Slashdot Mirror
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?"
What we should do is restrict these evil companies from selling such software, or 'censor' the software companies if you like... That would solve the problem and the world would be a more free and happy place.
Myanmar, which has long been under American sanctions
If Myanmar has long been under sanctions, wtf is an American tech company doing there? I mean, aren't American companies, especially technology companies prohibited working with such repressive governments? Or is this simply a case of a company going stealth from the American government simply to make a buck?
Selling a gun to a customer and selling a gun to a known murderer are not the same thing. If you sell software that can enforce censorship to countries that practice censorship, you know that they're going to use it for that. Does that make the seller an accomplice? I dunno, ask a cop about selling a gun to a known murderer and whether they could bring someone up on charges for that.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
... 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.
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.
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...
"There's a cat-and-mouse game going on between states that seek to control the information environment and citizens who seek to speak freely online," said John Palfrey, the director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society and a researcher with the OpenNet Initiative. "Filtering technologies, and the way that they are implemented, are becoming more sophisticated."
/ bm.html#Govt
Not surprisingly, repressive governments have been eager buyers of those technologies.
From the CIA 'Factbook' on Myanmar (Burma):
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
Economy - overview:
Burma is a resource-rich country that suffers from government controls, inefficient economic policies, and abject rural poverty. The junta took steps in the early 1990s to liberalize the economy after decades of failure under the "Burmese Way to Socialism", but those efforts have since stalled and some of the liberalization measures have been rescinded. Burma has been unable to achieve monetary or fiscal stability, resulting in an economy that suffers from serious macroeconomic imbalances - including inflation and multiple official exchange rates that overvalue the Burmese kyat. In addition, most overseas development assistance ceased after the junta began to suppress the democracy movement in 1988 and subsequently ignored the results of the 1990 legislative elections. Economic sanctions against Burma by the United States - including a ban on imports of Burmese products and a ban on provision of financial services by US persons in response to the government of Burma's attack in May 2003 on AUNG SAN SUU KYI and her convoy - further slowed the inflow of foreign exchange. Official statistics are inaccurate. Published statistics on foreign trade are greatly understated because of the size of the black market and unofficial border trade - often estimated to be one to two times the size of the official economy. Though the Burmese government has good economic relations with its neighbors, a better investment climate and an improved political situation are needed to promote foreign investment, exports, and tourism. In February 2003, a major banking crisis hit the country's 20 private banks, shutting them down and disrupting the economy. As of January 2004, the largest private banks remained moribund, leaving the private sector with little formal access to credit.
I wonder what the executives at companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco feel about using their technology to aid oppressive regimes? The whole idea of information sharing and transferral is thrown out the window when you can no longer criticize your goverment or those in power. You then have a dumbed-down version of the software, with no reason to trust or believe anything you read through them since they are easily monitored, and easily censored.
Do the executives at these companies have any morals? How far must it go before they will object to censorship? Is their complacency indicative of their need for more sales or that they just don't care?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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
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.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Wrong analogy. Selling more bullets to someone you just watched shoot ten people outside your store would be more apt.
I am appalled that US software is being used to suppress individual rights overseas, when there's obviously so much more that needs to be done to suppress individual rights here at home.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
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?
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.
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.