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Yahoo agrees to censor the Web for China

Motionboy2

Calendar Dominator
Apr 23, 2002
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Broomfield, Colorado
http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2002/07/15/china/index.html?x

Internet portals in China, including Yahoo!'s Chinese-language site, have signed a voluntary pledge to purge the Web of content that China's communist government deems subversive, organizers of the drive say.

The "Public Pledge on Self-discipline for China Internet Industry" has attracted more than 300 signatories since its launch March 16, said a spokeswoman for the Internet Society of China, who identified herself only as Miss Sun.

The pledge's main aims appear fairly benign: promotion of Internet use, prevention of cyber crime, fostering healthy industry competition, avoiding intellectual property violations.

Other clauses, though, seem less innocent given China's tight control over information and the government's extreme sensitivity to criticism or political challenges. New regulations on Internet publishing take effect Aug. 1 "to promote the healthy development of Internet publications," the official Beijing Morning Post reported Monday.

Those who sign the pledge must refrain from "producing, posting or disseminating pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability." The prohibition also covers information that breaks laws and spreads "superstition and obscenity." Members must remove material deemed offensive or face expulsion from the group.

Signers also pledge to monitor content of foreign-based Web sites and block those containing unspecified harmful information.

The pledge conforms closely to government policies making Internet service providers responsible for content posted on Web sites they host. It's a strategy to give the Internet enough room to blossom while keeping operators on notice not to push the envelope politically.

China has aggressively promoted the Internet for commercial purposes. As of April, China had more than 38 million Internet users and nearly 280,000 Web sites, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Yet the Communist Party is determined to curtail the Web's role as a forum of free discussion and source of information not available in the entirely government-controlled media.

A special police force monitors Web sites and sifts e-mail searching for messages promoting causes such as greater political openness, the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement and independence for minority regions. Web sites of human rights groups and Western and Taiwanese media are frequently blocked.

Internet cafes are required to track sites their users visit and report attempts to open those deemed subversive. Long prison sentences have been given to people accused of reproducing or forwarding information from such sites.

"They're trying to have it both ways. It's a difficult game to play, but they seem to be doing a not inconsiderable job of it," said Jack Balkin, a Yale University law professor who studies the Internet.

China has also closed thousands of Internet cafes since a fire June 16 at a cafe in Beijing that killed 25 people.

The Beijing-based Internet Society of China describes itself as a private, national self-governing body for the Chinese Internet sector. Its 140 members drawn from private companies, schools and research institutes, according to the society's Web site.

A spokesman for Yahoo!'s China office in Beijing confirmed the company had signed the pledge but refused to comment further. Yahoo!'s public relations agency in the United States, where the company cultivates an image of freedom and anarchic creativity, responded to an e-mail seeking comment by saying no spokesman was available.

Other portals the society listed as having signed the pledge include the popular Chinese Websites Sina.com and Sohu.com, as well as Peking and Tsinghua universities, online media and technology companies and government offices.
Discus...
 

Motionboy2

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Apr 23, 2002
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Broomfield, Colorado
What is everyones opinions? I am amazed at what a company will do for money. Doesn't the internet stand for the free flow of ideas and information? Isn't yahoo founded on the idea that if you want to know they can find the info for you? Do you think other large names will follow suit?
 
R

RideMonkey

Guest
Originally posted by Motionboy2
What is everyones opinions? I am amazed at what a company will do for money. Doesn't the internet stand for the free flow of ideas and information? Isn't yahoo founded on the idea that if you want to know they can find the info for you? Do you think other large names will follow suit?
Well I think reality is that if they don't make money its all over. Just a business decision me thinks.
 

Motionboy2

Calendar Dominator
Apr 23, 2002
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Broomfield, Colorado
Originally posted by RideMonkey


Well I think reality is that if they don't make money its all over. Just a business decision me thinks.
But if you are making a business desision would you want to make one that you don't want to comment to the press on? I know i have and will make desisions that are primarily about money but i am willing to say...yep i did that and yep I wasn't excited about. But no regrets. just my opinion...
 

sub6

Monkey
Oct 17, 2001
508
0
williamsburg, va
Originally posted by RideMonkey


Well I think reality is that if they don't make money its all over. Just a business decision me thinks.
whoa, dude. I hope you aren't defending what they're doing. It's easy to say "oh, it's purely a business decision" but that doesn't make it okay to do something like that. Sure, if you run a chemical plant that produces tons of toxic waste per day, it's a whole hell of a lot cheaper (and a better decision from a business-only standpoint) to just dump it into the river out back than it is to dispose of it properly. Or to go out of business, natch. But that doesn't excuse it in any way shape or form.

On a side note, you can't access washingtonpost.com, cnn.com, et al from Chinese ISPs, b/c they poison the minds of the people and lead to "social instability." What a crock.:rolleyes:

On another side note, the Chinese Postal Service is instituting a service where you can send email to people who don't have 'net access. You send the email, and (for a fee) Postal Service employees print it out, put it in an envelope, and deliver it to the recipient. I don't think anybody's worried about them reading the messages, because email in China is ALREADY read by big brother, so it's just more of the same! What a sad state of affairs....:rolleyes:
 
R

RideMonkey

Guest
Originally posted by sub6


whoa, dude. I hope you aren't defending what they're doing. It's easy to say "oh, it's purely a business decision" but that doesn't make it okay to do something like that. Sure, if you run a chemical plant that produces tons of toxic waste per day, it's a whole hell of a lot cheaper (and a better decision from a business-only standpoint) to just dump it into the river out back than it is to dispose of it properly. Or to go out of business, natch. But that doesn't excuse it in any way shape or form.

On a side note, you can't access washingtonpost.com, cnn.com, et al from Chinese ISPs, b/c they poison the minds of the people and lead to "social instability." What a crock.:rolleyes:

On another side note, the Chinese Postal Service is instituting a service where you can send email to people who don't have 'net access. You send the email, and (for a fee) Postal Service employees print it out, put it in an envelope, and deliver it to the recipient. I don't think anybody's worried about them reading the messages, because email in China is ALREADY read by big brother, so it's just more of the same! What a sad state of affairs....:rolleyes:
The problem is with the chinese government not Yahoo. Its not the corporations responsibility to attempt a reform of a backwards government. Also the US government should be blamed before yahoo for lifting trade restrictions based on Human Rights violations.
 

sub6

Monkey
Oct 17, 2001
508
0
williamsburg, va
Originally posted by RideMonkey


The problem is with the chinese government not Yahoo. Its not the corporations responsibility to attempt a reform of a backwards government. Also the US government should be blamed before yahoo for lifting trade restrictions based on Human Rights violations.
No way! I respectfully disagree with you 100% RM. It is certainly the Chinese gov't's problem, but if Yahoo gets involved and aids/abets them in this, their hands are just as dirty. They have as much of a duty to not be involved in this as any.

It's like the excuse that some of the Nazi doctors used after WWII - "I'm not guilty, it was the government's plan, they were responsible for all this." Well, who do you think actually cut open the Jews and performed torturous experiments on them? Just b/c it isn't your IDEA, per se, doesn't mean that participating in it isn't wrong.

The corporations don't have to reform a backwards gov't, that's definitely true. But they also have a responsibility to NOT help to perpetuate that backwards system, profiting off of an enterprise that seems quite contrary to American values. my $0.02 anyway...