Learn from the mistakes of others

Play by our rules, says China
australianit.news.com.au
Correspondents in Beijing
FEBRUARY 15, 2006

CHINA has insisted that foreign internet companies operating in the country must abide by its laws, as US companies continue to come under fire for bowing to Chinese censorship pressure.

"The Chinese government has adopted supervisory measures to limit those immoral and harmful internet) contents... the goal is to safeguard the people's interest," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said.

...

Yahoo was the most recent firm under the spotlight after media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Reporters sans frontiers, or RSF) last week accused it of working "regularly and efficiently with the Chinese police".

...

It should hardly even be worth reporting that companies have to comply with domestic law if they want to conduct business legitimately.

of course, it's the laws themselves that are the real issue/target ... aren't they?

nevertheless ...

Defending net censorship
australianit.news.com.au
Correspondents in Washington
FEBRUARY 16, 2006

US internet search giants have defended their decisions to cooperate with Chinese authorities to censors online information.

They told a congressional panel that restricted online access, while less than ideal, was still valuable for the people of China. "We all face the same struggle between American values and the laws we must obey," Yahoo general counsel Michael Callahan said.

[he means, of course, the conflict between the rights they're used to having at home, and those they find elsewhere. the issues of relativity and of sovereignty.]

Mr Callahan's comments echoed the positions of other internet executives appearing with him before a congressional panel probing the human rights implications of their compliance with Chinese authorities.

[they're executives of internet companies, not of the internet. neither the usa nor any of its' corporations own the internet. it may seem pedantic, but it is an important distinction.

i'm still unclear about what the purpose of the congressional panel is supposed to be - it has been very clear for decades now that the government of the people's republic of china does not interpret human rights the same way the government of the united states of america does. it is equally clear that the latter is unlikely to influence the former this way.]

...

"The new Chinese regulations run counter to the commitments China itself has made to the world community," Mr Gross said.

[if 'new' they're certainly no surprise. as for international commitments, the chinese can say the same thing about the usa.]

"While censorship appears to be incomplete, the vast monitoring effort conducted by Chinese authorities means that users can never be sure whether their legitimate searches for information will be met with intimidation or worse," he said.

Another official with the State Department, James Keith, predicted that Beijing would not be able to sustain the restrictions.

"We are firm in the conviction that the flow of information into and throughout China will not reverse itself," Mr Keith said.

"I do believe, as do many in China, that controlling the internet to the extent that the Chinese government has sought to do is likely to be futile in the long term," he said.

the chinese are often more patient about the 'long term' than certain residents of the north american continent. nevertheless, a strong case can be made in support of this view. but would advise against holding your breath.

Bow to Chinese rules 'evil' says US
australianit.news.com.au
Tim Reid in Washington
FEBRUARY 17, 2006

SOME of the US's most powerful internet companies, including Google and Yahoo, were accused yesterday by a US congressional committee of a "sickening and evil" collaboration with the Chinese Government and of being complicit in the jailing and torture of dissidents.

Four US technology giants - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco Systems - faced a hostile panel on Capitol Hill over their decision to fall in with Chinese censorship of the internet in return for access to the vast and growing Chinese market.

Executives at the companies were called by the House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights after mounting evidence that their technology was being used by the communist regime in Beijing to suppress free speech and target pro-democracy activists.

Yahoo faced the harshest criticism. The company was accused of giving Chinese authorities personal information about users of its email service that led to the jailing of two dissidents.

Shi Tao, a journalist who used an anonymous Yahoo email account, was sentenced last year to 10 years' jail after sending a government message about the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary to foreign colleagues.

Chris Smith, the Republican chairman of the committee, also cited a claim by the Reporters Without Borders group that Yahoo handed over data on another of its users, Li Zhi, who was sentenced in 2003 to eight years' jail for "inciting subversion".

Drawing parallels with IBM's collaboration with Nazi Germany, Mr Smith said: "US technology companies today are engaged in a similar sickening collaboration, decapitating the voice of dissidents. Women and men are going to the gulag and being tortured as a direct result of information handed over to Chinese officials."

Yahoo argued that the presence of the internet in China did good, even when censored.

Michael Callahan, its general counsel, said that in the case of Shi Tao, Yahoo was unaware of the intentions of the Chinese Government, and the company was legally obliged to comply with China's demands.

Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in Chinese labour camps before living in the US, told the panel: "Moral responsibility for Yahoo's collaboration ... cannot be shrugged off with a simple assertion that Yahoo had no choice but to co-operate" with the authorities.

US technology, he said, was a pistol used to oppress the Chinese people.

Google's new China-specific search site - Google.cn - blocks many results on politically sensitive terms, such as "Taiwan", "Tibet" and "Tiananmen Square".

Mr Smith seeks legislation banning a US company's ability to censor or divulge information anywhere in the world. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates supports such a law but he opposes an outright ban on internet companies working in countries ruled by repressive regimes.

John Palfrey, a Harvard Law School professor, who studies the internet, told The Times that the booming number of bloggers and internet users in China "makes the job of a Chinese censor an impossible job".

"The Chinese Government is going to lose the war," he said.

China's rulers are acutely aware that the internet has become an essential tool for the reform and modernisation of a country with 1.3 billion people.

They got a taste of China without the internet when Google's search engine was blocked for 10 days in 2002 and scholars and government officials rounded in fury on the censors, complaining they were no longer able to work.

China has more than 111 million internet users - second only to the US - and that figure will reach 130 million by the end of the year.

The Times, The Australian

aren't american's funny. they get all het up about someone else censoring them, but it's ok for them to censor others.