since rapidly grown to offer

12321-524: Was used as a common justification to exercise official wartime censorship and encourage individual restraint when sharing potentially sensitive information. An example of " sanitization " policies comes from the USSR under Joseph Stalin , where publicly used photographs were often altered to remove people whom Stalin had condemned to execution. Though past photographs may have been remembered or kept, this deliberate and systematic alteration to all of history in

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