1	4	1	Google, Leaving, China:, Bai, Bai!

If there were separate trending statistics for people with access by proxies server Twitter, the number one topic would be: "Google.cn."

I started my day on the net by reading Google's official blog and its calculated response to what they alleged was an attempt by the Chinese government to hack their servers and access the mailboxes of human rights activists. The one question that has nagged at me is: How did Google know the accounts being hacked were those of activists in the first place? I don't remember being asked my political leanings when I signed up for Gmail nor do I remember correctly answering security questions like: "Name the date of the T-Square massacre" in your country or, What is the name of your favorite Chinese Premier who died while under house arrest" And if you answer 1989 or Zhao, Ziyang respectively is your file put into a special cyber-vault reserved for dissidents? Hell, Yahoo! probably turned those over to the government long ago.

I was ebullient when I heard the news that Google was considering a pull-out because of China's intrusion. But, I had heard more than a month ago that Google China employees were quitting in large numbers because of a planned exit. Yesterday, there was no reference to a widely circulated circulated number of tweets (twitter messages) from friends of Google China employees that this move may have already been in the works. I mused, tongue firmly in cheek, that it took over a month for corporate legal beagles to agree on what to write and how to distribute it. I, like so many others, reeled over the news and reveled in the possibility of Google choosing principle over profit.

The rumors and speculation began immediately. And all of us who would rejoice in the fall of the Great Firewall began looking for chips and cracks in its facade. One person sent me a link to a image search result on Google China for "Tiananmen Square" where, sure enough, were pics of students the massacre, the Tank Man and more. I hastily re-tweeted the message and link, forgetting that my IP address, as that of the original sender, hailed from the U.S.. The results, when I turned off all bypass software, showed a freshly retouched Mao looking over harmonious throngs of visitors to the borrowed paradise that is Heaven's Square.

One of the world's leading authorities on Search Engines messaged me and schooled me on my error. I immediately deleted all references to the mistake and headed for a hospital appointment, hoping to return to more viable information. What I found when I came home was a snowdrift of messages from reporters, and fund managers. The former looking to profit from a scoop and the latter hoping to protect their bottom line. I knew/know what everyone else knows at this point: Google sent a trackback to the world and the world took the link bait and made "Google Leaving China" and "Illegal Flowers". The latter refers to the farewell bouquets that have been left at Google.cn headquarters honoring Google's courage. Illegal Flowers is  now online code for censorship and oppression being used by censor-weary bloggers and netizens in China. Not everyone who laid a wreath at the make-shift memorial was drenched in sympathy: Notice in the picture below that the note reads, "Bai Bai" an allusion to Google's chief competitor for online ad revenue, Baidu.

Pundits are supposing that Google is acting to save face and leave their moral fire-base with the last shot fired. Some, are looking for the rightness or reason for a decision to no longer kou tou (kowtow) to Beijing when the home team, Baidu, has received wrist slaps or exonerations for transgressions (Sanlu Milk, IP Theft...) while Google experienced blocks and service denials for allegedly providing link access to pornographic content. And other Chinaphiles have even gone back a couple of months in time and charged former Google.cn commander Kai-Fu Lee with mutiny for jumping from a ship he knew was headed for catastrophe. I say that Google just provided the anti-pyretic that broke our collective fever and woke us out of a sick sleep: We never know how ill we have been until we recover, if only a bit. The systematic closures of service and the tightening of Internet controls have been a slow growing constant that has infected the world and weakened resolves. I do not care to speculate this early on about why, or if, Google will leave China nor whether it will continue obeying the state by self-censoring search results. For now, I only hope that this break proves to be the beginning of the end of information mediocrity in China.

One of the best articles written in the last 24-hours is an early lament and supposes, as do some in-country proponents of freedom of expression, that Google's exit would only embolden a regime that seems afraid of nothing on its western front. And that sentiment was echoed by several Chinese friends today who worry that the void left by Google will be quickly filled with vapid, politically correct content in place of much needed information for the intellectual and social development of those who care about the same. They feel that, faster than the flowers die or can be removed from Google's front porch, the world will forget what happened yesterday and they fear that this row will vanish from virtual memory with T-Square and Zhao, Ziyang.

I have lived to see the rise and fall of Berlin Wall and Apartheid in South Africa; I hope I am around to witness the demise of the Great Firewall.