American Companies Help China Censor the Net

KyleNicholson writes "It makes you wonder what is really being taught in Business Ethics classes today. American companies such as Sun, Microsoft, Nortel are helping to limit the freedoms of people around the world, even leading to executions. Here is a report by Amnesty International."

Comments

Wouldn't be the first time...

[cuyler]

...if I recall correctly, IBM is an American company. Although I haven't read it (it's on the list of books I have to read) this book deals with the assistance that the 3rd Reich got from IBM.

Re:Wouldn't be the first time...

[MacAndrew]

I've wondered about this -- I wouldn't want to fall into the trap of sanctimony -- but I just don't buy it. It is easier to reconstruct what people knew and when they knew it than to decide when people of reasonable intelligence should have or probably did read between the lines. but for me, the 1935 Nuremberg laws deprived Jews of German citizenship and imposing numerous indignities were a point of no return. It was evident well before that that Hitler and his crew were a bunch of thugs. Finally the 1938 Kristallnacht was as blunt as one could get -- yet was met with apathy in the West. Our major affliction was not ignorance but isolationism, and it took Pearl Harbor to change our philosophy to interventionism.

There is no binary switch between moral and immoral conduct. Nor was there a precise moment of epiphany that it was time to spurn the Nazis. But of course some companies crossed the line. And why should we think they did not -- not even one of them? Even today we see that corporate run the gamut from pristine to deplorable, so logically some companies must have continued doing business even after the writing was on the wall. They should acknowledge their mistakes, or at least all the facts surrounded their conduct, address any necessary restitution, and get on with things. We expect no less of ordinary shoplifters.

If the plight of the Nazis Germans is not enough, recall that the infrastructure American companies helped Germany to build was in time turned against us.

The example I mention elsewhere in this thread is Henry Ford, a virulent anti-Semite who even bought a newspaper to publish his views. A google of Ford and Nazi provides plenty of reading. Most dramatic is Ford receiving the highest Nazi civilian honor in 1938.

Parenthetically, we are to varying degrees engaged in the problems with the trade issues you identify, perhaps too much, perhaps too little, according to whom you ask. But we do not have to be guiltless to smell something rotten from the past.

Business ethics have nothing to do with it

[rlowe69]

"It makes you wonder what is really being taught in Business Ethics classes today. American companies such as Sun, Microsoft, Nortel are helping to limit the freedoms of people around the world, even leading to executions."

I really don't like this comment. These companies have nothing to do with China's policies, they are merely selling them a means to enforce those policies.

These companies are conforming to a Capitolist society (ours) which dictates that if they don't help China, their competitors will profit instead. How about blaming Capitolist ideals for this? It holds more water than your ethics reasoning.

Re:Business ethics have nothing to do with it

[Bastian]

So you propose that if you can do something evil and profit, it is ethical to do so if you know full well that if you don't do it, someone else will.

Let's extrapolate that to its logical extreme.

Let's say I offered to pay you $500,000 to shoot someone in the head, and you knew that if you didn't do it, I'd go to someone who you know doesn't really care about having blood on his/her hands and would do it if you wouldn't. Is it then okay to shoot our poor captive in the head?

How about if I were going to go shoot someone in the head, and asked you to sell me the gun. You know full well what my motive is. Would you really sell me the gun and ammo and defend yourself by saying that you had done nothing wrong, and were just engaging in commerce?

Blame capitalism all you want. Capitalism is just an ideal that has some shitty implications. If someone helps to bring them about, we blame the person, not the ideal. If a neo-nazi went around burning synagogues, we wouldn't say, "Oh, don't blame him, blame neo-nazism!" If I joined a cilque whose culture was such that the best way to gain respect is to spraypaint storefronts, I would still be to blame for spraypainting the storefronts if I did it.

Sorry, I don't think your ethics reasoning holds water, either.

..don't worry

[zogger]

..don't worry, the same action is coming soon to a country near you. The US and europe will be doing similar in the not too distant future. "Hate crimes", bogus "you are a terrorist because we say so", guilty until you have no chance to prove your innocence in front of a military junta tribunal, etc, etc. It's all "on track". Red China is the globalist wet dream poster child nation socio/economic ideal. I call it technofuedalism. And like all other tyrannical regimes in the past, most will go along with it, claiming "they didn't know", or "money has no conscious" or the famous "just following orders/doing my job".

Humans don't change, they use every bit (and byte) of available technology to oppress people, to be predators, this is the nature of governments made up of at the top clinically insane megalomaniacs, similar to the international profits at any cost konzern heads. No matter how much these governments and the corporate cartel sponsors start out as a "deal" for the people, they always de-evolve into heinous dictatorships. The time line is the only variable, but the outcome never varies, that be carveth in stone. Whether the slogan is "hail caesar!" or "sieg heil!" or "let's roll!" or "power to the people!", or "allah akubar!" or "viva la revolucion!" or whatever, it always turns into a dictatorship.

One of the first clues is government controlling the media and your access to it, and pushing their propoganda media efforts at you. This is called the "big lie", just keep saying it over and over again, eventually the bulk of the people believe it, because it's easier than finding out what's really going on. The second clue is not allowing citizens to be adequately armed. The third clue is massive government sponsored demonization of citizens outside their nation and inside, a de-humanizing effort to reduce some humans to less than human status. Currently in china you might belong to the "evil cult", in the US you might be called a "racist" for wanting the borders controlled, in europe you might be called a"nazi" if you really don't approve of massive socialistic command and control efforts, on and on. It never changes. In the past it was "he's a dirty injun" or "she's a filthy jew" or "they are just ragheads" or "they are guilty of crimes against the state", the all encompassing "terrorist" label that fits most situations.

When governments go down that path, expect the "disappeareds", executions, torture, kangaroo courts, death camps eventually, it just happens, some nations at different times than others but it always happens.