Slashdot Mirror
Reporters Without Borders Internet Annual Report
kratei writes "The BBC is running a report discussing the Reporters Without Borders internet annual report 2006. The RWB study details and decries the rising tide of net censorship and lays the blame squarely on the west as the source for the technology that allows repressive regimes to stifle freedom on the web." From the article: "China's success at censorship means it has effectively produced a "sanitised" version of the internet for its 130 million citizens that regularly go online. The wide-ranging scrutiny also means that it is the biggest jailer of so-called cyber dissidents. RSF estimates that 62 people in China have been jailed for what they said online. "
China doesn't need the West's help to censor their internet; they build most of the world's computer equipment, they've shipped a person into orbit, and they have nuclear power. They're a big science and technology power and have been for some years. To say that Cisco or Yahoo are helping China to keep tabs on dissidents is true in the narrow sense but in reality the Chinese government is perfectly capable of doing it all themselves.
That said, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to know that American companies are complicit in locking down the Chinese network, but of course we in the U.S. long since traded any moral high ground for profit, when it comes to China; there's just too much money to be made from outsourcing there. Maybe when India gets its manufacturing act together, we can go back to being moralistic about China's repression of dissidents.
What's probably more important than moralizing is to allow more of their students into our universities so that they can experience a more unfettered system. Not that the U.S. is perfect but it is way more open than China's system and the educated elite need to appreciate the value of openness.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Yeah, I forgot. We must first spend years studying the socio-economics of china before we can say it's wrong to throw people in jail for their opinions. How silly of me to forget that.