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Censorship Your Rights Online

Yahoo Helps Jail Chinese Writer 493

Posted by CmdrTaco from the submitted-over-and-over-again dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Internet giant Yahoo has been accused of supplying information to China which led to the jailing of journalist Shi Tao for "divulging state secrets". "
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Yahoo Helps Jail Chinese Writer More

Yahoo Helps Jail Chinese Writer

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  • Was also poster earlier on Reporters sans Frontiere [rsf.org]

  • Is this the new definition of (Score:3, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:30AM (#13500204) Homepage Journal
    Is this the new definition of Yahooligans?

    Tune in, turn in, drop out of sight...

  • And it seems.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LkDotCom ( 912073 ) <lkNO@SPAMlastknight.com> on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:30AM (#13500208) Homepage
    it's not the only faul of You! Know! Who! [techdirt.com]

  • The motive (Score:5, Funny)

    by L. VeGas ( 580015 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:30AM (#13500209) Homepage Journal
    Yahoo was probably just mad at him for creating too many Yahoo email accounts.

  • I don't believe it! (Score:5, Funny)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:30AM (#13500212) Homepage Journal
    An enormous multinational corporation with no sense of morality?

    Inconceivable.

    • Re:I don't believe it! (Score:4, Funny)

      by 'nother poster ( 700681 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:35AM (#13500275)
      You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. :)

    • Re:I don't believe it! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I do not thing that word means what you think it means!

      There is a sense of morality, it's just warped. What is best for a larger group of people (Yahoo) is to gain the business and support of China. In Yahoo's perspective, they are cementing their business ties with China, and this connection will generate Yahoo revenue to grow and sustain their business model. This act alone will help EMPLOY people. It will feed people. Hell, turning over evidence on one man who will be picked up anyway? Not a problem!

      Make
      • Make no bones about it: NO company can afford to do things on principal.

        Plenty of companies can afford to do things on principal: it's only the rich ones that do afford to do things on the interest. Seriously though, a lot of companies would probably make more in the long run if they acted on principle, but shareholders all seem to want money NOW as though they are just waiting to flee to the Bahamas or something.

      • Re:I don't believe it! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by aminorex ( 141494 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:40AM (#13500950) Homepage Journal
        > No company can afford to do things on principal.

        But it's the interest that gets you. Oh, you meant "principle"?

        That's why we need assassination politics. A few well-placed deaths amongs the boards of the worst corporations would stop them from committing horrific crimes. The Shi case is not particularly bad, but things like United Fruit in Guatemala in the 50s, or Shell in Nigeria in the 90s, where companies hire government troops or mercenaries to kill off inconvenient peasants demand substantive action. Tobacco companies still kill a third of their customers, and they do it with impunity in most of the world. If the Reynold's family name were a death sentence, that would change quickly. Even the Shi case might merit the ultimate penalty, considering that it represents participation in the brutal campaign of mass-murder that is the Chinese government.

        • Re:I don't believe it! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ericspinder ( 146776 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @01:56PM (#13502202) Journal
          That's why we need assassination politics. A few well-placed deaths among the boards of the worst corporations would stop them from committing horrific crimes.
          More likely they just have to increase their security budgets.

          The trouble is that revenge killings tend to beget more revenge killings. In the end only the most ruthless heartless thugs tend to be the only ones left standing. Good honest people need solid 'rule of law' to support their moral character. Assassination breaks down the rule of law.

          Furthermore, the power vacuum after a violent and sudden transition of power is more likely to bring a 'bad actor' to the title than someone more 'palatable'.

          Using the classic example of assassinating Hitler, does anyone believe that any of his likely successors would have been less evil?

          • Re:I don't believe it! (Score:4, Insightful)

            by grassy_knoll ( 412409 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @05:15PM (#13504155) Homepage
            Good honest people need solid 'rule of law' to support their moral character. Assassination breaks down the rule of law.


            That only works so long as the rule of law is just. Once the criminals have corrupted the law, then the rule of law fails because it is seen as just another tool of the oppressor.

      • Re:I don't believe it! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gowen ( 141411 )

        NO company can afford to do things on principle

        Of course they can. Thousands of companies do, every day. (Google "ethical investment" if you don't believe me). As long as they're up front with their stockholders, companies can behave as ethically as the board members decide.

        There are clothes companies that won't sell stuff made in sweat shops (hell, even Nike pretend this is the case), just as there are company's that only buy from Christian suppliers. On a smaller scale, my local liquor store refuses

  • Mmmm... accusations! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rbanzai ( 596355 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:31AM (#13500216)
    Nothing like a good accusation to get people stirred up.

    Anything is possible, but an accusation is ceratinly easy to cook up.

  • The Pro Google/Anti Yahoo stories continue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:31AM (#13500225)
    Well? [newscientist.com]
    • To be fair, Google omits certain sites for Chinese IP addresses because ordinary Internet users in China can't access them without going through some sort of anonymous proxy. They aren't reinforcing China's restrictions, they are just trying to make their own site useable by ordinary people in China. Not everyone in China is smart enough to use anonymous proxies and the like to get around the Great Firewall of China.

    • It's a fair point (Slashdot's love in with Google vs. rest-of-world), but I'd argue there's a world of difference between assisting a totalitarian regime to jail a dissident (Yahoo) and omiting search results that the intended audience can't see anyway (Google).

      Disclaimer: I think both are disgusting and, sadly, totally to be expected. Both Google and Yahoo "owe" it to their shareholders to operate in a way that maximises profits. Not pissing off the largest potential market in the World falls into this c

    • The Pro Google/Anti Yahoo stories continue

      Did you know Larry Page eats babies? It's true, I read it on Yahoo.

  • China... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sdirrim ( 909976 )
    State secrets? Then how did Yahoo get to them? HOW?!?! Either Yahoo writers are hackers (possible), or those aren't really "secrets" just things that the government would like to be secrets.

  • Yahoo could get sued... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:31AM (#13500227)
    ...for violating Amazon's One-Click Snitch patent.

  • English lesson (Score:3, Informative)

    by op12 ( 830015 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:31AM (#13500228) Homepage
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Quotat ions_and_speech [wikipedia.org]

    Note the portion that begins: "For speech within speech" :)

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • > Just cause we in the west dont like it doesnt mean Yahoo could get away with NOT providing info. Reporters should know they are treading dangerously, after all they ARE in a communist country.

      What a great attitude, the journalist should have known better! In other words, we need less independent journalism in China and the world, so these pesky journalist don't get in the way of the "state"!

      OK Pinochet, great points there!
    • So it's okay to have innocent people put in jail by a totalitarian police state, as long as you're able to keep running your business and make a bit of a profit at the end of it?

      That's one scary, fucked-up values system you've got yourself.

      Yahoo doesn't HAVE to to business in China. Nor does google or MSN. None of them are based there, after all. They can all tell the Chinese government to fuck off, if they're willing to lose a bit of marketshare. A shareholder's right to profit doesn't trump a human being'

    • Re:Eh cant really blame them (Score:5, Informative)

      by MasterOfUniverse ( 812371 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:30AM (#13500844)
      Reporters should know they are treading dangerously, after all they ARE in a communist country.

      Here we go again. Please know that communism and authoritarian government are not the same!

  • Better Read than Red (pronounce it so it rhymes) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fishdan ( 569872 ) * on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:36AM (#13500283) Homepage Journal
    ...Yahoo's Hong Kong arm helped China link Shi Tao's e-mail account and computer to a message containing the information....

    Here's the thing -- the Hong Kong arm of yahoo lives in HONG KONG! They live in a communist country! How could anyone think that threatened with life in prison by a repressive government, a Chinese "Citizen" would possibly choose to not immediately capitulate to ANY request by the police? Just because an employee in China decided to NOT be Patrick Henry [wikipedia.org] doesn't mean Yahoo's in bed with the Reds.

    • Well, they *could* have said "we don't know anything about him, sorry", and left it at that. The government might not have liked that, but there would've been little they could do - after all, when you ask someone for information, then it just *happens* sometimes that he doesn't have any, and it's one of the few things you can't be bullied into, either - if you don't have it, you don't, so Yahoo could conceivably have claimed that they don't and left it at that.

      This is especially true in Hong Kong, which is

    • Re:Better Read than Red (pronounce it so it rhymes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:48AM (#13500416) Journal
      Non-communism of China aside, it is important to consider other possibilities. For all we know, Yahoo wasn't told what they were actually doing. Hell, they might have just been given the email headers and told to find out where they came from. Maybe they were told it was a child porn investigation. Would you demand to see the proof?

      Of course, in a situation like this, we'll probably never know if Yahoo's employees knew what they were doing, whether this guy actually stole any "State Secrets" or if they just needed a phony charge to shut the guy up, or what the real truth is.

  • Vague Article (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Thunderstruck ( 210399 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:36AM (#13500286)
    I RTFA, and I can't tell:

    1. Did yahoo violate any of their terms of service with the victim?
    2. Did yahoo violate it's privacy policy?

    If neither of the above is true, is the journalist not to blame for doing buisness with a service that would not protect him? In the alternative, are we now requiring that all major corporations take up the fight against oppression and censorship? I thought we had already decided that all corporations are evil, profit minded monsters. Why should Yahoo! be different?

    • 1. Did yahoo violate any of their terms of service with the victim?
      2. Did yahoo violate it's privacy policy?

      I'm sure there is a clause buried in that TOS that Yahoo! will turn over information to aid law enforcement investigations. Its no crime here, but he did break Chinese law. By virtue of Chinese law, anything the government doesn't want known is considered a "state secret" by default of course.

      They either play ball with the Reds or get locked out of a fast growing market.
      • he did break Chinese law

        And that's the crux of it, folks. He broke a law in their country, their law enforcement agency requested/required Yahoo's cooperation, and Yahoo cooperated. The substance of the law is not relevant because Shi knew that he was doing something illegal. If you don't want to go to jail in China, don't be in China and do something that's against the law.
    • Well, for Yahoo!'s HONG KONG offie, the TOS probably reads along the lines of "we'll do whatever the government tells us to do."
    • What China did is violate the UN Charter of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/rights/50/decla.htm [un.org]

      Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

      Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

      Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this rig

  • Unnaceptable, completely unnaceptable. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Augusto ( 12068 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:39AM (#13500319) Homepage
    I'm sick of the excuses:

    - We're just following Chinese law
    - If we don't comply, are the Chinese people better off without Yahoo/Google/Cisco/MS?

    Haven't we learnt a thing?

    http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/ [ibmandtheholocaust.com]

    I don't expect US corporations to impose US laws on foreign soil, but perhaps we can at least expect them to respect a basic set of human rights standards.

    It's not acceptable that these US based coporations become collaborators in the persecution of dissidents in another country. It's not acceptable for them to concede to ridiculous demands of filtering workds like "Freedom" or "Taiwan". It's not acceptable at all.

    If these corporations want to ignore these basic human rights standards, let them go and base their HQ in China instead. They're not doing anybody any favors by helping repress the Chinese people.

    We were told that more trade and more interaction with China would bring greater freedom. We were lied to.

    • Re:Unnaceptable, completely unnaceptable. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:51AM (#13500452) Journal
      As a practical matter, the Chinese police don't come to Yahoo and say "Give us information so we can persecute a dissident and violate his human rights!" They say "We're investigating a criminal, and we need log data." The options for Yahoo are:

      1) Don't operate in China

      2) Refuse to cooperate with the police

      3) Demand veto rights on cooperation with the police

      4) Cooperate

      In practice, 2 and 3 are identical to 1. And maybe 1 is what they should be doing. But it's not like they actively made a decision to violate X's human rights. (The censorship issues, on the other hand, really are overt decisions.)

      We were told that more trade and more interaction with China would bring greater freedom. We were lied to.

      Actually, I'm not sure that trade and interaction haven't contributed to what's certainly greater freedom since Mao's time. But, at any rate, it's useful to realize that not everything people predict that doesn't work out is LIES!!! There is a such a thing as difference of opinion in good faith.

      • So what's your excuse for Yahoo, MSN and google filtering words that suppress basic political freedoms? Do they also say : "We need to restrict the word 'freedom' because it's being used for criminal intent'?

        Let's not have a narrow vision here, this is just another step in a series of circumstances were these corporations are helping China supress their citizens.

        Cisco has been accussed of providing even more filtering and monitoring technology, and in that case, it's very hard to see your "we're just search

        • Re:What about "filtering" (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Otter ( 3800 )
          I specifically said that the censorship issues are completely different from today's story. And also that it may well be that there simply is no way to ethically run a Yahoo operation in China. I'm just trying to get across that it's not like Yahoo signed an order reading "OPPRESS DISSIDENT!".

          Incidentally, if you would Godwin around less frantically, it'd be easier to have a lucid discussion of how to treat China.

        • US Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:01PM (#13501116) Journal
          It is interesting how we attack Iraq for being totalitarian (official excuse) and we embargo Cuba decade after decade for the same reason. China however is totalitarian and we not only encourage investment there we allow our companies to aid and abet their oppression. Nice set of double standards we have.

      • Re:Unnaceptable, completely unnaceptable. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by pla ( 258480 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:35AM (#13500899) Journal
        The options for Yahoo are

        You forgot:

        5) When operating in freedom-hostile countries, maintain a STRICT log rotation policy with a very short retention period. Or, for those countries that have minimum mandatory retention periods, store the logs on servers in a more sane country - China might have no problem quietly crushing a dissident, but would they even dare to ask when it would require formally requesting "extradition" of the relevant data?

        And if the country in question has laws that would prevent even that... Well, #1 looks like a pretty good option. At some point, a company bears responsibility for its complicity in dealing with oppressive regimes.



        Now, in this particular situation, I would say we don't have enough enformation to judge Yahoo's choice to cooperate. If they fail to correct whatever circumstances led to this cooperation in an atrocity on their part, then we can all shake our fingers and go "shame, shame, shame!". But for now, no.

    • I don't expect US corporations to impose US laws on foreign soil



      So if that's the case, what did Yahoo do wrong? They handed over the name of a person who had committed a crime to the proper authorities.



      The rights regarding freedom of speech that you are promoting are American law. You can argue all you want that they are universal human rights, but they're not. They're part of American culture and the American legal system

    • Why are you posting on Slashdot instead of planning and executing a guerilla/terrorism campaign against the Chinese government? You obviously have no morals or sense of human decency.

    • Unacceptable? Try scary (Score:4, Interesting)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:36AM (#13500909)
      What bothers me about this is what China appears to be becoming -- this weird, totalitarian-corporate hybrid which Western businesses appear all too willing to support.

      I can't help but think that corporations, which are almost always defined as anti-democratic entities, prefer a totalitarian government, since a totalitarian government allows for easy limitations on the things that drive corporations nutty -- labor rights, environmental regulations, consumer protections, and freedom of speech.

  • "We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. I think it's up to people living in the Free World (defined as: your country has a Constitution that grants you political rights and freedoms) to pressure such companies so that, they, in turn, help pressure non-democratic governments for more freedom. Can't stockholders help ?
    We remember th

  • What about the "Patriot Act" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marlinSpike ( 894812 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:42AM (#13500357)
    If anyone took the time to figure out how much and how often the FBI and other US agencies have compelled Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other providers to dish out info on Americans... then we wouldn't be making a huge deal about foreign countries. Just because it happens in China does not mean it's especially egregious, or that what's happening State-side isn't of equal or greater concern.

    The real problem is the GLOBAL erosion of privacy, which our misguided government has provided great momemtum to. The fact that we invade and infrige upon previously protected privacy rights precludes us from preaching to other governments, and from faulting them.

    • I take it you've never read the Patriot Act. You've probably taken all the second- or third-hand information and believed it.

      The Patriot Act grants only a few "new" powers, all still within the constitution. These "new" powers aren't new at all. They are the same power the feds and local police have when investigated trusts and the mafia and drug violations. In a nutshell, the law enforcement still has to get a warrant to do search and seizure. Now they can get a warrant against a suspected terrorist and ha
    • The patriot Act is to catch terrorists.

  • When did Yahoo become China's judiciary? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LexNaturalis ( 895838 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:47AM (#13500404)

    I read this article before it was even posted on Slashdot (BBC RSS feeds are nice) and I can't really see why there's a big uproar about this, unless there's more to the story than the article mentions. Since when did complying with a government order amount to explicit consent and approval of government actions? Yahoo didn't convict/jail this guy, the Chinese government did.

    Yahoo didn't actively seek to jail this Chinese writer. Nowhere in the article does it mention that Yahoo CONTACTED the police and said, "here is a guy you should arrest." While I come to expect this from slashdot, I'm somewhat disturbed that BBC is doing the same thing.

    Maybe Yahoo did contact the police and tell them everything, but according to the article all they did was

    "[provide] Chinese investigating organs with information that helped link Shi Tao's personal e-mail account and the text of the message to his computer."
    Come on people, basic reading skills! Stop reading without thinking.

  • No-reg link to IHT of Yahoo Help article (Score:5, Informative)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:48AM (#13500412) Homepage Journal
    An easier link is thru the International Herald Tribune article [iht.com] of the same story (registration not required for this one).

  • Schmidt on the Topic (Score:4, Insightful)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:49AM (#13500424) Homepage Journal
    I read Schmidt (of Google) talking about this in China, and filtering.

    He made it very clear: they must follow local law wherever they do business. Otherwise they get squashed -- naturally.

    That being said, perhaps they should choose not to do business in someplaces -- like Burma.

  • A New Low (Score:5, Insightful)

    by donnacha ( 161610 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:50AM (#13500433) Homepage
    This is a new low in corporate rimming of dictatorships, as morally reprehensible as IBM providing the Nazis with punch card computers to help make the holocaust more efficient.

    Yahoo must be insane to have allowed this to happen, especially when their main competitor has a published philosophy including the statement: "You can make money without doing evil".

    BTW, just to highlight the difference between this and the usual /. chatter, a brave journalist is going to spend 10 years in brutal, frightening conditions, at the mercy of a system that would prefer him to be dead. He would not be in Jail if Yahoo had not crossed the line and given the authorities access to his email account.

    Sure, Yahoo has to protect it's $1bn investment in Chinese Ecommerce firm Alibaba.com but other companies manage to keep the Chinese authorities happy by censoring bloggers etc (Yahoo already has a strong record of collaborating in censorship) but, so far, other companies have drawn the line at becoming police informants.

    And, yes, I understand that companies must obey the laws of the countries they operate in but, you know what, sometimes you have to recognize the difference between pragmatism and evil.

  • SO? Journalists still have to obey the law! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by redelm ( 54142 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:50AM (#13500437) Homepage
    Once again, there's a cry for special journalistic privilige. He was breaking a Chinese law, and some think he should get away with it because the law is bad. Or that Yahoo, an information provider, shouldn't provide information to people you don't like.

    You'd do better to rail against similar US laws, including the PATRIOT Act. Journalism borders on espionage, especially when done for a foreign organization. Moreso when it is done for no legitimate purpose.

    Lamentably, China makes no pretense at democracy. So gathering political information cannot use the excuse of "informing the voters". Just what what would be done with the information? Used it to titillate and embarrass?

    Journalists are not above the law. They are to observe and record, not spy and foment change. When they cross over, they imperil their colleagues everywhere.

  • If you do business in or live in a country, you follow the laws of that country.

    Tomorrow if the FBI comes to Google or Yahoo or MSN with a warrant, guess what? They will comply with that too.

    Expecting a corporation to not follow the laws of the country where they do business is asinine.

    How would you like it if the Brits who come to the US started driving on the left side of the road? Hey, they don't like to drive on the right; let them drive on the left!

    It is not as if Yahoo volunteered the informat

  • How is it that we believe that it is acceptable for our consititution to apply in other countries?

    Yahoo is complying with local law enforcement, and is HELPING local law enforcement. In the eyes of their government, Yahoo is being a good citizen.

    Yahoo, as a corporation, is not in a position to challenge the government about what is right and not right (especially considering what the Chinese government does in this case), but what is legal and illegal.

    You know what? If I ran a services company, and the big-

  • Let's ask ourselves a quick question... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vthornheart ( 745224 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:54AM (#13500480)
    This is for those readers who are in the U.S., of which I am one.

    If there was a news report today that Yahoo helped use the information on its network to bring someone that the U.S. Government considered to be, say, a terrorist, to justice, would people be complaining?

    Let's be consistent here. It sounds like China considered this guy to be a terrorist of sorts. Doesn't that mean, according to popular fear-driven definitions of justice, that it was right to do whatever was necessary to find him?

    I should note, for those who didn't pick it up before now, that I don't mean at all that Yahoo should've actually helped in this effort. On the contrary, I think this should be considered to be a good example of how relative the definition of Terrorist is, and how if we are going to be so indignant about other countries abusing privacy issues to find their so-called "terrorists", perhaps we in the U.S. should not be so complacent as to accept and support when our own country goes on a witch hunt in violation of ethical law.

  • Profit Motive (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tji ( 74570 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:55AM (#13500485)
    From TFA: The companies say they have to abide by local regulations, and point out that since China is set to be the world's biggest internet market, they cannot ignore it.

    Ahh.. so that's what it boils down to. "There is money to be made there. We have to bend over for their government and/or police, it's our fiduciary responsibility".

    Fuck Yahoo. Helping send a person to jail for 10 years for a petty "crime"? I'm sure this will not be lost on the Chinese market, and there goes your "world's biggest Internet market".

  • Help Me Abort Yahoo! from My Life (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation&gmail,com> on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:58AM (#13500511)
    This news has pretty much turned me against Yahoo!. I've been using Yahoo since the beginning when it was just someone's personal web site hosted at Stanford. My homepage in my browser is a "My Yahoo" page that I've customized and used since they offered customized pages. I've got a Yahoo email account going back to 1998.

    And now I want out.

    Can anyone provide some guidance on an easy way to export about 7 years worth of email out of Yahoo's system? I'm sticking with Google's customized homepage and my Gmail account from now on.

  • Companies that enable opression. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nijika ( 525558 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @10:59AM (#13500527) Homepage Journal
    I always find it funny that there are all these sanctions on countries that oppress, we wring our hands about evil dictators and oppressive regimes. How we're so much better...

    But very few are ever particularly outraged when companies, based in the US, or Canada, or the UK, or some other country that pretend to love freedom and democracy enable these regiems, these dictatorships. That's called business nowadays, and I guess it's acceptable.

    Is this the new deal? When do we stand up and boycott these companies in an effective way? Is it even possible anymore? Do enough people care?

  • Google and China (Score:3, Interesting)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:02AM (#13500556) Homepage Journal
    Here is one guy's opinion [blogspot.com] on Google and China and "local law". His point is they have a lot of choices -- not just to bend over for the dictators.

    I really wonder what local law means in Burma and Somalia -- is it "do what the local mafia running stuff says?"

  • In the same news: Yahoo! Complies with Chinese Law (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bitslinger_42 ( 598584 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:03AM (#13500561)

    What a steaming pile of bullcrap! If the story had been that Yahoo! had complied with an investigation into a child molester in the US, then there would have been no story. Yahoo! was simply complying with the laws of a country that Yahoo! has operations in. Big deal.

    Yahoo! is a publicly-traded company. Its shareholders want one thing: more money. For Yahoo! to pull out of the biggest growing economy in the world wold be suicide. If they want to operate in China, guess what? They have to abide by Chinese laws. Their only options if they don't are to follow the political process in China to change the laws or to pull out of China entirely. There is no special Most Favored Corporation status that magically protects Yahoo! and makes it so they don't have to follow the laws just because they're popular with a bunch of pimple-faced, 40 year old virgins.

    You think China's bad, then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Don't just sit here bitching about how someone else didn't.

    • Re:In the same news: Yahoo! Complies with Chinese (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hqm ( 49964 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:07AM (#13500606)
      Putting companies out of business that help imprison Chinese dissidents is 'doing something about it'.

      Yahoo being a "publicly traded company" doesn't absolve them of being complicit with dictatorships.

      I don't mind buying Chinese manufactured goods, unless they are made by, for example, prisoners who are being used as slave labor.

    • Yahoo! is a publicly-traded company. Its shareholders want one thing: more money.

      The wishes of a corporation's shareholders does not give the corp a license to do whatever it wants. Also, even if the shareholders want money, that wish is not necessarily preclude them from having morals of their own.

      Would Nike's shareholders agree to a plan to build a slave labor shoe manufacturing plant knowing it would translate into large devidends? Or to assassinate the entire board of Reebok?
  • I think it is more interesting to read [yahoo.com] it on Yahoo News.

  • Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by msormune ( 808119 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:19AM (#13500717)
    Well, of course they must follow always local laws. They can't choose which laws, if they're not up to USA standards. Oh yeah, and if you think China is a bad place for putting people in prison, you might wanna check the percentage of people in prison in USA first. To put it short, China prisons people for "being wrong", and USA prisons people for "being too poor". But of course it is always easy to play jesus about it on Slashdot. It's also perfectly legal to sell booze to people of age 18 here in Finland. Now can I also come to sell it in USA to people of that age? Now where's my troll status?

  • When in Rome... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr_Icon ( 124425 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:26AM (#13500799) Homepage
    When you enter a country, or are granted a license to conduct business there, you agree to abide and uphold that country's laws and regulations. When you enter the US, you are agreeing to follow all the laws the US has for foreigners. Among others, they include:

    - Getting fingerprinted at the point of entry.
    - Carrying identification papers with you all the time.
    - Notifying the proper authorities of any address changes during your stay in the country.

    While in US, a foreigner is also:
    - Not allowed to be in possession of a firearm.
    - Can be detained for about a month without any reason given.
    - Does not get a lawyer if they can't afford one.

    If you don't like this, well, then don't enter the country. If you are a foreigner, and you DO enter the country, then you agree to abide by the above rules. If you violate them, then you will be persecuted and/or deported.

    So, getting back to China. If you are a foreign company working in China, and the authorities come to you and demand that you disclose information about a Chinese citizen, you are hard-pressed to refuse, since, well, you'd be in violation of the laws of the country. Since all corporations are interested in only one thing -- turning profit, -- it is not in their interest to go against direct orders issued by the local authorities, since otherwise they will be persecuted and/or their business license will be withdrawn.

    It seems Yahoo did a logical thing. Don't like how the US witholds certain "unalienable rights" from non-citizens? Don't come to the US. Don't like how China witholds certain "unalienable rights" from both citizens and non-citizens? Don't do business with China.

    • Re:When in Rome... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by synthespian ( 563437 )
      Have you ever heard of people voicing their concerns regarding the path that has been taken by the current administration with regards to Human Rights in the USA?
      There are quite a few people concerned that freedom is giving way to a police state in the US.
    • Yes, they did the "logical" thing. What bothers me, however, is that they are a company founded in the US with the majority of its company being here. Shit man.. even Jerry Yang is a Chinese-American who owes at least some of his success to an American education system (Stanford).

      This bothers me because of the cross between politics and business. I understand "obeying the laws of the land" but there's a problem when it fundamentally conflicts with your own beliefs. For instance, in some cases it's illega

  • famous criminals who broke bad laws (Score:3, Informative)

    by inmate ( 804874 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @11:48AM (#13501008) Homepage
    I don't buy their "we were just cooperating with the authorities" crap!
    and neither would:

    It is better to break the law, than to enact a bad one.

  • Welcome to the modern day (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wealthychef ( 584778 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:11PM (#13501201)
    It's a new kind of tension developing in the modern world: nationless corporations (not multinational) vs. geographical interest groups known as nation-states. Corporations and companies have no loyalty to any state, and you could argue they should not., and states have interests contrary to the good of the globe as a whole at times. Nobody is blameless; it's just an issue we have to sort out.

  • How can some of you defend Yahoo? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Morinaga ( 857587 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @01:11PM (#13501740)
    Ok, I just don't buy this take that because it's China's laws Yahoo doesn't have any choice. I think they do have a choice they simply decide to pander to China's desires. It's a very interesting case of corporate morals and if or when they play any role in their decision making. The fact that it's a US company IS important because it's listed as a public owned company in the US. Fair or not, Yahoo and other corporations do represent our morals as a whole because they are owned by Amercian stakeholders (by and large).

    More detail for you: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/09/ 06/warning-yahoo-wont-protect-you/ [harvard.edu]

    Officials from the Changsha security bureau detained Shi near his home in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, on November 24, 2004, several months after he e-mailed notes detailing the propaganda ministry's instructions to the media about coverage of the anniversary of the crackdown at Tiananmen Square. Authorities confiscated his computer and other documents and warned his family to stay quiet about the matter.

    On December 14, authorities issued a formal arrest order, charging Shi with "leaking state secrets." On April 27, 2005, the Changsha Intermediate People's Court found Shi guilty and sentenced him to a 10-year prison term.

    I'm sorry, but what a shocker. China tosses a journalist in jail for 10 years for a mislabled "crime". Here is a picture of this Chinese James Bond http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/China25aug05na.html [cpj.org]

    It should be of no suprise to anyone that Tao's appeal was rejected without reason nor public hearing. As is correctly pointed out at http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14884 [rsf.org] does Yahoo! simply state they are just following a countries law? When do they have ANY ethical considerations? Can the law in China stipulate that child labor is lawfull and Yahoo could practice this under the same defense?

    Yahoo is the ONLY American search engine that has agreed to self sensor it's search results. They have invested heavily in China and as a result bow to their every request. "Just follwing the law" is not a defense for Yahoo in my opinion. Self censoring your search results is one thing, cooperating with Chinese security officials to track down an IP address is another.

    Here is Mr. Tao's verdict http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/Verdict_Shi_Tao.pdf [rsf.org]

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