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.'"
Iran's nucular plan despite pressures from western countries
Why is everyone so worried about Iran? Israel bombed Iraq in the early 80s for the same reasons, you think they will sit idle this time? Hell no. Let Israel take care of Iran. Their acting PM even said they will never allow Iran to go nuclear.
Picture another scenario.
Companies such as Microsoft refuse to help China. China's government still sees the need for the technology, so they create a government branch to build the technology they need. Obviously, this branch would gravitate towards the use of free Open Source software, since the vendors won't support them. This new branch builds China's own IT infrastructure, and in doing so, has a much deeper knowledge of the technology. Now the Chinese government has full control, and the knowledge to go with it.
I think it's better to have vendors holding the government's hand and selling them their insecure software. The experts in the country will be the individuals who use free software to find holes and workarounds to get the information and services they need.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
That Would kill our economy. Turn over some of the things you have in your house and see were they are made. As much as it pains to say, we are depended on China. Need more proof? America's (and the world's) largest comapny, Wal-Mart, needs China's cheap labor to 'Roll back those prices' in the United States.
How, as a citizen of this world, would one aid in a "information revolution" - IE, making available documents, news, stories, and facts that their government may not want you to see to the "information revolutionaries"? [1]
I'd wager that my government would like me to do nothing - that would upset their status quo and their trading relations with China. I'd wager China would like me to do nothing, because it threatens their rule. How would I go about getting information, person-to-person to people living under a repressive regime?
I really ask because it seems to be just starting here in America ("liberal media, activist judges"), and if we had ways to help "the people of China", it would help ourselves in the long run.
[1] Presupposing that I only want to pass on things like news and other information that is not deemed "state secrets", freely available everywhere else in the world, just not China.
Microsoft very honestly see a market that they can provide with service. A smart CEO will notice that if Microsoft does not take that market, another business can. The morality of the service is not coming into play, only the profit. This could be a case where the Ethics Committee was not consulted. And yes, I'm being generous in assuming that Microsoft has one of those.
And the FSF should be suing these states at the Hague daily.
Precisely how would they go about that? As a non-state entity, the US Federal courts or the courts of the offending country are your only options. Unless you can get a state to bring the case to the ICJ/ICC, you're not going to get past the gate.
People, let's get some things clear. No company can dictate to the chinese goverment what its people can or can not do. They are forced to comply with foreign laws to do business there. Microsoft and Google included. Neither Microsoft, or Google, or the FSF are guilty here for obeying the law.
Who died and made us kings, giving us the right to say this country is totalitarian, this one is not. Are our judgements not relative to what we have grown up to know as norm? Even so, are there not enough chinese people to overcome their "regime"? Alot of people in the world don't want to live the "american way..." I can go on and continue about Iraq, Iran, etc. But you get my point...
Here's a really good index of economic freedom:
o untries.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/c
I realize that economic freedom is just one of the "types" of freedoms, but it's still a very interesting read. We tie for 9th in the world.
An example of an apparent (though maybe not actual, I'm no expert) flaw in using this as an index of freedom as a whole would be the UK out ranking the US considerably, since the massive surveilance that you mentioned would seem to preclude that.
In a competitive market, morality is defined by law. Companies will (and are supposed to) do whatever it takes to succeed. If one company decides not to do something on based personal morals, not determined by law, they'll be simply be pushed aside by a company that will, so that their restraint will have had no positive effect. Same goes for pollution. If the profitable choice is the polluting one, the companies that choose not to pollute will have no success in reducing pollution, but instead will simply be pushed out of the market by those that are willing to pollute for profit, unless the law steps in to make pollution an unprofitable choice.
There is no difference between these activities and Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and all the rest (and I'm sure, at the end of the day, there must be dozens of Western companies bowing to the almighty tyrants of Beijing).
Agreed. The question is whether or not we should be cracking down on any of them. Insofar as we should be penalizing oil companies, then yes, we should also be penalizing Microsoft. No argument there. And if we should, then why should we at the same time maintain MFN status with the PRC?
I'm more interested, though, in the fundamental question of when we (and we can define "we," here as either "the US" or "the UN," at your discretion) get to impose our ethical system on other countries and when we don't. That is, is it right at all for us to demand that other nations change their natures to fit with our concept of the "proper" way to do things?
(And before anyone says anything, I recognize the strict difference between our forcing anyone to do anything, and our not letting corporations support them doing whatever it is. However, particularly in the modern world, they amount to much the same thing)
It's easy to justify intervention when we throw around terms like "human rights abuses." But, objectively, "human rights" are just something that we've decided we value enough to warrant intervention. A thousand years ago, it was easy to honestly believe that people who weren't Catholic were condemned to eternal punishment. This led to a lot of excuses for things we now view as atrocities, but conceptually, it's exactly the same thing as what we're doing now.
The argument "yeah, but this time we're right, honest" just doesn't hold water.
For example, there are plenty of people that consider all circumcision, male or female, to be abhorrent. Does this justify them slamming down injunctions against the US for human rights violations? What about countries that object to the death penalty? What about countries that object to abortion? What about countries that object to private firearm ownership? What about countries that object to free speech or religion?
*shrug*
It's all a matter of perspective, and once you decide that it's OK for you to determine for other nations what's OK for them to do and what's not, you're implicitly justifying an awful lot of historical abuses.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Why do people cite partisan think tank reports as authoritative? I suppose it's not as bad as newspapers presenting them as fact, but really...
There's a slight difference between cutting off all contact with someone and refusing to do their dirty work for them. MS, Yahoo, and others (by censoring at China's behest, and more so by providing information about dissidents so they can be arrested) are doing China's dirty work.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
No, they don't amount to the same thing, and that's really the point.
If corporations want to be treated as people in the eyes of the law then they should be treated as people in all possible respects.
And that means that a corporation supporting a repressive regime is the same thing as an individual supporting a repressive regime.
If we insist that it is wrong for us as individuals to support repressive regimes, then it is clearly wrong for us as corporations to do so as well. If we care at all about our own liberties then we must at the very least lend as little support to those who would remove those liberties from us as possible. If that means not doing business with said repressive regimes then so be it.
The problem is that those who run corporations want it all ways: they want their corporations to have the benefits of "personhood" but not the drawbacks. They want power but not responsibility.
Back to your original question, there is a difference between how/if you trade with someone else and imposing your will upon them, at least when it comes to dealing in goods that the other entity can either do without or can produce themselves. That difference has to do with free will: such a trade relationship is a voluntary one on both sides. Neither is compelled by circumstance or necessity to participate. Forcing one's will upon another is not voluntary on both sides, by definition. Therein lies the crucial difference. And in the case of the corporation under discussion, that difference is completely relevant.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I hope a few people here will take a step back and think for a minute or two before jumping in with all four limbs and barking like mad. These MS employees are in China, not a place on earth exactly noted for recognizing human rights let alone the sanctity of human life. If I were over there and were served with an order to take down that space, I don't exactly think I'd hesitate very long under normal circumstances. [My circumstances are other than normal.]
Frankly, I'd never do business with them for any amount of money in the first place but I'm not exactly in business anymore having spent most of my life defending these rights, but that's me.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go