Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Google teams up with Holocaust museum to bring attention to the genocide in Sudan

Previously there used to be some information in Google Earth on the destruction and genocide in Darfur, but now the coverage has greatly expanded.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has joined with Google in an unprecedented online mapping initiative. Crisis in Darfur enables more than 200 million Google Earth users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur, Sudan. The Museum has assembled content—photographs, data, and eyewitness testimony—from a number of sources that are brought together for the first time in Google Earth.
Download *.kmz file here.

6 comments:

annom said...

I was about to post this... :)

This brings the "african trouble we don't care about" a bit closer to home.

You can see the large refugee camps on the chad border. You don't have to download the kmz file; my Google Earth has a build-in global-awareness layer.

annom said...

ah, the build-in Google Earth darfur layer doesn't have the refugee camps (yet).

pimp-a-lot bear said...

Good initiative!
Now to put this in perspective, why does Google participate in this project, while they're actively censuring in China?

Suddenly Google has gotten a conscience, while in China they were 'independent' (a.k.a. we don't ask questions).

summary:
lying to the people is OK, killing them isn't.

cybrbeast said...

Good point pimp. Is it a good idea for Google to become politicized? And where in the political spectrum would they fit?

However I do consider genocide to be a few orders of magnitude worse than censorship.

annom said...

There are a few things why I have a more balanced view of Google in China:
* Is it better to have no Google in China or a censored Google? Is sanctioning or cooperating with China a better way to change the political system?
* I used GoogleChina and not much is censored(still too much though).
* Google gives a note in GoogleChina when a search result is affected by censorship. This is something other search engines in China don't.
* By American law they should have money as a first priority for their stockholders. China is a large market.

I think Google would do away with Chineese censorship in a second if they could.

pimp-a-lot bear said...

I agree with both of you, since it all depends of the magnitude of the problem.
Also, you have to consider whether your actions will improve the situation.

It's like invading another country, when does it become acceptable, and when is it out of the question?

So, Rens, Google proves you wrong!