Slashdot Mirror
NYT Editorial Slams ISPs Over Online Freedom
Erris writes "The New York Times site is running an opinion piece from last weekend which lambasts Yahoo! (and other US ISPs) for cooperating with China and other repressive governments. 'Yahoo's collaboration is appalling, and Yahoo is not the only American company helping the Chinese government repress its people ... Last January, Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey reintroduced the Global Online Freedom Act in the House. It would fine American companies that hand over information about their customers to foreign governments that suppress online dissent.'"
From TFA: "Last January, Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey reintroduced the Global Online Freedom Act in the House. It would fine American companies that hand over information about their customers to foreign governments that suppress online dissent. The bill would at least give American companies a solid reason to decline requests for data, but the big Internet companies do not support it. That shows how much they care about the power of information to liberate the world." Really? The companies don't support the law? Gee that's strange. Why wouldn't they want to be stuck between a legal order to hand over information, and a fine if they do? That law may be a good idea, but it drastically cripples American companies.
The US ISPs also frequently co-operate with the US authorities, whose attitude towards people's online rights is hardly respectable.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Why not also fine foreign companies that operate in the US for the same behavior?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
This smacks of the US government trying to circuitously put economic sanctions on China because of it's human rights issues, without going through the proper international channels. In the end, all it's going to do is damage US business - China won't even notice if these companies go away, they have their own solutions for the same problems.
Trying to legislate against another country's laws sounds like a terrible idea on paper, and it doesn't promise much more in practice either.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Or Google?? Or Microsoft??
An ISP provides access to the net, not just web services.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Jesus Christ, this "but the USA does this" is becoming the left's version of "but Clinton!" It's such a lame and uninsightful comment that its not worth discussing. The US is not even close to China, Cuba, or these other repressive governments. It's got its issues, but the moral equivalence is just not there.
I love how these political stories always seems to return to US-bashing. It only took two comments before it came to that.
As a relativist, I believe it's Yahoo's right to choose whether or not to cooperate with the Chinese government. I believe it's perfectly fine for them to respect the local customs, even if we consider them repulsive over here. Corporations may be based in different countries, but they are truly international identities. They also possess no morality other than pleasing their shareholders, and I feel they have no obligation to initiate confrontation with different countries, all because they happen to be mimicking your morality where it doesn't (yet) fit. In fact, I would say they have just as much right to start censoring information in the US as they do subverting the Chinese censorship systems.
Of course, as a relativist, no-one respects my opinions. Take 'em or leave 'em.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
No such thing as a $country company, they are trans-national. if the country where their headquarters passes a law they don't like dispite their lobbing efforts to stop it they will just move their headquaters to another country.
"Freedom of speech" is not freedom of speech if its conditional. And its still illegal to commit libel and wrong to lie.
To support genuine freedom of speech is to support anonymous remailers where such genuine information can be communicated with safety.
But such systems are then attacked by those who abuse such systems with spam, libel and other dishonest intents.
Everyone wants to limit spam, including China.
So who is really to blame for suppression here?
Those who are not honest and won't shut up with their dishonesty but often pursue massive amounts of publishing it?
So how honest is this opinion piece article?
Freedom does not mean you get to impose upon the freedoms of others. And this means freedom does not include wasting peoples time and shared resources with babeling spam, libel, etc...
What is it that I support? Honesty, fully integrated honesty.
Do I think Dishonesty should be suppressed? Only with and identifying stamp "Dishonesty" placed on it.
Easier said than done.... and thats Honest.
So Yahoo et al are handing over information about people leaving the person open to persecution, and now the government is taking them to task over this.
I assume the same government will also be attacking ISPs who hand over people's information to corporations, leaving the people open to persecution. Or is there some corruption going on that would prevent this?
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
In Europe and the United States, we've seen the governments meddling with online freedom over and over again. For example, France is soon voting on a law that would force ISPs to shut down users who download copyrighted material. And then there's our own White House's Safe Port Act that forces financial institutions to shut down its operations to gambling sites. What's more bizarre is that some congressmen want the ISPs to regulate it; block "illegal" sites by banning the IP adresses. In Sweden they had party members who wanted ISPs to hand out IP adresses of users.
Full Tilt
that companies will simply go quiet on how much help they give to china. In particular, everybody is pointing a finger at Yahoo, but ignoring MS's hand in all this. Keep in mind, that they opened up their source to China LONG before they opened it up to American public. I like the way that ppl point to Google who has not handed over information to China (or other govs, including America). The ONLY wrong that Google has done is allow censorship. But all of the major ones do that, with MS/Yahoo doing it quietly, while Google actually lets user know that they were censored.
back in the early 90's, the ISP did it all. When Yahoo and Hotmail came along, then slowly, the ISPs dropped service and just focused on access. But like hacker/cracker, perhaps it is time to change the lexicon.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is welcome in that it a step towards enforcing Universal Rights by our value system not rules to interpret of anothers. Universal Rights are something we fought hard for here and on principle alone we should not compromise them elsewhere because they aren't enlightened (from my perspective) enough yet.
Shh.
If companies doing business with the communist government in China is a problem, then forbid any company in USA to trade with China and you will have solved the problem.
Everybody knows China and America do massive trade together. Congress would rather throw stones at Yahoo!, et. al. while maintaining China's favored trade status, sending athletes to the Olympics, and doing nothing about Tibet. Frankly I think trade with China is ultimately more constructive than China-bashing, but the Congresscritters want to have it both ways.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Why can't we get a law passed that says companies can't do that here?! I mean seriously, not to be cold, but I don't give a crap about Yahoo or anyone turning over data on chinese dissidents to chinese authorities when there is nothing stoping them from turning over the data on US dissidents to US authorities. Christ, they are even trying to grant the telcos immunity for doing that here in the US while trying to prevent it in china. WTF? Can I please get a little more concern for the rights, privacy, and freedom of our own damned citizens before we go off pretending to be dudly do right elsewhere? This world police shit is what keeps getting us in trouble in the first place.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
But of course, American companies that hand over information about their customers to domestic governments that suppress online dissent are just doing their patriotic duty, and do not in any way, shape, or form need to be investigated or prosecuted. In fact, let's give them explicit legal protection!
I can has "double standard"?
Where is the outcry when ISP's and the government restrict communication in the U.S.?
Everyone is up in arms about Yahoo cooperating with the Chinese government, but Yahoo and other companies bend over backwards to help the U.S. Government, often with nary a question. The telecom's cooperation with the NSA with the warrantless wiretapping of citizens is an obvious example (and there the Times did an admirable job getting the word out), but as most on Slashdot realize, there are two magic phrases which suddenly causes First Amendment amnesia... terrorism and child pornography. Mention one of those terms and you'll have Yahoo employees jumping through hoops of fire to hand you customer records, regardless of how substantiated the claim may be.
I don't remember the NYTimes writing an editorial admonishing AT&T for deciding to "filter" their network for copyrighted material.
People often ignore freedom of speech abuses in the U.S. because we have the First Amendment. Therefore, freedom of speech is guaranteed... right? But China's constitution guarantees the freedom of speech as well (article 35). You can't just deny that your house is burning down because you have a piece of paper that guarantees it's fireproof.
I mean, depending on how you look at it, I think "repressive" could also fit in the good ole USA...
[sarcasm]Doubtlessly, it's a lot better for China if the Chinese kick out Yahoo and Google for non-compliance and then go ahead and create their own government controlled alternatives![/sarcasm]
If only the NY Times were saying anything about the "SAFE Act", that the House just passed to force all ISPs to take responsibility for all content they host or transport, even if they don't moderate it, in direct contradiction of the landmark CDA which let ISPs be like telcos always have. Lots of child molesters trap children in telephone conversations, but the telco has no liability, because holding them responsible requires tapping every conversation, which is what the SAFE Act (not the one with the same name that sanely deregulated crypto export) now does: forces ISPs to monitor and analyze the content of your every Internet communication. But the Times has said nothing.
--
make install -not war
I think the US imperialistic tendencies are seeping out.
Like Britain(India, Ireland), they are convinced that they know better then the rest of the world.
The US is happy legislating its morality. As long as you have the US as the only super power, it truly is the west against everyone else. In the US they arrested and jailed the owners of a 3 day old online-poker law.
The US decided that even Credit Card companies that are making payments to these 'scum of the earth' would be held liable. Even after the WTO slapped them for it. They even tarried the crap out of our softwood lumber, aing that it was somehow federally subsidized. They took billions. WTO agreed with us.. but that still didn't matter. Good luck getting them to do what is right. But we MUST bow to the almighty walmart.
Even in the recent past couple of years Canada has been playing catchup. With its own set. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050325-4734.html/ http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2016/275/
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
Did everyone think globalization was simply about exchanging shiny, cheaper, manufactured items?
No; it was about ultimate alignment of all of these other harder, more difficult and intangible things like values, whatever.
Economics may bring the pressure to do so, but no one said it is enough or that it won't be painful along the way.
When are those who pushed for loose, blind globalization going to have to eat their own dog food?
It has yet to be seen, but coming, I think.
Hey folks. Can someone clarify this for me. I didn't know that Yahoo was an ISP at all--just a search engine and portal.
Do they actually provide internet access in the US?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
What about this case - http://www.indymedia.org/fbi/ - or is it okay when it's friends in the war on terror?
Tim Brown
After the New York Times' collaboration with our enemies (radical Islam), they have the nerve to complain about ISPs and China? The pure gall!
There is a bill HR 1955 in America, that says that if you blog against what our government is doing you are a terrorist. Why isn't this retard up in arms about that? Oppress the Chinese?! We need to start criticizing and fixing our own house for the love of pete.
Wake up.
Why the blatant hypocrisy? You've got corporations falling out of their chairs trying to outsource everything they possibly can to [large asian nation with only one uber controlling political party known to have murdered millions of their own people] with a pretty dismal and long running bleak human rights record. So it's OK for these other corporations to make money hand over fist "cooperating with the regime", but if ISPs/ web based content providers do it it needs some special laws? How about a binary Yoda level decision instead, nation A is acceptable to do business with because they follow some normal human rights principles, or they do not, so you do not do business with them until they change *first*.
Note: I am not letting Yahoo off the hook, I am saying all these other for profit corporations need to be stuck on the same hook
This becomes a question of values, and how far to exert extraterritoriality. What freedoms are truly unalienable? Freedom from torture likely is, gun freedom likely is not. In between there is an area for individual and national discretion.
Paying US workers less than a living wage: not okay. Paying other nation's workers less a living wage: okay.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
It would be hypothetically interesting if the USA were to pass some law fining its companies for hiring people in other countries under the USA minimum wage or bypassing other laws while operating outside the country rather than only violating privacy. Fining people or corps for breaking US laws while not operating in the US sets up precedent where these things may become issues.
The article refers to "Internet Companies" but that does not fit into the subject field. This is a technical limitation and it's irrelevant.
The purpose of the bill is to promote online freedom at all levels of the food chain, including access and equipment maker. The authors and they NYT are disgusted by the willing co-operation of US companies that should know better. Dumb networks work better than networks that can be filtered, everyone knows that. US companies are not really going to like it when these tools are turned on them at home. I can only hope that the bills authors will ride the easy to obtain wave indignation for China to a less easy to obtain indignation for the same practices here. Freedom is important everywhere.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I am not a hippie, nor am I living in the US. I am living in the UK, which is a clone of the US. I am attracted to children; many people in the UK (which has been heavily influenced by US law) who are attracted to children are imprisoned for viewing non-pornographic yet illegal images of children. So, I can't view even non-pornographic images of children if "normal" people would find them offensive.
American and British societies treat all people who are attracted to children as child molesters, frequently slander people who are attracted to children, and create offences to target people who are attracted to children (such as laws against cartoon child pornography).
The US and the UK are the worst countries to live in, as someone who is attracted to children.
http://anu.nfshost.com/users/blueribbon
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
There are other repressive countries in that region ready to retool into the next Sweatshop Country. Nothing like a law that makes compliance the only viable path to get the job done without sacrificing national sovereignty and/or humanity.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I think the fatal mistake made by the U.S. Government is to assume that as the fortunes of the country improve, so will the hunger for democracy. Couldn't be more wrong. There was a great article in Time that interviewed a few Chinese in their early 20's and for the most part, so long as they could keep consuming stuff, they could care less about their freedoms. The only thing that increased wealth is bringing is a build up in the Chinese military.
Hello? Congress? Where do you get your oil from? Saudi Arabia you say.. Oh, okay, that's fine then..
Whats appalling is how long its taken the New York Times to run a piece.
Whats appalling is the New York Times still advertising on Yahoo, go ahead NYT, keep giving Yahoo money.
Actually, my dumb ass still uses yahoo mail.. not for long..
You can't publish anything on the web now that breaks laws anywhere in the world. Or talk about anything secret anywhere in the world. You know whats secret or legal in every country right? Things secret for 30 years in the US are secret for 60 years in other places. I don't know how anyone runs an international business unless they are closely related to international secret agencies. sigh. In the EU for example you can't talk about anything that happens in the EU with a non-EU citizen.
Some people can see a flea across the ocean but not the elephant in front of their own noses. Solve your own problems first before trying to "spread democracy" or climbing on the moral soapbox.
This from the corporation that held the story about domestic telecom surveillance and Presidential violation of the Constitution until after the 2004 election - at the request of the Bush Administration!
Read as a piece of projection*, this editorial is a chillingly accurate description - of the NYT: The NYT's "collaboration is appalling...shows how much they care about the power of information to liberate the world."
*Projection is when we attribute to others the motivations, behaviors, and characteristics that are too psychically devastating to accept as the reality of ourselves. These are projected by the ego upon the other so the ego can safely (to it) experience these features of itself, as part of the ego's effort to become whole. This is a continuous process, the fundamental nature of ego perception. One can measure the degree to which any characteristic is of psychic influence in oneself by the degree of emotional affect associated with it. The greater the degree of emotion one feels, positive or negative, the greater the energy of the feature in one's own psyche. This is how people fall in love (see Arthur C. Clarke) and countries go to war (see any nation's political pronouncements about the nature of "the enemy").
It has been very fashionable in recent years to pretend that we in the West are so high and mighty with our impeccable moral, freedom and democracy. And maybe we ARE better than the Chinese or whoever we are morally outraged over this week; but if so, then starting up the usual howling concert is not going to make things better for anybody, neither them nor us. If we want people to listen to criticism, we first have to be their friends in some sense - if we are enemies, they will just stick the finger up at whatever we say - I mean, wouldn't you? Friends can work things out, enemies can only fight.
It really is as simple as that; so if we want to see other nations change and approach our way of living, then we have to change ourselves too. We have to be willing to accept that not everything is the way we want it to be, in the hope that it may be so in the future. We have to accept that maybe we are in the wrong in some areas, and that we have to change a bit too; we have to meet somewhere in the middle.
So, when it comes to China (or Myanmar, Thailand or all the others), is it really right to ban American companies from trading there? Which is what it would mean if they are not allowed to follow the local laws for ideological reasons. Such a ban would be a rather hostile thing - and all we will get for it will be a 'Good Riddance', and then the Chinese companies will grow and take over the whole of the Chinese market for themselves, thus closing that channel of cultural influence. Is this what we should do? I don't think so.
I think we should grumble a bit and let it pass - China is actually becoming more open, and somewhere along the way it is likely that they will develope their own form of democracy. If we look back at our own history we can see that we didn't come into democracy overnight, it was something that emerged as the result of changes in our culture, and perhaps the Chinese people isn't there yet. Iraq should tell us that trying to force the issue is not going to work.