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Comment by dangrossman | Hacker News Reader

Online gambling is, at least to some degree, illegal in the US

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_gambling

So are certain types of porn and anti-government websites.

The sites may be illegal, but are not blocked. There are plenty of people who still gamble online from the US through off-shore accounts and using off-shore websites.

Yes, online gabling is mostly illegal, thus my "minor exceptions".

But all types of porn except child porn are allowed as far as I know. Definitely all types of anti-government websites are allowed. The first amendment confers very strong protection on free speech.

This Chinese news release is trying to mislead. I think the average Chinese citizen would be shocked to learn the level of freedom of expression and access to information in the US.

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I think that free speech is a basic human right, not an American cultural value.

The Chinese government is trying to evoke feelings of xenophobia and fear of cultural imperialism to justify its control of information and muzzling of criticism. In this case, it is a total feint to redirect attention away from a core issue: that an uncensored Google lets you find anything, including "objectionable" information. That's not an American idea. The ability to search for information is a core human right.

The Chinese people always have the option to simply not use Google.

And the numbers seem to indicate that they are choosing to use Baidu over Google more and more. Google has less than 20% of the search market in china and it's declining.

But the websites of offshore gambling sites aren't blocked at the national border; it is the transaction, rather than publishing information, which is illegal.

(Apparently, the state of Kentucky has recently tried to seize gambling-related domain names held by remote entities, but that's a new local enforcement tactic which may not endure.)

At the very least it respects most's definition of what is acceptable under free speech.

There are also lots of laws about fraud. Imagine if a Chinese company came to the U.S. making fraudulent claims about its products. We'd condemn them, yet we applaud Google. I don't understand.

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