The BBC has an interesting story recording motions by human rights organization Amnesty International to pressure Google to do more in the fight against censorship and abuses online, particularly in its relationship with China.

In the wake of the Tibetan protests and the current controversy and anxiety surrounding the Summer Olympics in Beijing, there has been tremendous pressure on Western nations to voice their commendation of China’s crackdowns on dissent. It appears that the outcry is also being directed at Western Companies who have expansive business in China, including Google who launched Google.cn in 2006.

“Google - whose shares currently trade at almost $600 (£300), more than $100 above its level a year ago - is facing two shareholder motions at its annual general meeting on Thursday.

Both insist the company needs to do more to fight censorship and support human rights.

The top three executives at Google control about two-thirds of the voting shares, so neither motion will get a majority.

But that is not the point of the exercise, according to Amnesty International, which will be proposing the first motion at the meeting.

“A lot of shareholders vote and don’t attend the meeting but they may pay attention to what happens,” says Amy O’Meara, director of business and human rights at Amnesty International USA.

“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.”

The internet censorship motion originally came from the New York City Comptroller, which looks after the pensions of city employees.

It 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”.

A second shareholder motion was also put forward by California-based Harrington Investment to call on the Google board of directors to create a Human Rights Committee.

Google is opposing both motions, arguing that its board of directors is already engaged in Human Rights Awareness through multi-stakeholder initiatives and that if there was any major shift in Google’s relation with China, they would risk having to shut Google.cn down, hurting users who may actually have more access to information with their service.

These recent developments have seen Google hard-pressed to maintain their brand image, recognizing the enormous value of free information and co-operation doesn’t always correlate with the desires of stringent, geopolitical environments. While the motions clearly demonstrate the stakes involved for Google, their ultimate impact is difficult to gauge. Hopefully, if more organizations present their case, not only to Google, but to all the major Internet players including Yahoo and Microsoft, then policies and procedures surrounding the issues of censorship and human rights will be less vague. The conundrum for Google and China on the other hand is now becoming much more defined.