Human Rights and a Code of Conduct for China's Web 108
Ian Lamont writes "Human Rights Watch is preparing a code of conduct that specifies how major Internet service providers and portal operators should deal with Internet censorship in China. An officer for the group expressed concern that the Chinese government is 'setting the standard on control of the Internet' and also singled out international companies working in China for preemptively blocking access in 'anticipation of requests from the government' rather than waiting for orders from Beijing to block access. China has recently blocked YouTube following the posting of videos about the Tibetan protests, but has been unable to completely stop the flow of Tibet-related information in and out of China, thanks in part to bloggers and others using spam tactics to bypass Chinese filters."
Re:first post (Score:4, Insightful)
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They bought the rights to do it.
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Re:Hypocritical maybe? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one cares of course, China's disregard for environmental and humane concerns of its own people give the rest of the world the cheapest goods.
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Said the American driving a Hummer through the streets of New Orleans. To give the world McDonalds and Coca-Cola.
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What atrocities are you referring to?
corporate consciousness (Score:4, Insightful)
Because quarterly profits are the only yardstick by which management is rewarded / demoted all other considerations have gone out the window. As long as there is not direct link between ethics and profits I highly doubt any of this will make a difference.
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The fact that it is termed a code of conduct seems to me like som
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when it's actually *the corporation* that is filling the role of Big Brother? Thomas Jefferson predicted 200 years ago that too much money in the hands of just a few would lead to fewer freedoms for the average citizen. It is now "those few" that we call CEOs and CIOs that are doing the job of censorship.
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You must be new to Capitalism. There is nothing more evil than passing up money or turning down profit from any source. Wealth is worth any price. Monetary gain trumps everything. It doesn't matter who dies or how miserable people are, so long as you're making a profit.
Christianity isn't America's national religion like some Christian preachers claim, Capitali
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So if you want to see the benefits of socialised (for the people) infrastructure, you can only really look at modern social democracies. There are a whole range of fundamentally profo
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Muppet.
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Fiduciary duty != maximum profit with no ethics (Score:3, Interesting)
Management can be sued by shareholders if it intentionally enters a course of action that decreases profits, even if the action is ethical.
Blatantly incorrect.
The Board of Directors [wikipedia.org], and Management, DO have a responsibility to act in the best interests of shareholders, see Fiduciary Duty [wikipedia.org].
However, NOT to the extent that they must pursue every market in every industry in the world.
The Business Judgment Rule [wikipedia.org] protects the Board and Management from lawsuits about normal business decisions, such as:
Hyp
Alternate Explanation for Google's Behavior (Score:1)
Once Google is well established, it will be much harder for China to contain them if they decide to start loosening their self-imposed censorship. And of course, choosing to self-reg
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Why not call out the other governments first, K? (Score:2)
Look, the IOC with the blessings of governments around the world awarded China the Olympics. Just what in the hell were they thinking?
You bring up ethics and profits as if it were a Corporate issue, its not. Why should any Corporation care when world governments, including the UN, don't?
huh? Do we hold our elected officials and those of other countries to lower standards? Or is because we give into the id
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Of course it's very easy to say that; I've got no wife, kids, or mortgage to maintain so I'm a lot free-er to tell people to get stuffed if I don't like my e
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You would expect it. I would expect it. However, welcome to the real Earth, where this doesn't happen. I think it may have once, perhaps the great Quaker companies of the 19th Century. These days, running a corporation is:
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anything to back that one up?
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* limited time offer. No purchase necessary. Offer void in Nebraska, Maryland, or where prohibited by law. Tibet and Free Tibet are registered trademarks of China Inc.
Olympic response (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Olympic response (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless the Chinese government totally changes the way they do things, this is inevitable. There will be people taking advantage of the Olympics to do missionary work. There will be people taking advantage of the Olympics to publisize China's many indescretions.
How will the government respond? Are we going to have dozens of people arrested, imprisoned and/or deported? In a way, I almost hope we do, it would open the worlds eyes to just what is happens there, how restricted freedoms really are.
Re:Olympic response (Score:5, Informative)
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The last time the Chinese government responded to a large gathering of popular dissent, which as you say will surely accompany a high profile global event such as the Olympics, they did it with tanks, tear gas, and machine guns.
I suspect that the government would have been much more moderate in the Tienanmen Square incident if the crowds protesting were as nationally diverse as the crowds at the Olympics.
That said, I'd be surprised if they would allow any international protester to remain in the country. I think they would also take some big steps to try to disallow any record of a protest to be aired domestically or internationally.
Re:Olympic response (Score:4, Insightful)
The authoritarian nature of the government probably hasn't changed, but quite a few things have- remember, that was 20 years ago. First, the explosion of portable digital devices- digital cameras, digital video cameras, cell phones, Blackberries, and laptops; second, the explosion of networks, including the Internet and the cellular network, to distribute digital data. Given the number of tourists they are expecting, Beijing will be under greater scrutiny than at any time in its history, and there will be no way to stop the videos once they get out. Third, Beijing is now linked to the United States and the rest of the world by trade. That puts the government in a bind: they want to maintain control, but they also want to keep the money rolling in, and a crackdown on any protests could harm trade with the West. We'll see what happens; the government crackdown in Tibet has been pretty effective, but Tibet isn't overrun with Westerners carrying video cameras and laptops.
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As another poster has pointed out, that was almost 20 years ago. Governments, people, and circumstances change. Why would you think that "not much has changed since then"? (this is intended as a legitimat
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Why would you think that "not much has changed since then"? (this is intended as a legitimate question)
Many of the same people or their hand picked successors and protégés are still firmly in power, they have shown their willingness in the past to use the gun when faced with an afront or challenge to that power, and finally up until very recently in the grand scheme of things the Chinese viewed all outsiders and westerners in particular as "barbarians" or inferior peoples and this attitude has served to lessen their willingness to listen to external criticism from the "barbarians" concerning their
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Many of the same people or their hand picked successors and protégés are still firmly in power
*Maybe* true regarding your argument about successors. There's this inconvenience with the current tightly controlled political system in China that you can't simply shrug off mistakes by saying "it's the previous administration's fault!". I say "maybe", you might understand why if I add a few facts.
You might have heard about Zhao Ziyang[1] and his role in the Tienanmen incident. He's often descri
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"Up until very recently" was like more than 100 years ago (probably more like 150 years ago).
Yes, but the Chinese culture and history is thousands of years old and it seems logical that th
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By saying this you are assuming that culture hardly changes or simply changes in a constant rate. However, Chinese culture has undergone dramatic change over the last
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My take on it is that the aggression was largely instigated by the protesters who were killing the soldiers - the soldiers had been instructed not to open fire/etc and so couldn't protect themselves. I've read report that the protesters took weapons from the army and used them against them. If there was a single decision to respond (on the part of the army), I'll bet it wasn't taken at the highest level, b
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Tanks in Beijing was clearly a military decision from somebody high up. A lowly officer could never get tanks running around in the capital city. That's almost the
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I have a less rosy view. If only out of a realistic assessment or common sense. You don't have soldiers don't wield a weapon, and you don't have soldiers who take beatings without retribution. I haven't read any reports saying the police/soldiers were passively receiving beatings, so you could rebut my view if you could point to any such reports.
Well, why would I rebut that view - it's the same as mine. Why would you expect soldiers to take a beating without fighting back? That's my whole point. It could easily have flared up from the ranks, rather than a big evil order from the top.
BTW, I said "I believe it is possible to have neutral news.", when I mean the opposite.
Tanks in Beijing was clearly a military decision from somebody high up.
Agreed, but that is a show of force, not aggression as such. Arguably, it was a mistake, but, as I said, that is from the view point of a westerner and in hindsight.
I don't see any evidence of tanks being involved in any aggression as such. They're next to pointless i
Re:Olympic response (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Olympic response (Score:5, Informative)
The only way that the Chinese government would listen to any outside influence would be strong economic sanctions tied to behavioral changes. And we rely on them so thoroughly at this point that sanctions strong enough to be noticed would be suicide...
Any ideas?
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You can pretty much say what you like in public these days, so taken together with the recent and spectacular economic successes, the Chinese government is actually very popular, at least with the Han majority.
The problem with web censorship, as well as with the Tibet crisis, is that they're incredibly secretive. I get the feeling that eve
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Wrong. Governments are only valid if they rule with the consent of the people. Otherwise, they can and must be destroyed.
To use a very bad example, what if the U.S. blocked access to sites which promote Al Qaeda's agenda? Would that be ok? Shouldn't we be allowed to s
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What crack are you on? There are dozens of governments around the world which do not rule with the consent of the people, including ones the U.S. supports. Egypt come to mind? How about Saudi Arabia? Hell, we sent people to Syria to be tortured yet we criticize that governments rule of law. I don't see you or the U.S. government going after them because the people don't give the
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I personally believe that we shouldn't be meddling in the affairs of others. That said,
Re:It's their country (Score:5, Insightful)
Rights? Governments have no rights. Rights are inherent to the person and not the state. They can neither be granted nor taken away by the state.
That said, Governments do have sovereignty which I agree that China has. However, the Chinese government does not have the right to torture, murder, or repress the freedom of its citizens. It is wrong and the practice should stop.
Now I will admit, I have a very relativistic western view on the matter, but I don't see how you can say that killing protesters even if they are violent is OK.
Even in the LA riots in the states we didn't have soldiers shooting people indiscriminately without attempts to use non-lethal methods.
At the same time, I will agree that its not our business to go into China forcefully with our military and force them to stop (or any nation for that matter) but it doesn't mean we shouldn't ignore the fact they do such a thing.
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Even something so basic as having the right to live is meaningless unless they can stop those that decide they don't have that right.
The reality is that moral arguments, the weight of public opinion, is founded on the threat that the public can pose. Some can choose to respect that power, but not everyone will, and clearly many governments do not.
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From the US Declaration of Independence: That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
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Governments don't have rights, people have rights. Governments have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and coercion, by popular support or not.
Blocking access to Al Qaeda stuff...Not OK. No censorship is OK in a mature society (Pre-emptively punches slashdoter droning on about shouting fire in a crowded place. Not the same thing K)
Now censorship works in that it raises the bar high enough so that Joe 6-pack is too lazy to go hunting for the information. There ar
Re:It's their country (Score:5, Insightful)
I will be the first to admit that there are all kinds of shortcomings in the protection of human rights through international treaties, but the only point that I want to make here is that you are incorrect when you state that every government "has the right to dictate the rules within its boundaries". That right is no longer absolute, and in large part this is the result of governments providing the stick they are beaten with themselves by signing human rights treaties. It took only sixty years to get where we are now, so the utopian society you mention may be less than a thousand years away.
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"CRT is not a drug. I used to suck dick for LCD. Now that's an addiction. You ever suck some dick for CRT?"
Next on Dr Phil: "CRT used to be enough, but then my left eye started twitching, so I needed more... and then the symptoms worsened, I got headaches... and then, I had to move on to the harder drug, LCD."
Spam? (Score:2, Insightful)
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It is right when you have this:
"Earn big money NOW! See this protest in ACTION! Protest against the Chinese and get RICH!"
OR: "I have been kicked out of Tibet and the Chinese have my millions of dollars! Watch this video of the Tibetan protests and make BIG Yuan!"
See, it can be done ethically!
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Maybe not, but three lefts do.
American companies exporting censorware (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/opinion/09jardin.html [nytimes.com]
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The US is using China to beta test it. Sort of like how the US is using the UK to beta test that whole 1984 big brother thing that they have going on.
You soun
Or... (Score:2)
Or proxies? That seems like the obvious route to go to me.
like the geneva convention? (Score:4, Insightful)
human rights watch writing a code of conduct won't convince china of anything. it won't change its ways. if american companies didn't help them, they'd get someone else to help them, or do it themselves
what's more important to you? helping human rights in china? or shaming american companies? the shaming of american companies should be put aside in pursuit of the larger more noble goal: getting free imformation to chinese citizens
how do you do that? writing a code of conduct? preventing china from using your expertise to build their firewall?
no and no
you defeat the great firewall of china with better guerilla apps. anyone who care about this issue should forget about shaming codes of conduct or shushing american companies that helped the technocrats in beijing
instead what you do is you build proxy servers, ip obfuscators, p2p web traffic redirectors, content caching, etc., etc.: you wage war with the great firewall with china, you smuggle content around it, you render all of the technocrat's efforts to screen what chinese citizens see fruitless and pointless and a joke
that's where you put your effort
shaming colluding american companies or writing well-intentioned but pointless codes of conduct means nothing. results mean something
get to writing those guerilla apps if you really care about this issue. shaming american companies or writing ivory tower codes of conduct is pointless if you really want to help regular chinese escape their hermetically sealed tomb of sanitized braindead propaganda
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Great post. And quite correct. The above quote is important, and those that have the ability need to do just that. Bear in mind that such things may be happening in your own country before long.
uh (Score:2)
yes, plenty obsess over that inch, but this is silly hysteria
i think it is far more fruitful to focus on that mile
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And those who don't, don't really bother.
It's not like people in China are dying to know the dark side their government... most do, and due to one reason or the other, aren't particularly interested in digging further. Internet censorship is merely icing on the cake, so to speak. Yet most westerners act as if the Chinese were all sheep who believed 100% in government propaganda. Well, no.
Cens
let me get this straight (Score:3, Insightful)
i wish i could be more diplomatic, but i'm sorry i can't: you're a total moron if you really believe that. if you're just playing devil's advocate, you fail
you are basically making the argument that it doesn't matter how tainted or censored your media is. i'm sorry, you're not a moron. you
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your position is that censorship and propaganda don't actually effect people's opinions, and people's opinions stand as they would whether they had completely unfettered access to info, or completely limited access to info
I never claimed that. My claim is that there isn't a "completely limited access to info", and that firewall circumvention tools don't really help. It *might* solve *some* of the symptoms, but the problem is much bigger than that, and those who tout firewall circumvention tools as a silver bullet simply misses the larger picture or problem.
Specifically my point is that this (at least now) isn't the case in China:
regular chinese escape their hermetically sealed tomb of sanitized braindead propaganda
Since you seem to completely misunderstand my post, your strawman rant on morons and stupid ass
i don't know who you are dude (Score:3, Insightful)
here's my point, across which all of your points break: the more access there is to more media sources, no matter what the source, and the more you are allowed to pursue that media without fear of repercussion or censure, the healthier the body politic, and the healthier the society
meanwhile, your points fall secondary to that, and they do not overrule my larger point. such that the conclusions you seem t
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the more access there is to more media sources, no matter what the source, and the more you are allowed to pursue that media without fear of repercussion or censure, the healthier the body politic, and the healthier the society
I agree with you. Totally.
My point is firewall circumvention tools will only be used by those who are interested in knowing what their government doesn't want them to know (unless you're going to write a worm that spams infected hosts about Tibet, Tienanmen and whatnot). And those who wish to know those things already do, so it's not much help.
but the whole point is you will have LESS uninformed fools. and if that fact carries no weight with you, if that point fails to make an impression on you, then you're an empty useless negative cynic
My point again, writing firewall circumvention tools don't lead to less uninformed fools. Maybe it would be of some convenience to those who are already seeking out
my god (Score:2)
are you continuing to try to make a stupid point out of sheer stubbornness or what?
the firewall tools will let more people get more info. it will enable curiosity that is not being fulfilled now, it will
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so there is absolutely no one firewall tools will help?
Firewall tools will help. A bit. Not much.
you can't imagine how a curious student might be able to get the tools and pass them out to friends? this escapes your imagination or is impossible for you to contemplate as a possibility? everyone who wants the info already has clean unfettered access?
I can. I can also imagine the student obtaining information without using the firewall tools (to give an example, a few days ago I was in Guangzhou, and I could assess slashdot without any hacks. With all the discussion on Chinese politics and stuff on Tienanmen, Tibet etc. that's probably a starter). I can imagine the student creating such tools himself. There are many ways...
the firewall tools will let more people get more info. it will enable curiosity that is not being fulfilled now, it will get into hands through various channels
i can't possibly believe you are trying to tell me otherwise, that you can't imagine how the obvious isn't obvious
You assert your statements again and again without
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The disturbing truth is that many Chinese actually SUPPORT their government and AGREE with it's policies! That's not just because of propaganda but also because the Chinese government has delivered results in th
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What about turning China into a giant LAN, stopping all the traffic and forcing them to take down the firewall? It wouldn't be too hard to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_firewall_of_china [wikipedia.org]
they'll never do that (Score:3, Insightful)
even if only the elite chinese get (censored) access to the outside world, it's still useful to write guerilla apps that help the elite get uncensored info. actually, that's the case now: the mass of the interior of china is still poor, only the rich and middle class on the coastal cities
Start in the USA first (Score:5, Insightful)
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Instead of a "code of conduct" for the ISPs (Score:4, Interesting)
SPAM tactics (Score:2)
Easy (Score:2)
Are you not doing the same thing (Score:2)
If you put in place a "code of conduct" are you not yourselves
'setting the standard on control of the Internet'
Dialog (Score:2)