Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo! Allegedly Helps Beijing Arrest a Third Reporter
reporter writes "According to a damning press release from Reporters without Borders, Yahoo has
helped Beijing to locate, arrest, and imprison a 3rd reporter.
This latest incident occurs about 2 months after Yahoo testified,
under oath in front of Congress, that the company regrets being
'forced' to help Beijing." From the article: "'We hope this Internet giant will not, as it has each time it has been challenged previously, hide behind its local partner, Alibaba, to justify its behaviour. Whatever contract it has with this partner, the email service is marketed as Yahoo !' the organisation said. According to the verdict, Yahoo! Holdings (Hong Kong) confirmed that the email account ZYMZd2002 had been used jointly by Jiang Lijun and another pro-democracy activist, Li Yibing."
Companies exist to make money. Period. Reporters Without Borders can plead with Yahoo! to end their collaboration with the PRC all they like, but as long as China has that big juicy carrot of marketshare dangling in front of Yahoo!'s nose, Yahoo! will do whatever the PRC wants.
One cannot expect Yahoo! to turn away from such a lucrative market any more than one can expect a scorpion not to sting. It's what they do.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
And we give Google shit for being in China? Although, after they've set their stuff up in China, can we expect them to argue when the government demands something?
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The blind eyes being turned here are the eyes of Congress and the American government. So willing are we to have our cheap plastic home appliances that we refuse to stand up to government-sponsored persecution of freedom. The Chinese market is huge and the opportunities are boundless, but theirs is a government which does not value what we claim to value. In fact, it is questionable that we even value what we claim to value anymore.
This bright shining city on the hill is now as bad as any Chamberlain or Frog. Unwilling to stand up to evil when it arises, and quick to appease enemies in the name of free trade.
Free trade without political freedom is not free.
Is a myth. Irrelevant. Mantras and ethically-pleasing slogans sound great when a company is growing. It -certainly- helps when you're looking primarily at US investments and venture capital.
Once you're big and multinationally, however, the corporate entity is just as ethics neutral as you can possibly be. The corporation as a person has just one goal. Make money for stockholders. Above all else.
And if you believe otherwise, I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn that you can have for next to nothing. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft. They're not thinking about the quash of free speech, they're thinking of ways to get access to the world's largest consumer base.
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
It isn't Yahoo's job to change the political climate in China, no more than it is Googles. Change in China will occur once the people demand it and other nations (not companies) apply pressure and lend support.
http://religiousfreaks.com/Trafficing marijuana is likewise illegal here in the U.S. Sure some folks claim its a naturally growing plant that is one of God's creations. Nevertheless if I was corresponding back and forth with all of my contacts in Mexico I sure as hell wouldn't be doing it through GMail.
but Yahoo should try and avoid whoring itself out to one of the worse regime on the planet. Just as a common courtesy.
Hammer? Sickle? Yahoo is doing this thanks to a love for money. Me things you have your signals crossed, it's not the hammer and sickle that are creeping into their logo, but rather its opposite, the almighty dollar.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Why is it that every time this issue comes up someone pops up with a supposed 'realistic worldview' defense of these companies?
Everytime I read through another instance of China putting the kibosh on freedom and liberty, people here start picking up the "businesses make money, China has money, therefore businesses will screw anyone and everyone to make money" line of reasoning? Businesses aren't some unnatural entity that sprang forth, they are a collection of man-power, and resources, working towards a common goal. There is a *person* somewhere, saying "Toss the guy to the Chinese authority."
The more people blindly accept the justification that "that's just how it is, I can't change anything," the less you ACTUALLY can change things. Don't give your power away to multi-national corporations, don't give it away to the goverment.
I guess I just don't see what your policy advocacy says. Do we let Yahoo! off the hook for hosing people? Are you saying this just isn't newsworthy? That too much of your valuable time has been wasted or learning that Yahoo! is pulling some shady deals in China? Just let them get away with it, and stop talking about it because we're wasting our breath?
Can't people speak out against a perceived injustice and have it mean more than a wasted breath? Sheesh, usually I'm considered the cynically one, but next to the average Slashdotter, I'm dancing in the land of fairies and make-believe and butterflies and rainbows.
Quit shrugging your shoulders about a problem as fundamentally restrictive as this. The more people speak, the more can be done.
Just as the FCPA currently prohibits US companies from certain behavior abroad (primarily -- bribing foreign officials) -- FCPA-2.0 should also prohibit the anti-human rights disclosures, like the ones Yahoo! was forced to make.
It is not going to be easy to make this law, but something is needed to give these companies a backbone and help them weather a foreign government's hostile action. Something like a threat of sanctions against the country demanding an American company's cooperation in an unjust (in USA's view) prosecution. Such sanctions ought to be automatic only requiring a US federal judge's approval.
I'll be very glad to see such a law condemned as "imperialist" and US accused of "twisting" the tyrants' arms with it.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Honestly, the Yahoo! logo is colored red. It's missing a star or maybe a hammer and sickle ... but they're almost there.
Grow up, China hasn't been truly communist for over a decade now. These days they just call themselves communist. For example, just who do you think owns the Nike sweatshops or the shoes they produce there? People like you who refuse to give up the old fights are what are making us lose the new ones.
Maybe its time we started boycotting Yahoo? This would mean amongst other things replacing people replacing own their Geocities pages with a boycot message.
I hate to say it, but Yahoo is asking for a lot more than a boycot. When you start imprisioning and threatening the livlyhood of people over free speech - it takes things to a whole different level. I wouldn't be supprised at all if people started calling in death threats to Yahoo execs and bomb threats to Yahoo offices. People know darn well that the excuses given by them are bullshit - how much you want to bet that things will change quickly at Yahoo when it starts getting personal and starts hitting ther bottom line.
Yahoo! is never notified by the Chinese government regarding the nature of crimes of the subpoenaed account. In any country the criminal law states that the organization (be it commercial, government or non-profit) has to provide the required documents if a court-issued subpoena comes in.
When Chinese authorities come and ask for personal information on an account suspected of criminal activity, Yahoo! doesn't know whether the suspect:
1) raped kids and made profit from child pornography
2) disagreed with the Communist Party of China
3) was a serial killer who concentrated on women and cute puppies
Believe it or not, Chinese government doesn't actually clarify what they want the data for and how it will be used.
Ouch. Typical American ignorant arrogance.
I have a considerable amount of exposure to people in the PRC, and here is some good news for you: nobody there is seeing American companies as bearers of freedom. Nobody is expecting American companies to do that. People are expecting American companies to give them the worldly conveniences that people in America are enjoying right now.
But whatever is the case, you're definitely right on one point: Anything for that next dollar. And believe me, the people in China are like that too. More so.
Don't quote me on this.
Slowing down shipments might happen, but blockading Taiwan would be a military action, and it would be more effective and less risky to attack us economically, and let us flex the military muscle first.
A slowly escalating conflict would be in China's favor, slowing shipments, increasing price of goods, liquidizing US holdings a little bit (billions) at a time. Moving on Taiwan throws us into immediate heated conflict which keeps China from milking us for years.
Besides blockading Taiwan might crush the electronics market, but really that is small potatoes compared to what would happen if Walmart couldn't stock their shelves. No mobilization necessary to send us a big F_U.
Have search engines become government whipping boys?
It is a known phenomenon that when companies become large and influential enough in an important sphere, they essentially become branches of government.
Look at Boeing, AT&T, MicroSoft, ExxonMobil, Lockheed-Martin. All claim to be private entities, yet there's not a single honest man who could stand up and say out loud that they are not as intimately connected, if not more, with the US Government as a state body such as the IRS or the department of health.
The companies toe the government line, and in return reap the benefit of monopoly and preferential treatment.
You'll note I included MicroSoft and ExxonMobil in that list. However, in these days of globalisation, their subservience to any one government is suspect. Essentially, they are too large and global for any one government to seriously control them, or indeed trust them, as a de facto arm of government.
Google and Yahoo are in the information search business, an area of ever growing importance. Governments will never allow these companies to operate with private impuity. Eventually they will become mere arms of government, using their information for whatever purpose the government sees fit. China has simply already done this with Yahoo China.
May the Maths Be with you!
I must say I am a bit disappointed by most comments found here. I had expected smarter replies basically. It seems the mighty dollar overrules any sense of morality or interests in human rights.
:P), brother, sister, friend suddenly disappears, gets tortured (oh sorry, I mean re-educated according to "traditional" and "cultural" values) and perhaps murdered due to Yahoo! giving their details to an oppressive government you will still defend the mighty dollar over human rights? It's so bloody easy when it doesn't affect you directly. I wonder what the people being tortured right now would think about such high and mighty statements.
Comments about if you want to do business there you need to abide to their laws. Correct... so by doing so, you have decided money is more important then human rights. And in my eyes you are wrong. It's not a very solid defence really for Yahoo!. It basically says making a profit is more worthwhile then human rights. Because China is an economic powerhouse it has the rights to do whatever it wants.
I guess those posters here also had no problems with companies like IBM supporting the Nazi's and doing business with the Nazi's when the US was wat war with Germany? Because hey, if you want to do business there, you need to accept their laws and as such you become absolved of any blame.
So perhaps do business there, as long as you can do it on your own terms, those that respect human rights and decent moral values (don't tell me the mass executions and torture are just another set of moral values we should respect and it's all "culture"). China is not really a communist country, it's just a good old fashioned dictatorship, with the most executions of any country in the world almost. Who torture their prisoners and who do imprison people for simply opposing the government. When it's some minor (compared to China) dictator like Saddam we all cry havoc, when that dictatorship temps us with money it all becomes alright.
So if your wife, husband (woops this is slashdot.. sorry wife's and husbands?