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Yahoo Agrees to Censor Chinese Portal
Bonker writes: "This article at Salon indicates that Yahoo, as part of a larger pledge to 'purge the Web of content that China's communist government deems subversive', has agreed to censor 'pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability' from its Chinese portal. Yahoo is one of about 300 other ISPs and websites who have signed the 'Public Pledge on Self-discipline for China Internet Industry'."
What's going to happen when someone realizes the plans on how to build a rocket to get a man into space and in orbit are on a blocked website?
And somewhere, John Ashcroft is moaning with envy...
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Would you be okay with that, too? Or would you agree with me that there are some steps a business should not be willing to take?
And if they do agree to this, how does this affect their argument here in the US that they are not liable for customer content because they can't control it?
Scarily enough, it goes on in the U.S. too. Take a good, long hard look at Walmart Corp. They are one of the nation's largest redistributors of magazines and other periodicals... so large, in fact, that if Walmart refuses to carry a magazine for a month, it can break a publication financially.
Combine that with the fact that Walmart has always upheld a rather fraudulent reputation that it is interested in the concerns of senior citezens, religious organizations, and 'family-oriented' concerns, and you end up with something pretty scary. Walmart has been known to refuse to sell books, games, CD's and magazines that had any kind of content deemed innapropriate. Quite a few of the magazines in the U.S. have to run their covers and editorial content past Walmart for approval before they can go to press.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Is how submersive sites are judged.
Looking at the agreement summary, it is OBVIOUS to me Yahoo would sign it. While we like to focus (and we do) on how evil the chinese government can be (and they are), this may not be the best example of that.
What Yahoo seems to have agreed to:
1) Don't host anything illegal to your target audience.
2) Don't promote porn to China.
3) Don't attempt to incite revolution.
I'm sure once you take local laws into context (which their TOS already does, no doubt) it seems to be nothing they haven't already agreed to before.
Go ahead, post pictures to yahoo of hardcore porn where someone uses a bomb as vibrator and explains how to make it. See your browser smoke as they pull the page as fast as they can, even on Yahoo USA.
Never confuse volume with power.
When companies like Yahoo! look across the Pacific at a large group of people fed bullshit & held under the thumb of an oppressive dictatorship and all they can think of is how they can buddy up to the gov't in order to get a crack at these "new consumers", I'd say that we have larger corporate ethics problems than Enron, kids.
Yahoo! Where your civil liberties are what your government tells us they are.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
From on point of view, this seems a pretty dumb decision on the part of Yahoo. But on the other hand, if Yahoo just agrees to the contract to get the support of the Chinese government, then happens to drag it's feet and "forget" to censor things, it's a nice beaurocratic turn around until the Chinese government catches on and cancells the agreement, by which time more Chinese citizens will have taken a liking to Yahoo.
So, depending on how it's used and "enforced", this might yet be a good thing.
Ryan Fenton
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They'll post a question to "ask /." and we'll happily put list a few dozen mirrors and dozen posts will the full instructions listed "in case the mirrors are /.ed".
Heck, we'll also tell them what's wrong with the plans, wrong instructions on how to correct the mistakes, right instructions on how to correct the wrong corrections, and how to make a beowulf cluster out of them.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
In Australia, apparently.
/me scratches head.
When it's France, however, the folks from Yahoo stand up and defend their right to independent content. Strange dualism going on there, wouldn't you say.
It also seems that all you need to get yahoo to pull certain content or messages is a few irate e-mails... Heck, even the Saudis have asked yahoo to regulate itself according to its government's preferences.
Where's the surprise?
They've always been like this.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Why are people so quick to criticize China and so quick to forget America's abuses of "human rights" and "democracy"? This is a country trying to take care of 1 billion people. 1 billion people, can you imagine us doing that? We have 20 guys who decided to crash some planes, and the administration has already curtailed civil rights significantly.
Despite what you may think, the government of the United States is not open to all opinions, and it is hardly a place where rational people are in control. Take a look at this link to see what the requirements are for people entering the US. They're not exactly being welcomed in a freedom-of-speech, tolerating sort of way, now are they?
People seem to love picking on China because it's got the label "Communist" in it's name. I never ceased to be surprised at how much stupidity the word "communism" evokes among supposedly educated, rational people. How about all those countries who are our friends, yet commit far worse human rights abuses? Good for China, that it learned the lesson, "if you make products that people want, they could give a crap about human rights".
If you want to criticize others, I suggest that you first do some cleaning of your own house.
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