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Western Software Used to Support Censorship
just_another_sean writes "The NYT has an interesting summary of a study done by the OpenNet Initiative about Western software companies developing and profiting from censorship and Internet filtering tools used by repressive regimes. This particular study focuses on censorship in Myanmar, a country that is currently under American sanctions. Are these software companies simply selling a product and should not be concerned with how it is used or are they contributing to the problems of these repressive regimes?"
...and allow me to fan it with an analogy:
Are these gun manufacturers simply selling a product and should not be concerned with how it is used or are they contributing to the problem of criminals?
Flame on!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I agree that we can not (or should not) make the selling of any software illegal (although we have done it before, just ask the PGP guy). I think a company like this should be publicly shamed. It should be presented to the public that they are cooperating with these regimes in assisting in the enslavement of their people.
Just another example of why we need stricter trade controls. If a US company is selling technology specifically designed to censor the public or if they provide technical support to achieve such an end, they should be fined, and if the offense continues, dissolved. Of course there needs to be clearly defined limits on what constitutes such things, but it needs to be done.
Not read TFA, but dear lord we've been though this so many times - the technology is an enabler. People can do good things with it, or bad things. voila, that's it.
... the profit motive rules all. What, you think our companies should worry about the lot of the ordinary citizen, the workers, the guy in the street? That's not American, that's not the Western way, that's communism! You're not a Communist, are you? Why do you hate America so much?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Should AutoCAD be concerned when it's software is used to design weapons? Should I be concerned about paying taxes when that money is used to kill people because they live on the other side of an imaginary line? Should Slashdot editors be concerned when their forums are used to copyright infringe entire articles?
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
What I don't understand is how a Western software salesman can be so blinded by profit that they can do this. What do they say to their family when they ask "What did you do today?". "Not much, I just sold a complete filtering solution to the Chinese government in order to help them supress dissent and hunt down pro-democracy campaigners".
We're not talking about a few off-the-shelf copies of Windows here - these are large scale installations.
Peer to Peer applications can be sold or used for both legal and illegal purposes, ethical and unethical purposes. Same goes for word processors. Webservers. Ftp servers. Linux. Anything. Why should we concern ourselves with whether one particular subset of products are being used for ethical or unethical purposes? We shouldnt restrict these companies at all, what we should do is raise the concerns to a public level and let the individual decide if they want to do business with these companies in any form. The western world is after all a capitalist one.
The "two tier model" of which the article speaks is a pathetically small fig-leaf. There is nothing remotely difficult about imposing restrictions on resellers not to sell to repressive regimes or for any use to curtail freedom of speech.
...I still call them collaborators.
When it's your own country that's repressed by dictators, those who help them do it are called "collaborators" by the rest of the populace. When it's somebody else's country, well...
The solution is quite easy: just make laws that forbid companies from supplying such assistance to those regimes. The goal of a company is to make money, preferably within existing laws. It's pretty sure they're not breaking the laws of of e.g. China and Myanmar, so people can only be surprised that companies in the business of making money are trying to make money.
If people are so concerned about democracy, freedom of speech and other bla bla, then why import so many goods from China (repressive communist regime) or import oil from Saudi Arabia (fundamentalist Islamic)? At the end of the day, it's all about the money and practically no one is even marginally innocent in this.
see a Text Widget
Even if the tool is custom built, installed and configured for a specific purpose?
Guess we should shame Linus for creating software that lots of oppressive regimes use.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
What about Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc? All of which are falling all over themselves to serve the Chinese market?
Falling over themselves so fast and hard, they're perfectly happy to turn over the names of political dissidents and censor web results so the Great Firewall of China doesn't stick out like a sore thumb? Seems pretty "evil" to me.
Always amazes me that Slashdotters get all up in arms about filtering at their school or work, scream blue bloody murder about censorship...but when Google filters for a whole country, nobody gives a damn.
Please help metamoderate.
From country that exports death in a thousand forms - you are worried about a company selling software used for filtering internet traffic.
Is this the same ideology that blanks out Janet's tits, but allows 100 people to be shot in a half hour TV show ?
Get your priorities right.
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Wrong analogy. Selling more bullets to someone you just watched shoot ten people outside your store would be more apt.
Would it be better if the Repressive Regimes used Open Source Software?
It would be easy for them to modify existing application to censor.
So what if they use squid and iptables and various other "free" softwares to censor their public? Is that ok?
And have any writers of "free software" stopped to think what terrible things their software can and is being used for? Should we stop free software makers from distributing their software to anybody who wants it? Or, if a free software program is used to commit, say, war crimes, should its creators be arrested and tried?
It is a company's obligation to its shareholders, employees, customers and the human race to act in a manner that is at least on the right side of the morality line.
No, it's not. The sole obligation a company has is to maximise profit for it's shareholders (publicly traded) or it's owners (privately held). Any thing else is just marketing puff pieces.
If these companies are just selling a product and needn't concern themselves with how it will be used once it leaves their hands, we should be consistent and apply the same thought process to our handling of your local pharmacy's policies on selling opiates or your local gun dealer's policies on selling guns.
Under circumstances where money and profit are the moral, religious and primary motivation for business, it's unsurprising that they fail to account for contributing to human suffering or oppression. Look at Nike!
But we certainly don't need more laws or restrictions on its own. What we need are more people who care about the problems and are willing to display the shameful for who and what they are. I think one of the biggest problems in today's society comes from anonymity. After all, if no one knows who you are, then no one will know what you have been doing or whether you are responsible for this that or the other. No face, no shame and somehow no guilt.
The Nike example shows that they are not proud of their approach to manufacturing and will even display signs of shame (even if through denial) for the murky areas in which they are engaged. I don't think that these other companies would be any different... the problem is how to get that stuff exposed in a way that gets enough attention. The media is now owned by the same club membership that is responsible for a lot of the activity we find so repugnant so the dilemma is clear and obvious.
That said, I'm not sure trade embargoes help anything, though I do agree with another poster who suggested a public shaming of these companies. People of conscience wouldn't support American companies building torture devices or weapons for oppressive regimes, but we'll turn a blind eye to the censorship of their people? Why is that?
I am not saying I support what these companies are doing, but bully censoring is still censoring...
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I
One (public "censorship") is an exercising of rights, whereas the other (censorship) is a denial of rights. It's more acceptable in the same way that freedom is more acceptable than slavery.
English is easier said than done.
Sanctions are just another BS tool politicians use to look tough. They get to stand up in front of the voters and talk about how they're using sanctions to be tough on the turrists and commies, all the while taking campaign contributions from American companies which operate foreign subsidiaries and move product through third party resellers to avoid the sanctions.
People of conscience wouldn't support American companies building torture devices or weapons for oppressive regimes, but we'll turn a blind eye to the censorship of their people? Why is that?
So as to avoid a flamewar, I'll forbear mentioning my ideas as to the why, but I would like to point out that a not insignificant number of Americans not only turn a blind eye, but actively support the censorship of their own people; why should we expect them to be more charitable towards others?
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
You have to understand the first three rules of business:
[1] Make money.
[2] Make more money.
[3] Fuck everything and everyone that gets in the way of making money.
let's do an abstraction of this to a individual level:
[1] Get what "I" want.
[2] Get *more* of what "I" want.
[3] Fuck everything and everyone who gets in the way of "me" getting what "I" want.
You know what the last set of rules sounds like? The mental attitude of a psychopath[1] - a person with no conscience and no restrictions on thier behaviour. A person who does things "because he can". And that is very descriptive of corporate behaviour since the beginning of corporations.
[1] aka "sociopath", "antisocial personality", etc. I.e., basic motherfucking sonofabitch.
Please forgive me using the term "public censorship". I realize that it has a built in emotional appeal, by connotation, that is somewhat intended to stifle certain arguments. I would like to avoid it, but at the moment I can't think of another term for this phenomenon.
"Public censorship" isn't okay just because it's the public that does it. It causes it's own share of problems. It can lead to prejudice, which can be just harmful to society even when not supported by legislation. It's an indirect opression that is much harder to counteract, because any opposition is seen through the same filter as that which is being censored. It's still a "tyranny of the majority", no matter how you cut it.
Which is worse... To fear expressing your opinion because you may be fined or put in jail for it? Or to fear expressing your opinion because you may be labeled, shunned, ridiculed, etc.?
The societal effect of "public censorship" is stronger, harder to fight, and therefore more dangerous, IMHO, than the societal effect of legislative/governmental censorship. If you want an example, look at the battle going on right now between the "liberals hate America" and "conservatives hate freedom" camps. Both are attempts to get their patrons not to listen to anything the opposition says. Is the unending continuation of this futile battle going to lead to a better America?
No, I'm going to have to side with Jon Stewart on this one. It can only make things worse. It fosters animosity and divisiveness, and it stifles coooperation and compromise. And no matter who wins, a huge portion of society feels like they're under the thumb of a hated enemy.
What if I sell software designed to filter web pages based on content (i.e. squidguard)? What if Myannmar (sic) buys the software and uses it to filter web pages containing information critical of the current leadership?
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It's a classical trap of using censorship to abolish censorhip. "If we censor the software makers, we'll get rid of censorship in these regimes."
It comes down to this: Many a hacker consider code as a form of free speech, and that they have the right to excersize their right of free speech how they choose.
If these companies aren't forbidden to write (and sell) their wares and views as they choose, how is it any different from censoring inflammatory political speech and propaganda?
It's not illegal for somebody to use their right of free speech to make a case for censorship. Sure, its paradoxical, but it's not illegal.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
A person can infringe on your rights in many ways. They can kill you, taking away your right to live, they can steal from you, taking away your right to personal property, they can kidnap you, taking away your right to liberty, or many, many other things. Not even libertarians (of which I'm not one) say that those should be legal.
A corporation can infringe on your rights in totally different ways. They can carefully calculate wages so you never make enough money to leave, taking away your right to liberty (like the mining and logging camps used to do). They can control information, and give it out selectively, or censor the information you give out, taking your right to gain knowledge of the world around you and your right to free speech. They can knowingly create hazardous products that can injure or kill you, or lie to you in an attempt to take your money.
People infringing on your rights are just as regulated as corporations infringing on your rights, they're just very different things, so they require different rules.
Enron lying about their stock to make money at the stockholders and employees expense is just as bad as if Ken Lay robbed you at gunpoint, just different methods.
I mean, yes, Casto doesn't allow his people to access the internet except with government permission, and even then content is filtered, but that is a reasonable man simply trying to protect his people from harmful ideas... BUT DAMN THOSE EVIL CAPITALIST FOR OPPRESSING THE CUBAN PEOPLE BY SELLING CASTRO FILTERING SOFTWARE!!!
Oh, wait a minute? The United States doesn't allow companies to sell to Cuba? Those egotistical, arrogant, imperialist bastards! Cuba should be free to buy and sell whatever it wants from the U.S.. How dare those evil capitalists try to force their views on Cuba by refusing to sell them stuff!
Geez... why can't people just admit that they are reactionary whankers with no real ideology... just some vauge dislike of "capitalism" (without any real consistant definition of what capitalism is... they call Stalin "capitalist" for god sakes, and in the next sentence call Western Europe "socialist")...
I mean, when the U.S. doesn't trade with Cuba, or England doesn't trade with Zimbabwe, this is considered "imperialism" (whatever that means, they don't have any consistent definition of that either)... but if U.S. or European companies trade with China or Saudi Arabia, they are guilty for "supporting oppressive regimes" (somehow it is not "arrogant" to call China or Saudi Arabia "oppressive regimes", but call Cuba or North Korea an "oppressive regime" and it is not only "arrogance", but "imperialist hate speech").
I can understand and respect people with different ideologies than me... we don't all have to agree. But please, GET AN IDEOLOGY before you start your self-rightous preaching! Enough of the self-contradictory, reactionary drivel that passes as "political correctness" nowadays!