Slashdot Mirror
Beijing's New Enforcer - Microsoft
QuatermassX writes "The New York Times editorial page comments on the responsibilities of American technology companies doing business in China. From the article: 'Such obvious disregard for users' privacy and ethical standards may make it easier to do business in China, but it also aids a repressive regime. Some in the American Congress are talking about holding hearings. Microsoft has responded to criticism by saying, 'We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there.' This is a false choice. China needs Internet companies as much as they need China.'"
Goo-do-no-evil-gle also has a stake in Baidu, which conveniently offers painless search for MP3 downloads.
I guess it's better to be there (do a bit of evil) than not be there (no evil).
From the article: "Western technology companies could have a powerful case if they acted as a group in telling China that they are under tremendous consumer and political pressure to stick up for free expression."
You mean like countless protests, threats of sanction on China's poor treatment to basic human rights, which result in nothing? Or do you mean North-Korea or Iran's nucular plan despite pressures from western countries?
I guess it's time for parents to wake up and realize that their children have grown up and are strong and indenpendant enough to ignore or repel parental guidance. These parents can either act nice in order to live peacefully with their children, or get kicked out of the house.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
" From the article: 'Such obvious disregard for users' privacy and ethical standards may make it easier to do business in China, but it also aids a repressive regime. "
So what do you think outsourcing does then?
There often is a difference between what's legal and what's right in a moral sense - in other words, the "right" in "a right" is not the same as in "morally right".
China may have the legal right to do whatever it wants with its citizens, no matter what that is, but it doesn't mean that it's morally OK for them to do it. Furthermore, China *did* sign and ratify the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - in fact, there even was a Chinese professor (Zhang Pengjun) on the commission that drafted the declaration.
That being said - as has been reported, there *is* not even a law in China that would require censorship of words such as "democracy". Microsoft is simply sucking up here, in one of the worst ways imaginable.
Fed up with slashdot? I am too.
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." -Lenin
It's beyond time to question "free trade" when America can't sell it's #1 product: the freedom to say what you want.
If we can't export that, we should no longer import cheap junk and cheap labor from China.
China needs Internet companies as much as they need China.
No it doesn't.
PimpMyMazda.com - Crazy mods to a 2002 Mazda Protege DX.
A country that jails people for expressing opposing political viewpoints is in material violation of the spirit of the free software movement. IMO, there should be an anti-totalitarian variant of the GPL that denies repressive states and their institutions any license under which they can legally run the software or use the source. And the FSF should be suing these states at the Hague daily.
Why should the burden of trying to use software as a lever to lift state oppression fall on the shoulders of Microsoft? If any group has a philosophical goal that is in line with lifting oppression, it is the Free Software movement. So why is Microsoft lambasted in the NYT while the OSDL gets cheered for admitting Red Flag Linux?
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
... the citizens of a country carry their morals with them when they go abroad, no? It isn't so much China's behaviour, it's the behavious of my fellow Americans that disturbs me.
Wow
We're going to censure MS for abiding by Chinese law, while simultaneously maintaining MFN status with them?
And what do you suppose we'd say if some company from another country set up shop here, and refused to abide by OSHA regs or US child labor laws?
This is just...asinine. I can even see an argument that MS should voluntarily choose to not do business in China for ethical reasons, but I just can't see our government mandating it.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
The market doesn't cure all ills. We should censure MS / Yahoo! for not maintaining American ethical standards while operating abroad. Sure a corporation exists to maximise shareholder value, but we should ALL operate with our ethics intact. To do otherwise implies what's good for Americans is ... flexible for others. While this may fly with our "guests" in Cuba and those nice people we fly around Europe and the Middle East for "talks" in non-US jails ... well ... this is all plainly wrong.
This goes back to a fundamental mistake made by many people... a company's purpose should not be to make money at any cost, legal or otherwise. Companies are not mindless entities that must suck as much money as possible from people to add value to its stock price. Companies wouldn't exist without the people that run and own them. Those people have basic moral obligations to society. And I believe those should translate into the corporations they own and run.
In fact, corporations that follow basic morals can make as much or more than companies that do not, in the long run. And that's one of the problems... they often don't care about long term costs of acting unethically. Take Microsoft as an example. If they acted better they'd have more community and corporate support long term. They'd have a much better image and not have to be so reactive to every threat to their bottom line.
Ethics in corporations matter. And more people need to realize that.
Developers: We can use your help.
I wonder if IBM said the same thing about working with Nazi Germany. Despite China's oppressive human rights record, you'd have to be a moron to equate the two countries. But there are clearly special ethical perils to supplying information technology solutions to repressive regimes.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
FWIW, China isn't the worst government.
Right, there is still North Korea, and arguably Cuba.
know of one that warmongers in 100 countries as we speak
Which one? As we have around 192 countries in the world, give or take, the country you are talking about would have to be in a state of war with more than half of the world. As it stands, the only one who loudly declares an intent to do so doesn't even have nukes yet.
Oh, wait... you meant the US, just because they are waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is clearly less than "100". And I personally wouldn't blame the US for these wars -- they deserve blame for waging them in an ineffective way. They at least had the balls to step up while many others just blabbed around. And yeah, there is the question of hypocrisy of being on friendly terms with China, North Korea and Russia while not having official diplomatic relations with places like Taiwan or Tibet.
How many countries that are more free than the US can you name? Certainly no more than a handful. In fact, it's basically only a few Scandinavian ones that can even try.
UK? Mass surveilance. Poland? Rampant corruption. Russia? At the level of Germany in the 30s. 90% of Africa? Muslim countries? Venesuela and the like?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
If Microsoft (or Cisco, or Google) is willing to assist China's requests to abuse user privacy etc, don't you think they will be even more enthusiastic to assist those from the NSA, FBI, or any other of the TLA (three letter acronym'd) agencies?
> You don't believe, despite their own claims to be doing so, that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
Care to back that statement up, neocon? As far as I know, they've claimed to develop a peaceful, civil nuclear program to generate power.
Of course, nobody believes them, but then nobody believes you either.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Older geeks on /. will remember that it used to be a mantra in the West that if we only showed how good it could be to have our consumer goods and other material things to the citizens of repressive regimes, they would ultimately overthrow their Evil Overlords. It was due to this pattern of that the we actually wanted companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's to do business in totalitarian countries like the USSR.
Flash forward to now, and suddenly it's a bad thing? I'm sure US companies in the Soviet republics had to do their fair share of blinking previously, and it's still the price to pay when dealing with a repressive oligarchy like the current Chinese regime.
I guess the big difference now is that I don't think having Microsoft or Google in China is advancing American interests much. Quite the opposite, in fact.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Giving sh-t to Microsoft for supporting China - an oppressive regime - is a cheap shot that only alleviates our guilt. Did any one of you refuse to purchase the componets from the computers you are using right now that were made in china? Fuelling money into this opressive regime? Did anyone complain about how cheap their latest gadget was because it was manufactured in China? Did you opt out of buying clothing that was made there? Are Microsoft's actions more politically vulnerable to attack? Yes. But lets not forget all the other companies that operate in China that we are all too happy to support. In my opinion, Microsoft getting their software in the door with restrictions is much better than an insulated China-made alternative. Anyone who thinks that it's the microsoft software that's keeping people from free expression, and not the people that are going to come knocking at your door, is crazy. Free expression in China will require people who can avoid detection and get around restrictions anyways - a word filter from Microsoft isn't going to stop them.
If I don't patent bubble-sort, somebody else will. If I don't sell arms to terrorists, somebody else will. If I don't sell crack to children, somebody else will.
If I don't take the moral high ground, somebody else will. Or will they?
It is worse than war, actually - China is setting out to commit cultural genocide.
Ironically, I recently got in an argument with a Chinese guy about our treatment of Native Americans. Tibet is much worse, though - it would be like everything that westerners did to Native Americans except:
1: Performed long after the rest of the world realized such behavior was wrong 2: Followed the actual military conquest with a determined effort to whipe the culture from the survivors.
China has no moral high ground on this matter.
No one could care less about the people in China. "Human Rights" is an issue people bring up when they want an excuse to complain about Microsoft... or when they want some protectionist policy to save the local sock factory.
Here is an example of the totaly inconsistant views that many people have about "human rights":
1. Why did labor unions in the U.S. start worrying about human rights in China, only when China started winning jobs from the United States and kicking ass economicly? I don't remember labor unions upset about Maos Cultural Revolution back in the 60s the same way they railed on about the Tianemen Square massacre!
2. Why is it bad that U.S. companies are NOT doing buisness in Cuba? Every anti-corporate crusader who thinks U.S. corporations should stop doing buisness in China because China censors the Internet is in love with Internet censoring Cuba and thinks the trade embargo on Cuba is some big horrible plot by the corporations.
3. Why is it bad when the U.S. tries to stop advanced U.S. weapons from being sold to China? I think the Guardian newspaper called it "Imperialistic" that the U.S. didn't want advanced weapons sold to China via 3rd parties in Europe. I guess it is a human rights violation for Microsoft to help read people's emails, but not a human rights violation to blow people up?
4. Why is it so bad when the U.S. doesn't want to turn over control of the root internet name servers to an organization dominated by countries like China? Why is it reasonable when China demands the U.N. give it the ability to censor the Internet , but the epitome of evil when Microsoft inside China aids censorship strictly inside China?
5. Why are Europeans always carrying on about capital punishment in America being an affront to human rights not urging Mercedes, or LG, or Semens, or Shell Oil, or Nestle, or other European companies to stop doing buisness in the United States?
I don't care what your political beliefs are, or what country you are from, I bet I can point out a whole bunch of inconsistant and hipocritical positions on "human rights"!
Why are people's views on human rights so inconsistant? Because people don't care about human rights: People care about their own economic self interest or their own political agenda, and human rights is a rhetorical tool. If you look at people's views based on what benifits them economicly or politically, you will find their views are 100% rational and consistant.
So, come to me with human rights issues when "human rights" means something more than a political slogan or economic tool.
The scary thing about all this, is that it sets a precedent that this kind of thing is not really so bad. China is not at the apex of its power now, but likely it will soon eclipse the combined power of the US and EU.
In Australia, part of the justification for the recent erosion of workers' rights, is that we need to compete with Asia. How long will it be until there are similar erosions of civil rights and human rights to allow our contries to compete with Asia?
We are in a position of relative power now - we're relatively wealthy. Free trade is one thing, but it should be contingent on countries respecting worker/human rights. That way, we can force countries to make things better - while we still can. Once China is as wealthy as the West, there'll be bugger all we can do.
I'm not fearmongering, and I've got nothing against the Chinese, but their government is f*cked (tho Western govts could be a helluva lot better), and it could turn around in a few years and bite us all in the ass.
The "nothing matters" defense has been invoked on this thread. This defense holds that, because someone else, at some time, did something evil and got away with it, the present offense isn't something to worry about. Nothing really matters, because evil is everywhere. Microsoft's snuffing out free speech doesn't matter, because OSDL allowed China to use Linux, and you bought some Nikes and drove a gas guzzler, and on and on.
Do you think I could use this in court, or is the "nothing matters" defense reserved for defendants like Microsoft, who have large numbers of people paid to argue on their behalf? People paid for by money they earned by silencing Zhao Jing!