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Yahoo Helps Jail Chinese Writer
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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it's not the only faul of You! Know! Who!
Grammar Zealots: please spare a non-english writer (lastknight dot com)
Well?
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/
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.
- sigs are for wimps.
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.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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?
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
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.
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.
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.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
More detail for you: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/2005/09/ 06/warning-yahoo-wont-protect-you/
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
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 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