Yahoo Defends Itself On China Allegations

Vitaly Friedman writes "Yahoo defends its policies in China as doing more good than harm, even as multiple dissidents have been jailed based on Yahoo Mail evidence. From the article: 'Yahoo continues to defend itself against charges that its Chinese operations have been responsible for the jailing of multiple dissidents. Multiple reports have surfaced which tie Yahoo Mail to various Chinese court cases that have ended in imprisonment for writers with politically unpopular opinions.'"

Comments

Cheap, Red, Back-Alley Painted Ladies

[berenixium]

Q: Doesn't 'Yahoo' mean Chinese Whore?

A: It does now!

Welcome to the real world!

[i am kman]

Jeez - why do people expect these for-profit companies to be driven by the same idealistic, personal visions they have for the internet?

The internet is a technology - it's goal is not to undermine communism or authoritarian governments or to impose US ideals/values upon other countries. So why are so many people 'shocked' that companies like Yahoo! actually abide by the laws in the countries they do business in?

Look at wikipedia - just how successful do you think they'll be in China now that they're officially blocked??? Exact same thing would happen to Yahoo!

Re:Welcome to the real world!

[Asic Eng]

On the other hand: why should it be an excuse for anyone to engage in amoral behavior, that they are doing so in order to earn more money?

It seems a little absurd to expect morals of a person, and then if that person founds a company say "oh that's alright, the company can do whatever is legal". What would be the benefit of giving companies such a free pass?

What's one customer...

[Original Replica]

"These companies are trying to walk a fine line between offending the Chinese government, on the one hand, and offending the American government on the other."

Yeah, who cares about the actual people being taken away as long as we don't offend any governments. Morals and ethics are just there to appease the media and government officials, right?

Re:Why is this news?

[Distinguished Hero]

China is not the United States and they not only can, but do run things differently. ... I say let China do what China is going to do and lets concentrate on making things better in America first - then we can work on improving China's (online) rights.

Except that in at most 20 years, China will be a superpower, so if you don't fix them now while they might still listen to you, in 20 years they definitely won't listen to you. In 30 years, China may very well be the superpower, at which point how broken the US is affects me and the majority of the world's population a lot less than how broken China is.

I'll leave you with one though: around the annexation of Czechoslovakia, Neville Chamberlain remarked: "How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing!" or something to that effect. I'm sure people might have said something of a similar effect regarding the Holocaust if they had known: "[The Third Reich] is not the United States and they not only can, but do run things differently. ... I say let [The Third Reich] do what [The Third Reich] is going to do and lets concentrate on making things better in America first - then we can work on improving [The Third Reich's] rights." In fact, I do believe many people did in fact say many things to that effect.