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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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Was also poster earlier on Reporters sans Frontiere
Mike
Tune in, turn in, drop out of sight...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
it's not the only faul of You! Know! Who!
Grammar Zealots: please spare a non-english writer (lastknight dot com)
Yahoo was probably just mad at him for creating too many Yahoo email accounts.
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An enormous multinational corporation with no sense of morality?
Inconceivable.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Nothing like a good accusation to get people stirred up.
Anything is possible, but an accusation is ceratinly easy to cook up.
Well?
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.
Not only "land of the free" but "land of the lawyers" who love a good old 1st amendment smackdown. Shihar 153932
...for violating Amazon's One-Click Snitch patent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark#Quotat ions_and_speech
:)
Note the portion that begins: "For speech within speech"
What do people expect? They are a company that wants a piece of the largest population pool in the world. If they didn't help, the Chineese government would simly have blocked all access to Yahoo! and worked with someone else. That doesn't make it right or moral, just business.
Yeah, but they have something else we all can't live without, eh? Most consumer electronics, computers, tools, clothing, etc. There's even a China Motors in Capitola, CA and though I haven't dropped in to see what they're selling, I bet it's a chinese brand of car.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Seems like a lot of chest beating over nothing.
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.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
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 doesn't mean Yahoo's in bed with the Reds.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
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?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
This isn't the first time a corporation has been accused of trading the rights of individuals for the almighty dollar, or, at least accused of having a lack of social conscience if you will. It's happened before and it'll probably happen again.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Which justifies or excuses nothing. Saying "it's just business" is not, nor has it ever been, a valid excuse. Yahoo is undermining free speech and the liberties given to all men everywhere.
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.
Soon to be available at a WalMart near you!
Dark Reflection
"It is not a case of ethics (although I agree it is personally reprehensible), but this was a sensible business decision by Yahoo!."
Just because something is a business decision, does not mean that it has no ethical implications.
If you believe it to be reprehensible, then it violates YOUR ethics. But the Chinese ethic (as the government defines it) is not violated here.
And since Yahoo, in China, needs to obey Chinese law, I must say that they did nothing improper. The media watchdog group that is reporting this, Media Without Borders, should be criticizing the Chinese government, not a company that abides by their directives.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
More reason to invade then. Seriously, if it weren't for the fact that the US seems oddly keen on pacifying them, wouldn't they be *exactly* the kind of country you'd expect them to invade? -- silas
... how the fact that some corporation considering its complecency towards the local law, however unethical the said law is, without care about personal consequences, qualifies as news.
I sense much beer in you. Beer leads to intoxication, intoxication leads to hangover. Hangover leads to sobering.
"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 the rebels of Tiananmen square!
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
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.
> 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!
- sigs are for wimps.
Please, you have to remember the current meme.
... they are not the US. So, anytime we have a choice of who to blame, we blame the US.
The US is always to blame.
China may be a represive communist country, but
Yahoo is a US company. Therefore, we can blame the US by blaming them.
China is blameles sin this and most instances. After all they are repressed by those evil white men.
You have to understand, right & wrong are no longer based upon WHAT you DO, but instead on WHO (or what demographic) you below to.
Well it looks like Yahoo is now in the law enforcement business and with that I've canceled my yahoo account, and will never use their services again. I can not believe they would do something to Strife. I Love my Google.. but I wonder if they are not inclined to take the same road as yahoo has.
No, I'm referring to the human rights violations under the current regime: http://www.derechos.org/human-rights/nasia/china/ and you really shouldn't presume what I thought in the first place and then extrapolate from there and then decide you don't like what you come up with. You're an idiot
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
Come on people, basic reading skills! Stop reading without thinking.Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
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, for Chinese standards at least, rather liberal - despite the fact that China took over, Hong Kong is essentially still administering itself. It's certainly not the Soviet Union or the Third Reich where you had to fear the secret police at all times.
What Yahoo really showed is that they have no spine - and no ethics. Not a surprise, of course (which big company does?), but it's still disappointing.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
An easier link is thru the International Herald Tribune article of the same story (registration not required for this one).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
This internet thing is great. Yesterday, I closed my paypal account. Today, I vow never to use yahoo again! Oh, wait. Never used it before... Seriously, who the hell uses yahoo nowadays? Your grandma?
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.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
It's not funny, and has nothing to do with the article. Basically the AC is saying, I don't care about Chinese journalist being jailed and US corporations helping to jail them.
How's that "interesting"?
- sigs are for wimps.
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.
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.
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 information. They complied with a lawful request of the current regime in PRC. There's nothing wrong with that. It is not upto the corporation to judge what's lawful or not (or, at least, not yet ;) ).
You wouldn't happen to be a member of the NAACP, would you?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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-bad-gorilla govt. came down on me and asked me for records (or else), I'd comply too!
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
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.
-Vendal Thornheart
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".
Just because it's in line with what the powers that be in China demanded doesn't absolve Yahoo of it's ethical duties. "We were just doing what we were told to do" is not a viable excuse. And this whole relative ethics thing is a crock of shit, give me one good reason it is ethical under any circumstances to profit from causing others to suffer. That's the whole point of ethics and morality to prevent suffering and promote the welfare of the species.
A Free Market requires informed intelligent consumers, such people are rare, we're in trouble.
As much as I like to criticize Slashdot, that mech was posted months ago. Please mod "wrong".
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'?
... keep tabs on all our criminals in our jails ... yes that's it.
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 searching for criminals" loophole.
However, that's a great excuse, I'm sure the Nazis used that one with IBM. Oh yeah, we just need tabulating equipment to er
C'mon.
- sigs are for wimps.
Let me remind you, the USA didn't win the war in Iraq yet. China holds the 1/4 of population of Earth and got some nukes as well. So, it is slightly tougher to stomp down.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
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.
I'm arguing that we should IMPOSE on them a basic set of human rights, and I don't see what's wrong with that, specially when China is making absurd demands on our corporations in the first place.
Here's a starting place, and it's not unreasonable by any measure:
"Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
- sigs are for wimps.
Here is one guy's opinion 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?"
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
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.
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 doesn't mean Yahoo's in bed with the Reds.
Here's the thing -- the Hong Kong arm of Yahoo operates out of HONG KONG! Hong Kong, operating on the one country, two systems principle, has its own legal system! For example, it actually follows the British common law system! It's not a communist country!
Snark aside, the point is that it's one thing to comply with court orders and it's another to become a police informant. The article makes no mention of a court order at all and from the tone of it, it sounds like Yahoo HK volunteered the information to China state officials to please the CCP.
1) China has an army of around 200 million along with nukes.
2) It would trigger a world war.
3) It is safe to extrapolate you were talking about a US invasion (what the hell is wrong with non-US citizens? that is crazy!)
> You obviously have no morals or sense of human decency.
I just woke up in Bizarro world, were hoping corporations don't help supress political dissenters is seeing as amoral and indecent!
- sigs are for wimps.
Here is what the US State Department has to say about China's MODERN record:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27768.h
Oh and many ppl will be interested in a little ditty about the USA FROM CHINA:
http://english.people.com.cn/200503/03/eng2005030
If you would like an independent assessment, well... independent human rights monitoring organizations did not exist in China in 2002, so all relevant information after 1989, should be considered questionable/incomplete, at best. Good luck getting anything impartial regarding the last couple years. The great firewall has been particularly effective; no thanks to Yahoo.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
I think it is more interesting to read it on Yahoo News.
I wouldn't want to post something here, only to have my information handed over to Yahoo/PRC. Oh, and just in case, Tiananmen Square never happened, in fact I've never ever heard of it.
They're not the same. What Yahoo! did may have been within their code of ethics, but it was certainly immoral.
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.
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 right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
(From: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/)Here's a little excerpt from the Stanford Encylopedia of the ideas behind the Charter:
Reducing everything to local Chinese law is absurd. As we know, economic freedom goes better with political freedoms. Deng Xiaoping did nothing for the political rights of the Chinese. In fact, he sent 200,000 troops to crush the rebels of Tiananmen.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
I'm not talking about US law, but yes, Yahoo is a US based company and can't directly violate certain laws.
Please read a bit more, if a country decides that they don't believe in copyright, you think the US is going to do nothing about it?
What if a corporation goes to a country were they can employ slave labor or have sweatshops with subhuman conditions. Is this allowed? Aren't these US based companies liable back here in the states?
It's the same thing here.
- sigs are for wimps.
Repeat after me class:
This is an ill of totalitarianism,
it has nothing to do with communism.
Communism is a economic model that seeks equality.
Totalitarianism is a form of government which really sucks.
Totalitarianism is Communism in the same sense that roll cages are vehicles.
A Free Market requires informed intelligent consumers, such people are rare, we're in trouble.
Did you know Larry Page eats babies? It's true, I read it on Yahoo.
Do you honestly think Yahoo is an "American" corporation, or is IBM or Cisco? Hell no.
Yahoo has no allegience to any government and is following the laws of the country they are operating in. That is why no one understands the outsourcing argument. People seem to think that "American" corporation Levis sold out the US by moving all of its production to 3rd world sweatshops. Levis in fact sold out no one. Levis has no loyality to any government. Ford could easily build tanks for the US and then sell the same tanks to one of the US's enemies if it wishes.
Yahoo goal is to make money.
IBM's goal is to make money.
Cisco's goal is to make money.
They will gladly help law enforcement; regardless of country; to jail its citizens to achieve a higher bottom line.
No corporation is of any citizenship.
> Do you really believe that corporations or governments exist to help people?
Not really, but I do expect US based corporations to uphold a higher standard and not collaborate in human right violations.
If I take your view to the extreme, then there was no problem with IBM and the Nazis collaborating in the gas chambers, or the US wouldn't care if it's corporations employ child or slave labor. After all "Corporations don't exist to make the world a better place".
- sigs are for wimps.
Yahoo has offices in china, thus they have to abide by Chinese law.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
No, I'm referring to the human rights violations under the current regime
I had to assume you were referring to Mao because the current Chinese regime has not murdered thousands of its own citizens, as the Iraqi regime did. The current Chinese regime doesn't force a single political party in all government positions, as the Iraqi regime did. The current Chinese regime does not murder anyone who questions government authority, as the Iraqi regime did. Of course, you can get your statistics from a website that considers censorship of a single website the same as the mass murder of an entire township. I personally feel that one is a little worse than the other.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27768.ht m
http://english.people.com.cn/200503/03/eng20050303 _175406.html
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That's your reply?
Yahoo is a US based corporation, thus they need to avoide by our law. A case can be made against them if they're found helping violate human rights in another country, and I really hope someone makes that case.
Also we can start imposing new laws on these corporations of our own whenever they do this, after all they have to "abide by our laws".
And look, it's great that you're making the argument for more US corporations being able to freely and with no worry help suppress other populations. That's real progress!!!
- sigs are for wimps.
> Just because an employee in China decided to NOT be Patrick Henry doesn't mean
> Yahoo's in bed with the Reds.
Yahoo as a company may accurately be described as being `in bed with the Reds` because of their actions, regardless of whether the people being compelled to act are doing so against their own wishes. I want to know which companies are involved in immoral acts, period - why the company is acting the way it is is very much a side issue.
"...give me one good reason it is ethical under any circumstances to profit from causing others to suffer..."
Ehm... because the law obliges you to? (The very same law that is intended to seek the common good, the welfare of the species)
I don't have a sig.
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?
> Ford could easily build tanks for the US and then sell the same tanks to one of the US's enemies if it wishes.
No, not really. As a US based corporation, there's a list of countries they're not allowed to trade with. So your point is not valid in that sense, they can't do whatever they please, they still have to abide by our laws, specially our *TRADE* laws
- sigs are for wimps.
If Yahoo decides to help China enforce it's laws, people will be outraged that Yahoo is cooperating with am oppressive regime. However, if Yahoo didn't cooperate with Chinese laws, the very same people would be outraged about "outlaw companies subverting soveriegn governments", and it would be seen as "Western Imperialism" or "American Arrogance".
Notice how there is absolutly no anger whatsoever at the Chinese government, only at Yahoo for simply RESPECTING THE LAWS of that government!
The same people who thing Yahoo is evil for turning over information to China, collected IN China, as required by law, are the same people who demand that the EU start selling advanced offensive weapons systems to China. I guess it is totally evil for people to obey China's laws when they are in China, but totally OK to help China to bomb other countries.
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.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
I had to assume you were referring to Mao because the current Chinese regime has not murdered thousands of its own citizens, as the Iraqi regime did.
Depends on how narrowly you define murder, but the current Chinese regime has taken decisions that have killed hundreds of thousands. The flooding caused by ill advised dam projects, lack of even basic safety standards in major industries (particularily mining) and the low standard of healthcare despite a vast budget for military expenditure are examples of that.
As for not killing dissenters, they are sometimes killed, but the closed trials make it difficult to assess what they are charged with and how convincing the evidence is. Other dissenters are sent to labour camps, and some suffer the old Stalinist favourite of incarceration in mental hospitals - because you'd have to be mad to not want to live under a benevelent Communist party wouldn't you?
Free speech is NEVER just given to anyone. It is earned/won/acquired from those in power, and remains in effect until those in power deem it time to set it aside.
Not to mention that "free speech" was never (as far as I know) "given" to anyone in China, how can they be undermining it?
What people don't seem to realize is that Yahoo was simply obeying the LAW of the country they are doing business in. ASsurely as they would be if they turned over all of your email when the FBI comes knocking (even without a warrant).
Besides NOTHING in this article hasn't already happened in the west. Or have you been living under a rock for the last five years? Show me an ISP/webservice that hasn't bent over backwards for a government information request. Most will do it for a commercial request (e.g. RIAA), no need for the info to be related to national security.
You also mention stiff penalites for smuggling. Did the War on Drugs pass you by or something? Try to take any manner of chemicals through customs here without the right permits and you'll soon know about our penalites. Jeez, we can't even get a nail file through customs. Oh, my rights, gimmie back my rights. China has banned many of these traditional medical remedies due to dwindling resources; for example trading in tiger derived products is banned because they are an endangered species. Why not try to smuggle freshly "extracted" bald-eagle claws within the USA and see how far you get.
Don't let the truth get in the way of your blind hatred for those that are different from you.
Here's a hint; Capitalism and Communism have one thing in common: They are both systems where the elite tell the poor that things are best under their system.
... Chinese president Hu Jintao threw a chair at a PRC ambassador who announced his decision to emigrate to the United States, shouting that "America has screwed us" and vowing to "*#&$(&@ kill America".
ICQ: 28651394 = AIM/MSN/YIM: hsuwh = www.livejournal.com/~banazir
Really? The Chinese government did none of those things? I must have missed the apologists meeting when that position was put forward. May I suggest you read this http://hrw.org/wr2k3/asia4.html ? This is what is coming out of the country, from the people on the ground the situation is far, far worse. People are being murdered for having views the government don't like, and voters who vote for anyone other than the official party representative for local positions are also facing similar attacks on their liberty.
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.
In Guantanamo Bay, you get a prayer rug and warm, filling meals compliant with your religion. You get clean, running water and state-of-the-art plumbing. You can spit, pee, and throw feces at the guards and not get punished. You are also allowed to read your choice of religious literature. You are never tortured, and have access to ACLU Lawyers. You get all this even though you fought against American troops and you didn't wear a uniform and you didn't fight in the name of any country that exists today.
In a chinese prison, your body parts get sold for profit by the government when you get executed. In fact, they'll speed up the execution if they have an urgent need for your body parts. You don't have any rights. There is no due process. You don't get a square meal. You don't get your favorite religious book. You don't get a prayer rug. If you backtalk to a guard, you get physically abused, perhaps even killed. You are regularly tortured and even brainwashed. You don't have access to any lawyers, and you don't even get access to your embassy.
Yeah, I can see how people might morally equivocate the two. I certainly have a hard time distinguishing communist China from the US of A!
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Yes, that Chinese writer will be seperated from his wife and children for 10 years, tortured and forced into hard labour, but let's take a moment and think about Yahoo and how big the Chinese market is! All that money's at stake...
Yahoo owners are in danger of "gaining the whole world, but losing their own souls" (Mark 8:36)
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I am an american and I love my free speach, however, is it a human right? Some countries dont like to be divided, and would rather all speak with one voice with national unity.
I dont really think that is a bad thing if you are a people/culture who is into that sort of thing.
As far as yahoo providing information, we all know that email is NOT secure, and I dont really know the yahoo fine print atm, but im sure there is something in there about, these are our servers, and if you use them then you abide by our rules. Yahoo isnt going to let something illegal go on via there services on the american side, and laws vary by country.
And Im sure there is money involved with china's growing econ, lots of companies want to play nice with them, so of course they will respect their culture.
As I posted in another comment, Laws are tools who's purpose is the promotion of welfare. Any tool that is flawed and does not accomplish its purpose should be discarded. I'm baffled as to why people think laws are important, they're just tools. Are hammers something to be revered too? I don't refrain from murdering people because it's illegal, I don't kill people because it's unethical; the fact the two happen to over lap is purely coincidental.
A Free Market requires informed intelligent consumers, such people are rare, we're in trouble.
You're an idiot. China has ICBMs. And would use them.
> Many US based companies employ child labor in other countries. It would be nice if they would stop doing that. There will always be companies that will use child labor to make their products. All individuals can do is refuse to buy $200 shoes from a company that produced them for $0.16 by using child labor and let others know what is happening as well.
...", the government's job is to enforce the laws and the laws don't allow you to do whatever you want because your in foobar country.
It "would be nice"? How about we fine them! Companies have been sued in the US for abominable labor practices in other countries, there is not "it would be nice if
Citizens not buying certain products would be great, but that doesn't eliminate the responsibility of our own government.
- sigs are for wimps.
To a point you are correct, Thankfully the USA doesnt execute people for posting blogs tho :)
and neither would:
It is better to break the law, than to enact a bad one.
--- blackironprison, where ignorance is bliss....
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 have that warrant hidden from the public so as not to alert the terrorists being investigated. That's common sense, is it not?
Technically, if you are suspected of fighting against the United States, whether on foreign or domestice soil, you have fallen out of the regular judicial system. All of a sudden, you find yourself under the judicial system of the military. Read the constitution and you'll see how the military justice system is allowed to differ from the domestic one.
And furthermore, foreign nationals, here illegally or legally, are not entitled to the same rights citizens have. My wife, although she is loyal to the US, is still a South Korean citizen. She has no right to petition government, she has no right to due process, and she has no right to be here at all. The feds could walk in tomorrow and put her in prison without any justification. But we just don't do that, because we don't think it is very kind.
Now, let's compare Amerikkka under the PatRIOT act to Communist China.
In China, even citizens have no rights. Even when government is at its most benevolent, her own citizens are treated more poorly than foriegn combatants. China is a corrupt country, with powerful men dictating the way things should be. Elections are a sham. Even if you elected representatives that opposed the government, they would be useless and replaced.
There is no court system that even approaches what we have in the US. I hear stories of farmers and homeowners having their property taken away without due process and without compensation. I hear stories of people in their homes being carted away by the police when there was no reason for the police to invade the home and the police certainly didn't have a warrant to do so.
You think Hurrican Katrina is bad, and it is. One of the worst effects it had (aside from the death and mayhem) is that families were torn apart. In Communist China, families are torn apart constantly. People don't know what happens to their loved ones. Are they in prison? Are they executed? No one knows. They just disappear.
In Communist China, one of the worst effects is that if you actually have some money, enough to get by well enough, you have to pretend you are a beggar. You can't walk around with modern clothing and a nice wristwatch. You certainly can't use your wealth to help your fellow people. One person who built a road to his village to connect them with Beijing found himself in prison because the people grew to actually like him and not the government.
I'm sorry, but the two don't even compare. I'm sick of all the wacko Bush bigotry and I wish people would open up their own eyes and see for themselves what is really happening rather than discarding opposing viewpoints because they think the other side is "dumb like W".
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
"give me one good reason it is ethical under any circumstances to profit from causing others to suffer"
Yahoo is not causing the suffering, the Chinese government is. That is the fallacy in your argument. Is Yahoo profiting by obeying the local authority? Does it lessen their responsibility, according to my ethics? Yes.
If you want to try to force your moral code on others, go ahead and try. But your values are not my values, please do not assume that your code of ethics applies to everyone.
Before you call relative ethics a crock of shit, maybe you should think about it some. Were ethics handed down by God, or some absolute power? What defines them?
What if suffering is good for a person? What if by causing one person to suffer, you can prevent thousands of others from suffering? What if Yahoo allowing this, then allowing it to be publicized, will prevent more suffering in the long run?
But, at any rate, spare me your egotistical BS that assumes your interpretation of some universal ethics code is the correct one.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Has China agreed to the terms of the Human Rights Charter? It seems to me the whole declaration is not a binding law, but a set of goals. Even the preamble to the Declaration suggests this:
THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
If this (like many UN publications, is nothing but a set of ideals,) we can't go making a legal argument against China or Yahoo! for violating it, can we?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
"do no evil".
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.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
... low standard of healthcare despite a vast budget for military expenditure are examples of that.
:-p
Funny, sounds like the USA to me as well as China.
ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
Yahoo is not causing the suffering
BS, if there is an option that reduces suffering failing to take that course of action is causing suffering. Allowing harm that you can reasonably prevent is the same as causing harm.
But your values are not my values
Pardon my stupidity here, but what's so objectionable about the idea that people have a right to freedom, a decent standard of living, and a duty to uphold the same for all other?
What if suffering is good for a person?
By the very definition of suffering that's not possible.
What if by causing one person to suffer, you can prevent thousands of others from suffering? What if Yahoo allowing this, then allowing it to be publicized, will prevent more suffering in the long run?
Both good points, but I don't have enough faith in corporations to assume that that is what's going on with out it being bloody obvious.
A Free Market requires informed intelligent consumers, such people are rare, we're in trouble.
IN FAITH WHEREOF the representatives of the Governments of the United Nations have signed the present Charter. DONE at the city of San Francisco the twenty-sixth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and forty-five.
4 5e.html#ch19
http://www.arabhumanrights.org/charter/un-charter
Besides, even if a country does not sign it, we must accuse such country of beign a violator of Human Rights. Or so the argument goes...
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
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.
Currently hooked on AMP
"Ink on a page".
Laws and treaties, if separated from any reasonable chance of consequences of material interest to those who might violate them, are at best meaningless.
If the UN does not firmly enforce its treaties within Chinese territory, and China enforces its local laws -- which do you think will hold sway over there?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
None of that matters. What counts is the almighty dollar. The excuses used by Western companies that bend under pressure from the Chinese government are the moral brethren of generations of collaborators whose excuse was "I was just following orders".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Tolitarianism is an inevitable consequence of communism in any large-scale implementation. With enough people, you /will/ have people with substantially different intentions and abilities -- which will lead to economic distributions vastly different from what is desired.
At that point, you will have to compel transactions in order to "correct" the imbalances, and you will have to maintain the compulsion for as long as people are different. This compulsion will naturally be accompanied by prohibitions on transactions outside the system... You will in addition need to compel people to perform at all, once it is clear that you are divorcing output from rewards. And you will need a manageably small group of people doing the deciding about what to compel, of course, if you want a remotely coherent policy...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Let's be perfectly honest here, China ceased to be a Communist state with Mao's death. It is not an autocratic state which is attempting to absorb the Western free market idea while trying to hold back the free market of ideas. It is returning to what it was for centuries; a nation dominated by civil servants. The Maoist revolution is long dead, and the sooner people realize that the People's Republic is simply an anachronism retained by the technocrats in the hopes that it may keep at least a segment that isn't too poor or too mired in commercialism to worry about politics loyal to the non-existent Communist ideas of a generation all but gone.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
LOL, I was modded flamebait :P. Cool!
sex is better than war!
Obviously you know all this about the Gitmo because unlike every other human-rights, legal, political and humanitarian organization in the world, you have free, unrestricted access to roam around the grounds any time you choose. Not even congressmen get this level of access, but you have special omniscient and omnipresent powers.
You also must have unlimited access to interview detainees (that is, the detainees who didn't tell you about the torture, waterboarding, noise-assault and forced-nudity). Also you must've overlooked the medical staff who (in violation of medical ethics) were providing confidential patient information about detainees to interrogators.
Nice one, Mr. President. You're a very funny man.
Jerry Yang. The last name sounds Chinese to me.
"Allowing harm that you can reasonably prevent is the same as causing harm."
Reasonably is the key -- refusal on Yahoo's part could theoretically prevent them from doing ANY good in China. Furthermore, reasonably is a relative term -- and your definition in this case may be different from mine.
"Pardon my stupidity here, but what's so objectionable about the idea that people have a right to freedom, a decent standard of living, and a duty to uphold the same for all other?"
Nothing, according to me. But possibly plenty, according to others. I was refuting your denial of relative ethics.
By the very definition of suffering that's not possible.
Not so. I suffer when I have a fever, but the fever helps kill off infection. My children suffer when I don't give them everything on a platter, but they learn to depend upon themselves. According to Bushido, you gain great honor by suffering in silence due to circumstances beyond your control. This honor may outweigh the suffering. According to many disciplines of Christianity, suffering is good for the soul.
"Both good points, but I don't have enough faith in corporations to assume that that is what's going on without it being bloody obvious. "
Neither do I -- but we have to allow for the possibility, no? And even if that is not the intention, it may be the end effect. So, do you judge intentions or results?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You, sir, are an idiot.
Columbus wiped out about 8 million Haitians on his second voyage alone, not to mention the millions of Natives that died in the 300 years following.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
You mean like thay didn't in Tiananmen Square
Sure people have retired and died since Mao, a few policies have changed. But the Chinese govt. remains a totalitarian dictatorship, and you better believe that they're as willing to gun down their own people today as they were 16 years ago. Possibly even more so, what are we going to do? Cut our own throat by cutting of our supply of cheap good and separating companies from divisions they outsourced to China?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
How does that compare to a country that diverted money away from flood defences to the military, leading to thousands of deaths, and doesn't have a national health service despite having the largest economy and greatest military spending in the world?
I am trolling
less oil but real WMD.
The US spent approximately 15% of its GDP on healthcare in 2003, and about 3% on military spending in 2003.
- size.php
Healthcare:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/costgrowth/
Military:
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative
You play paranoia, don't you?
Wow, I didnt realize that he lived that long!!
Guess you would have to live a long time to kill that many people alone.
Meet the new sig, same as the old sig
What China did is violate the UN Charter of Human Rights.
Well duh, this is China! They aren't a shining beacon of democracy; instead, they're a thuggish oligarchy with a billion low-priced laborers (the only reason anybody plays ball with them).
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
never , tortured eh?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Communism is an economic model, NOTHING to do with totalitarianism and dictatorships, which is the problem here. There are several communist/socialist states where the residents have MORE rights than us.
Wrong. If you believe in historical determinism, than, as a corollary of the end of history, you can accelerate the process by crushing the opposition, eliminating the burgoise, assasinating people, as Lenin and Stalin have done. They matter not, as they will disappear in the end ("Communism"). Read Karl Popper for more.
Marx himself voiced the opinion that there should exist, temporarily, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (in a letter by Marx to Weydemeyer, published in Neue Zeit magazine, see Lenin's State and Revolution):
(...) 2) That class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) that this dictatorship is itself only a trasition (...)
And than Lenin goes on, in his analysis, to say: Only in Communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists has been completely broken, (...) when there are no classes (i.e., there is no difference netween the members of society in their relation to the social means of production), only then "the state ceases to exist", and "it becomes possible to speak of freedom." Only then a really full democracy, a democracy without any exceptions, will be possible and will be realised. And only then will deomcracy begin to wither away due to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, exploitation, absurdities and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will become accustomed to the observation of the elementary rules of social life that have been known for centuries (...) they will become accustomed to observing them without force, without compulsion, without subordination, without the special apparatus fo compulsion which is called state."
Of course, we know where such experimentation lead to with Mao's Cultural Revolution. The worst possible example is Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. The state did not disappear. In today's China, workers have the same rights as 18th century workers in England.
OTOH, you're right on the spot when you comment about rights. As I've mentioned in another post, the Human Rights Charter is more than about just political rights (e.g. economic rights). People tell me there are outdoors, when you leave Havana (Cuba) on the way to the airport that says smth like: Tonight, in Latin America, 100,000 children will sleep on the streets, None of the are Cubans. That, to me, explains a lot as to why so many people in Latin America view Cuba with some simpathy. I, for one, am not sure the people of Cuba were better off when it was America's favorite little whorehouse/cassino. Of course, than the powerful US had to impose an embargo in that puny island...So, there are always 2 sides to a story...
As we can see from the Katrina disaster, class boundaries exist in the US in a perverse manner. Living in the richest country in the world does not, for instance, garantee you economic rights that have been attained by social-democrats in Europe.
And with reduction and violation of Human Rights (e.g., Guantanamo, handing prisioners to torture in Egypt, etc.) we can see that there's a whole lot the US falls short of.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
That's what he's going to get, just because China makes "no pretense at democracy" doesn't mean this is acceptable.
... but it would seem some people here see no problem with that. Isn't that great, most of you have never lived under an oppressive regime. So that's really nice that you support them! Just what the world needs, right?
I'm really amazed at the apologetics coming from some in the slashdot crowd. You don't have to be a radical to at least say "Geez, that's a harsh sentence!"
- sigs are for wimps.
How does that compare to a country that diverted money away from flood defences to the military, leading to thousands of deaths, and doesn't have a national health service despite having the largest economy and greatest military spending in the world?
Well, it compares to it in the same way malice compares to gross negligence.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As a corporation, Yahoo's sole responsibility is to make as much money as possible. In many countries, if a director is not maximising profit by any means necessary he can face criminal charges. If you live in a country with corporations and accept their existence you can't blame Yahoo or its employees for doing what they're legally obliged to.
I am trolling
The statistics in the Chinese article are questionable. According to the latest census, it appears that the mean income of whites is under $73,000 and of blacks just under $46k. That is far from a 15-fold difference as quoted in the article. I also noticed that it said there were 16.5 homocides in 2003. That is exactly what the FBI reported, and it's improtant to note that it's at its lowest value (per capita) in the last 20 years. So it's not like they're all bogus in that article, but just take it with a grain of salt.
I'm not a "neocon war apologist." When someone starts insulting you instead of addressing your points, you've already won. I didn't vote for Bush.
You're just mad you can't argue around the fact that there was a specific treaty Iraq violated for over a decade that was worded to give us the right to use force.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Yes, I'm an American...
:(.
But, the world has pissed on repressive regiemes before. The only thing that seperates China from Iraq is a Billion people, money and no monetary interest in invading/converting the system to democracy.
It seems like America, the corporatations and the like only find ethical behavior and lack free speech useful or worth defending so long as their is a dollar in it for them at the end of the day.
Spin it however you like...boo yahoo
--pete
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.
So Yahoo complies with local chinese laws in order to business there and make money and you support the chinese government by purchasing items made in China. What's the difference again?
BTW, do you check to make sure each item you buy is not being made by prisoners being used as slave labour, or children being forced to work in sweathops?
Sounds rather hypocritical to me.
You might want to look at their current practices a little closer.
What does oil have to do with this? Why were we paying an average of $2.60 per gallon and CLIMBING, BEFORE Katrina. Obviously we were stealing iraqi oil and still price gouging to cover up for it.
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
"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."
Sure they can. They just won't. Because human rights vs. profit is no contest to them.
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
I have to assume you are referring to human rights violations under Mao. So, by your reasoning, a government is responsible for any and all actions of the governments that ruled the land before them.
This stikes me as a sloppy comparison. First of all, in the case of US segregation, segregation laws were local, then subsequently overturned at the Federal level, so the Federal government has never been in any way responsible for segregation. Second, the government in China is the same government under Mao: so far as I know there haven't been any elections or revolutions. The senior officials of the regime, almost certainly started their careers serving under Mao.
With respect to where China communists and Iraq under the Baathist regimes stand with respect to each other on the scale of villainy, I've never seen to much point in such comparisons. Suffice to say they're both ruthless, corrupt regimes that exploit the people of the aggrandizement of a few party memebers. Circumstances of history and ethnology make it hard to be precise in such comparisons. In China, the Han ethnicity dominates both the country and the government. In Iraq, a Sunni Arab minority sat between hostile Shiites to the south and Kurds to the north. This means the Baathist hold on Iraq was always inherently unstable.
Where there is no accountability so long as you can manage to hang on to power, then atrocities are a natural response to losing power.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It all boils down to profit. Yahoo can be sued by a minority of their shareholders for not pursuing profit toward to utmost benefit of wealth for the shareholders. Here (www.lapres.net) is a link of the precedent that makes this happen.
So it all boils down to no profit in protecting dissidents compared against the torrent of profit from serving Chinese Internet users. This is a travesty, but I suggest a market opportunity...
We need to establish a speculative futures market for human rights violations, perhaps by geopolitical region. Things like genocide, curable disease infections and suppression of thought under totalitarian regimes can be assigned fair market values and traded amongst participants.
Maybe this (www.capitalistpig.com/) can help set it up. I dunno, just an idea. It seems imagination is the only thing that will save us. Sure has worked out for the greedy people!
For someone who is as well read, you apparently didn't RTFA.
They're accusing him of "divulging state secrets". Everything you say simply does not apply in this case, as he apparently DID divulge an internal memo.
Now, you may think (as I do) that that's just a front. But the fact of the matter is, he's not exactly a political prisoner.
Oh, and big bad China is not the only one to prosecute those who divulge state secrets. In other countries (guess where) they actually execute them
The story is that a corporation, wittingly or not, took part in a series of events that led to a questionable moral quandary. the reporter suspected that free citizens might be interested in this quandary.
Yahoo as a corporation is within their legal right (probably even legal obligation) to have given the Chinese the information requested. We, free citizens of the world, are within our rights to be disgusted with the evilness that was brought about, in part, due to Yahoo's actions.
I personally don't want to deal with Yahoo anymore; unless they fix their policy more to my liking. But they don't have to. I'm one guy who doesn't even use their services; but I'll consider them less now, than prior. Maybe they'll choose to side with a billion person country over me. Maybe the reporter was so offended by the situation, that they hoped many like-minded people would boycott or avoid yahoo. maybe some of these people are/were customers of yahoo. maybe they'll be right. maybe a billion people will avoid yahoo, until they make concerted, explicit efforts to encourage human rights, rather than passively stomping on human rights and destroying a human life.
maybe the world sucks. maybe yahoo will go on working with China, and most people will ignore the story. maybe people will hear the story and not even care enough, or be bothered, or remember, or whatever. maybe tomorrow everything will be exactly as it is today.
but, maybe it won't.
I wish that I was a catfish.
What China did is violate the UN Charter of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/rights/50/decla.htm
I don't know if you're aware of this but China has been violating UN charters regarding human rights for as long as they have been in place. This is no news. A lot of other countries do it but they try to cover it up, China doesn't.
And why should they? UN is pretty much a defunct body. It has no real powers other than those of its constituents who, most of the time, can't agree amongst themselves.
I'm in a way peeved at Yahoo!. Just because your business is threatened you don't go around violating human rights. This kind of bad media doesn't hurt China but it sure will hurt Yahoo.
Infact, I'm going to go punish them now. Removing all my porn from Yahoo mail because porn is illegal in India!
Hey!!! I'm 47...
If we want to trade, then we can impose our corporations respect a set of rights, ergo the Chinese govt. would have to.
What this has to do with Iraq nobody but you knows!
You then make the argument that the US can do nothing to influence in a positive way the human rights violations in China, so with your thinking we shouldn't even try. In the meantime, we should just sit back and let our corporations help supress the local populations of these countries.
Does that summarize your nonsensical point?
- sigs are for wimps.
...but I'm sure this is just a coincidence. (From a Yahoo! press release, mysteriously dated August 11th, 2005.)
By the way, here is the original press release from Reporters Without Borders, since I didn't see it linked anywhere else.
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?
Ah, the soft bigotry of low expectations! Here's another Chinese citizen.
"Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/index.htm
If the Chinese government doesn't like these rights, I suggest they kick themselves out of the United Nations and the rest of the civilized world.
There is, and there should be, a basic set of human rights no matter what country you live in. These rights should be sensitive to all cultures, but at the end of the day, and in the 21st century, it's not acceptable to excuse opression in any form.
And you very well know that what the Chinese are engaging on is opression. Even if their own citizens voted to revoke these rights (their votes don't count btw), that doesn't mean all of it's citizens shouldn't enjoy them. We should define and enforce these rights in all countries, and at the very minimum expect that our corporations don't help and enable the supression of these rights.
That's the minimum I'm asking for, and I don't think it's unreasonable at all.
- sigs are for wimps.
I'm curious - does "made by prisoners" appear on product labels where you shop? If not, how do you know whether a product manufactured in China was made by folks working in a factory for a decent wage vs. a prisoner?
Notice how there is absolutly no anger whatsoever at the Chinese government, only at Yahoo for simply RESPECTING THE LAWS of that government!
The same people who thing Yahoo is evil for turning over information to China, collected IN China, as required by law, are the same people who demand that the EU start selling advanced offensive weapons systems to China.
I suspect most people here who find this case outrageous also would oppose the arms sales. As for anger at the Chinese government, it should be taken for granted among civilized people - they are after all oppressors, murderers, and hypocrites, and we have all known so for decades. I don't feel I have to reiterate my hatred of Nazis every day either.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I've canceled my yahoo accounts. I don't know if it helps them or hurts them though.
It's all very simple. The Chinese are using *capitalism* to fund *communism*.
In other words, the people of China don't enjoy the benefits of capitalism, but capitalism supplies the money in their pockets. Theoretically, no one is getting rich over there.
Does this mean that communism could not exist without being funded by capitalism? No, but without capitalism, the communist Chinese would probably be strictly agrarian.
As far as human rights are concerned, the Chinese just don't think like westerners, censorship is neccessary to preserve stability. I do think they would be better off if they became more progressive, like Japan and South Korea.
Michael
So which is which? :P
I guess you have never heard of WMD's or biological weapons? European diseases were quite effective at killing native americans. ;) :P
And to the GP, I guess you think Columbus was one of the founding fathers?
Wait are you talking about China or the US?
Dictator: Hi, I was wondering if you would tell me who was the clever person who stole the parts to the enigma machine from under my nose in my thoroughly monitored factory?
Company: I can't reveal that -- there is no knowing what you will do to that person.
Dictator: If you don't tell me, I will award a greater percentage of business contracts to some other company! You will be a minor player in our huge economy. *folds arms*
Company: Well, if you put it that way, then making a deal with you is the only ethical choice for me to make. Also, is there any torturing I can help arrange for you in exchange for the marketshare and jobs that would otherwise go to another company? To show how cooperative we are, we are willing to help you torture twice as many people as our competitors, and twice as painfully too. Also, if you invade another country this year or hit our competitors with missiles (but not us), we will give even steeper discounts. If not, perhaps we could interest you in our selection of stretchers, iron maidens, and sonic lasers?
Yes, I understand that, Mr. Genius. The whole point of my post is pointing out that, duh, it's a violation.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Even though I have a login here, I'm posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
I have a female friend in, well, let's say a middle eastern country well known for outrageous restrictions, who I met in a yahoo classical music chatroom; a wonderful person. In the course of our, well, getting to know each other, we noticed that her mailbox was being hacked, addresses she's never heard of were blocked, (emails from me were in there, too) and that someone else was logging into both of our accounts.
I reported this to yahoo for both of us, got the usual form letter...a couple of days later I was sent an automated request to rate the level of service - a ticket number was given. I sent an email to yahoo asking what had been happening, they sent me a form letter, from "Eugene", telling me that they don't discuss others' accounts with 3rd parties. After repeated requests, and nothing but form letters, and sound evidence of continued hacking, she finally went offline, quite frightened about the entire affair. We're on another messenger service, quite anonymous now, but she is definitely not the same person as before.
Yahoo would never give out the identity or i.p. number of the perpetrator(s), so God knows what those people at yahoo are doing...
God forgive them, it's not humanly possible for me to...
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.
Hermann Goering called. He wants his defense back.
Here's the a better version of the reasons behind Shi Tao's arrest (thanks to the poster who linked the Reporters Without Borders story):
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
"I guess you have never heard of WMD's or biological weapons?"
darn, I forgot my sarcasm tags.
Meet the new sig, same as the old sig
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?
In the US, is it not true that anyone can be put in jail indefinitely by being accused of terrorism?
[ReidNews]
"A sentinal^H^H^H^H^H^H^Holdier for every man, woman, and child in Zion^H^H^H^Hthe world. That sounds exactly like the thinking of a chinaman to me." Or something like that...
Logs and email aren't the same thing... most mail servers will append the sender IP of an address to messages, so really all they would have to do is check his email, possibly some recipient emails (or the 'sent' box though I'm not sure it retains the info) and then snatch the IPs.
Mind you I'm being sarcastic here ... Google's policy is a total smoke screen, and Yahoo is simply showing us exactly what Google will do to us eventually...scary thing is that Yahoo likely stores less info on us than Google, yet they are willing to bend over backwards to a murderous regime....hmm, I think I feel a little "regime change" is in order...hehe
Yay for our Right to Privacy!!! (again, sarcasm)
To answer your question; the US (I assume your uhm, clever, rejoinder was describing the US) compares quite favorably to the PRC, thanks very much.
Yes, google is reinforcing China's restrictions by vanishing the news items themselves from the summary page.
If they just wanted to make the site more useable, they could present the exact same Google news page but replace the links to forbidden information with "This link rendered inoperable at the request of the PRC" or some other informative message.
By instead completely eliminating the offending article's entry, they prevent Chinese readers from knowing what information is being censored or even knowing that such information exists to be censored. In doing so, Google is entirely complicit in China's censorship and thus are censors themselves.
The enemies of Democracy are
I take it you've never read the Patriot Act. You've probably taken all the second- or third-hand information and believed it.
[...]
There is no court system that even approaches what we have in the US. I hear stories of farmers and homeowners having their property taken away without due process and without compensation. I hear stories of people in their homes being carted away by the police when there was no reason for the police to invade the home and the police certainly didn't have a warrant to do so.
So, you berate us for believing third hand information, and then dispense it yourself? Hmm...
"MY APOCALYPTIC TENOR HAS NOT BEEN DISPELLED!" - T-Rex, qwantz.com
Between Yahoo's actions with China and the RIAA demanding account info from ISPs etc...
The ISP's are complying with the law in the US and Yahoo are complying with Chinese law - if you do buisness in a country then you abide by their laws whether you agree with them or not.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
There SHOULD BE fundamental human rights, specially in the 21st century. And we should all agree on what they are. That's what that UN document was/is trying to achive, and it's necessary.
It's not a matter of what my or other cultures accept, it's a matter of where humanity wants to be. Coming from a 3rd world country, I very well know what it is to have my rights restricted. The problem is people like you who don't know what that is, and chalk up abuses to "cultural differences".
Would you say that commiting genocide against your own citizens is a value judgment left to each society? What if a male dominated society determines that men should have the right to rape any woman?
What do we do? just sit back like you and say, "oh well, those are their cultural values?"
No, what we do is we complain, fight for the rights of the opress, and try to change governments to support these rights.
These are not radical ideas, unless you're an opressive entity, it shouldn't scandalize you.
- sigs are for wimps.
True. But his argument would seem to make them the same. You can't call making bad governing decisions, even when they lead to loss of life, the same as murdering your own people.
I am trolling
Godwins Law!
Nobody is disputing it is not a totalitarian state. The thing is, if you are Yahoo, you're not facing the government saying "this person made a disparaging comment on our Beloved Leader; tell us who he is so we can torture and kill him". It is "this person ilegally distributed a Top Secret document; tell us who he is so we can judge him".
The first case is clear cut; the second... well, not so much (see Julius and Ethel Rosenberg). Yahoo is not in the business of deciding whether the person in question broke any laws or not.
Say it happened in the US, and say the FBI approaches Yahoo and subpoenas (not asks, subpoenas)the information on, say, someone who broke a gag order on a Patriot Act arraignment. Do you also think Yahoo can refuse to comply?
US citizens are protected by the Constitution.
Illegal enemy combatants aren't even covered by the Geneva convention.
Big difference.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
It's not that hard.
Murderer: "Let's kill this specific person."(does so)
Non-murderer: "This action might kill someone, but I think it's worth it." (does whatever, some people die)
Clear enough? All your examples, except for killing dissenters, are at worst manslaughter.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Actually, they are in bed with the reds. But they're in bed with the reds in the US, too - just look up keywords like "candyman" and "pedophile arrests" and see how many times Yahoo's name gets mentioned.
Corporations acting at the whims of the governments that host them is nothing new. Not even if you're Google. The obvious solution here is you never trust corporations. This is what proxy servers and anonymous remailers are for.
Wow, I didn't realize that the UN charter was designed so deliberately open-ended to allow them to impose sanctions on whoever the hell they want. Damn, I really hope they never gain any actual political influence, that could really suck.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
"God definitely does exist"
Really?? Wow! Where's this incredible undeniable proof of the existance of god?? It's going to change everything!!
MNCs have to adhere to country laws and policies when operating in that country. If it was illegal to leak the communist party agenda, then the journalist was an offender. Cell phone companies have been cooperating with governments of democratic countries too to track down offenders who use modern, hard to trace technology to their advantage. Yahoo can't be berated for helping the government, just because China is communist. If our dear Mr. Shi Tao wanted to send the text of an internal Communist Party message so badly and also not get caught, he shud've taken "precautions" such as spoofed email name and contact, spoofed IP and MAC addresses and the usual hacker stuff. Without these, he was a sitting duck :-)
> He gave a document to reporters that the government didn't want released. That isn't even protected speech in America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
- sigs are for wimps.
16.5k homicides
Go outside at night and look up in the clear night sky. Ponder at the miracle that is the human body. Further, consider the wonder that is the human brain (or even the brain of a gnat). Consider the miracle of Life. "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." Psalm 14:1a NIV
________________________________________________
"God definitely does exist" Really?? Wow! Where's this incredible undeniable proof of the existance of god?? It's going to change everything!!
"Care about people's opinions and you will be their prisoner." ~~Tao Te Ching~~
Uhh, well, ok. Who created God?
"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God of God." Infinipsalm Aleph-7:Aleph-2 New Transfinite Version
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The 3% military spending is going to be rendered inaccurate once Bush's term is over. All the interesting numbers will be from 2004, 2005, 2006 and on.
Google is not evil.
Google isn't perfect. It's run by people who are no more or less capable of evil than anyone else. It's done some very questionable things in China as well.
God definitely does exist - the sooner you realize this the better.
There is no more proof of the existance of God than there is for the existance of Zues, Odin, or the little elf inside my head.
Without God, why do you care about human rights?
Because I have empathy for my fellow man Because I hope for a tomorrow where heaven actually exists, except on earth.
Evolution and might makes right, China is over 1 billion strong, I'd expect atheists to celebrate the torture.
Then obviously you haven't met many atheists. Perhaps an individual atheist might celebrate it, but an individual Christian might too. Obviously it makes sense to expect Christians to celebrate the torture too, right?
Perhaps you should actually read essays on humanist ideals instead of reading over and over in the Bible how bad atheists are.
Except they don't, since deep down most aren't 100% God-less.
Eh, the number is fewer than you think, although certainly some may exist. Nevertheless, not all theists are 100% with God/gods/whatever they believe.
No.
Homework, what did the Supreme Court say about the release of the documents?
Extra credit, under any realistic scenario, is China setup to have a branch of government rule against another one like the Sup. did against the executive?
(hint: No)
Class is over.
- sigs are for wimps.
Surprisingly, it's not that difficult when you bring lethal diseases to which the natives have no immunity (usually intentionally, by giving them infected blankets in trade), and work the survivors to death mining gold for you to send back to Europe. Not to mention the 60-odd other wars which the USA fought against Indian tribes up through the mid 1800s.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
You should always remember your sarcasm tags, without them it's not correct HumanTML code.
WHOOOSHHH!
Meet the new sig, same as the old sig
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.
60 years ago, the U.S. also sent tanks, planes, guns, and munitions out the wazzoo to Stalin, a dictator responsible for the slaughter of millions, yet not to other dictators in power at the time.
Come to think of it, neither Chiang kai-Shek or Charles DeGaulle were democratically elected either.
The U.S. attacked Iraq because they invaded Kuwait (the first time around), and then for something else no one can really prove the second time around, not because they were "totalitarian". Where do you get this "official excuse" stuff?
The Cubans were embargoed for hosting Soviet missiles, so it wasn't for the same incorrect reason.
By the way, both people and nations employ double standards because everyone plays favorites one way or another.
Bollocks. The executives are responsible for maximizing profits while staying within the bounds of the law and any corporate bylaws and charters. If Yahoo is incorporated in such a way as to allow their subsidiaries to undermine individual liberties, then those bylaws should be changed and/or amended with the utmost expediency.
By all means, change US law, but at the moment they're doing nothing more or less than what they legally have to.
I am trolling
Of all the 'secrets' that china covets there is one that I would be intensly fascinated with knowing, "What percentage of energy does the middle kingdom use to keep all those old government types alive?" The cost of wires, and feeding tubes must be gigantic!
"Go outside at night and look up in the clear night sky. Ponder at the miracle that is the human body. Further, consider the wonder that is the human brain (or even the brain of a gnat). Consider the miracle of Life."
I do this all the time. I am astounding by the universe, life, and the mere fact that stuff exists in the first place.
But that's no proof of a god.
Could a god exist that created this? Yes.
Could it have come from an infinite number of other possibilities? Yes.
The truth of the matter is that not one single person on this earth knows where the universe came from. To claim otherwise is not just foolish, but horribly stupid.