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Human Rights and a Code of Conduct for China's Web
Ian Lamont writes "Human Rights Watch is preparing a code of conduct that specifies how major Internet service providers and portal operators should deal with Internet censorship in China. An officer for the group expressed concern that the Chinese government is 'setting the standard on control of the Internet' and also singled out international companies working in China for preemptively blocking access in 'anticipation of requests from the government' rather than waiting for orders from Beijing to block access. China has recently blocked YouTube following the posting of videos about the Tibetan protests, but has been unable to completely stop the flow of Tibet-related information in and out of China, thanks in part to bloggers and others using spam tactics to bypass Chinese filters."
It's interesting that this should even need to be spelled out. Normally you'd expect companies and the people who run them to have enough of a moral backbone that they don't need external input on things like this.
Because quarterly profits are the only yardstick by which management is rewarded / demoted all other considerations have gone out the window. As long as there is not direct link between ethics and profits I highly doubt any of this will make a difference.
MP3 Search Engine
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
ok seriously why are why having the Olympics there again?
I guess the day the world can't come to the conclusion that oppression is not unethical, is the day that humanity will lose all form of justice. I understand this isn't just about Tibet, but the overall censorship of China's web. However, when a country is censoring its own atrocities from its people it is a global problem.
No one cares of course, China's disregard for environmental and humane concerns of its own people give the rest of the world the cheapest goods.
Math
It's not just ISPs and sites who can be faulted for co-operating with foreign censors. Much of the censorware used by such governments is developed in America. A great step would be to introduce legislation to expose which companies are selling censorware to foreign governments. This a tool of oppression, and exports should be scrutinized like weapons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/opinion/09jardin.html
Can we get a code of conduct here in the USA about ISPs not blocking content? And, can we get Comcast to sign it?
Let's create a workaround and eliminate the need for for them entirely. That would be much more likely to bring about the desired result.
What?
If the Chinese government chooses to block YouTube, or any site which publishes articles critical of the government, that is their right. Every government, whether you like it or not, has the right to dictate the rules within its boundaries.
Rights? Governments have no rights. Rights are inherent to the person and not the state. They can neither be granted nor taken away by the state.
That said, Governments do have sovereignty which I agree that China has. However, the Chinese government does not have the right to torture, murder, or repress the freedom of its citizens. It is wrong and the practice should stop.
Now I will admit, I have a very relativistic western view on the matter, but I don't see how you can say that killing protesters even if they are violent is OK.
Even in the LA riots in the states we didn't have soldiers shooting people indiscriminately without attempts to use non-lethal methods.
At the same time, I will agree that its not our business to go into China forcefully with our military and force them to stop (or any nation for that matter) but it doesn't mean we shouldn't ignore the fact they do such a thing.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
It is a mistake to assume that governments still have unlimited leeway to do whatever they want within their borders. That is why we have human rights: to protect individual citizens against their states, and that's why organisations like Human Rights Watch can express opinions on the human rights situation in all countries, including China. In the past sixty years, these rights have grown from what you would probably call utopian ideals into actual legal rights in international law, so much so that the originally non-binding Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, is now considered to be an expression of customary international law. If a notion of customary law is too vague for you, the fact still remains that the great majority of states have signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the freedom of speech in Article 19, which includes the "freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds". This right can only be restricted in accordance with the provisions of that article. China has signed up to this treaty, although it still has to ratify it. However, as a matter of treaty law it has to refrain from acts which would be incompatible with the purpose of the treaty there's quite a strong argument that arbitrary censorship violates it.
I will be the first to admit that there are all kinds of shortcomings in the protection of human rights through international treaties, but the only point that I want to make here is that you are incorrect when you state that every government "has the right to dictate the rules within its boundaries". That right is no longer absolute, and in large part this is the result of governments providing the stick they are beaten with themselves by signing human rights treaties. It took only sixty years to get where we are now, so the utopian society you mention may be less than a thousand years away.