The BBC reported:
"… (The motion) calls on Google to "use all legal means to resist censorship" and to make it clearer to users if it has "acceded to legally binding government requests to filter or otherwise censor content that the user is trying to access" … "
The proposal failed. Though, surprisingly Google’s co-founder and director Sergei Brin refrained from voting, saying he agreed with the spirit of the motion, as well as a second one, but not the wording and the implementation.
A second shareholder motion called for the board of directors to set up a human rights committee – it also failed to secure enough votes, at the meeting which was held on 8 May.
For Amnesty the censorship motion was a chance to get the issue out there:
" …"We're really looking at it as an opportunity to have an audience to hear what we think about these issues right now and to impress on Google that they really need to move much faster on these issues." … "
In China, the Internet is a tool used by authorities to deny the freedom of expression. The Government censors the Web, blocking content and re-routing search results, with the help of the Internet service providers.
The Internet has become a new frontier in the fight for human rights.
As former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan once explained so concisely: " …the information society’s very life blood is freedom. It is freedom that enables citizens everywhere to benefit from knowledge, journalists to do their essential work, and citizens to hold government accountable."
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