Bing blocks adult content searches in Middle East
The Open Net Initiative (ONI) have recently revealed that Microsoft’s much talked-about new search engine Bing is more restrictive than government censors when it comes to online searches for sex-related or explicit content.
Researchers at ONI claimed that a test had been run in January 2010, running queries related to sex, nudity, homosexual or transgender material through a Middle Eastern version of the Bing search engine. The results showed that this country/region specific version automatically filtered out adult content in search results. Users in Arab countries would receive this message:
“Your country or region requires a strict Bing SafeSearch setting, which filters out results that might return adult content,”
The problem with this is that although some Middle Eastern countries employ censorship due to stringent religious restrictions, not all of these nations mandate it. By automatically filtering out explicit content through Bing, many believe Microsoft is threatening freedom of expression. The conductors of the study, ONI, believe Bing’s filtering standards are inconsistent with the ‘freedom of speech’ image the Microsoft Corporation has always worked so hard to promote for their projects and overall company ethos.
Not surprised on this one. I still remember the first time I played with Bing on its first day of launch and was surprised to see huge amounts of porn videos on their video previews.
I wonder what else gets filtered from Bing in the vertical search results.