BEIJING (AP) – Internet users outside China watched a computer defeat its national go champion, but few Chinese web surfers could see it.
Censors blocked access to Tuesday’s online broadcast by Google, which organized the game in a town west of Shanghai during a forum on artificial intelligence.
The event got little coverage from Chinese newspapers and broadcasters, suggesting they might have received orders to avoid mentioning Google, which closed its China-based search engine in 2010 in a dispute over censorship and computer hacking.
The official response to the game, a major event for go and artificial intelligence, reflects the conflict between the ruling Communist Party’s technology ambitions and its insistence on controlling what its public can see, hear and read.