Yahoo helps China

July 23, 2005 11:14 AM

Yahoo provided "evidence" to prosecute Shi TaoQUOTE (June 30, 2005)In the court statement againt Shi Tao on June 2nd, the second evidence was provided by Yahoo. The Statement said: User information provided by Yahoo(HK) shows that the IP 218.76.8.201 (active at 23:32:17 on April 20, 2004) is used by: Tel.:[phone], user's company is....., user's address is.... (boxun.com) This is the first case that shows publicly that Yahoo helps China government to prosecute an Internet user - journalist. END QUOTE
posted by hank (25 comments total)

Well fuck Yahoo then.
posted by clevershark at 11:21 AM on July 23, 2005

Yeah, so??
posted by mischief at 11:26 AM on July 23, 2005

I'm definitely not using Yahoo now!
posted by Plutor at 11:34 AM on July 23, 2005

Some backstory might be helpful for those of us who had no idea who Shi Tao is.

Also - fuck Yahoo.
posted by cmonkey at 11:41 AM on July 23, 2005

Better backstory.
posted by cmonkey at 11:43 AM on July 23, 2005

Not knowing who shin-tao was, I was a bit confused. I thought someone had used Yahoo to search for evidence about someone who done something, but I'm guessing it meant that yahoo provided information directly to the government.
posted by delmoi at 11:44 AM on July 23, 2005

My outrage response is busted, because I'd just assumed that it was standard operating procedure already.
posted by Bugbread at 11:52 AM on July 23, 2005

It's the little differences...
In China, the Government dishes propaganda to the press, and when a journalist makes it public he is put in jail.
In the US, the Governement dishes propaganda to the press, and a journalist is willing to go to jail to protect the source of the propaganda.
Here, Time gives up the goods to protect their stockholders from contempt fines.
There, Yahoo gives up the goods so that their stockholders have the possibility of future profits.
posted by sp dinsmoor at 12:15 PM on July 23, 2005

And in Soviet Russia, the journalist propaganda stockholds you.
posted by queen zixi at 12:29 PM on July 23, 2005

Why isn't this all over Slashdot?
posted by rolypolyman at 12:34 PM on July 23, 2005

I'm a little confused. Did Yahoo (the Hong Kong subsidiary) have any legal choice in the matter whatsoever? I'm assuming the evidence was subpoenaed by the court for a criminal trial. If they failed to comply voluntarily, the government would probably have the power to raid their offices and take the information by force. Why are people ragging on Yahoo in this particular case? If anything, they should be ragging on Yahoo for doing any business in China at all, and especially for assisting the Chinese government in censoring websites.
posted by skoosh at 12:40 PM on July 23, 2005

Yahoo is evil.
posted by meehawl at 1:08 PM on July 23, 2005

Why isn't this all over Slashdot?

Oh the irony.
posted by graventy at 1:10 PM on July 23, 2005

>Criminal trial

I don't know if China distinguishes civil and criminal (misdemeanor and felony) the way the US does, do you?

The news there -- for Chinese readers at least -- was that they had the first public confirmation Yahoo was turning in connection info to make it possible to track down and arrest someone by phone number that connected to the ISP.

China seems to be making 'state secrets' a very broad category of information.

This link, for example, claims to be messages that were copied and forwarded to Boxun, fifteen minutes before they were deleted from Chinese bulletin boards.

Boxun.com

QUOTE

On July 21 (brief translation):

Post by Yak(Tibet Cow) at 2005-07-20 08:31:00 : is there a war? I found many clinical vehicles on the road, and many armed soldiers. I also saw helicopter. I heard they are from YuShu. What happened?

Post by Wolf without coat at 2005-07-20¡¡09:11:17 : I saw too, they passed by, a few hundreds armed. I am in YuShu, where are you from?

Post by Yak(Tibet Cow) at 2005-07-20 09:13:00: I am in Chengduo, is it Bird flu?

Posted by Happy Kitty at 2005-07-20¡¡09:23:27 - Same here, I am in LaSiSong. first time to see so many planes.

Posted by Drunk Elephant at 2005-07-20¡¡09:37:16 - Yes, it is bird flu.

Posted by Sad Rain Drop at 09:49:12 - is it in Qinghai Lake? So quick to be here?

Posted by Toothbrush at 09:55:06 - be careful. I saw armed personnel arrest people, my parents told me not go out.

Posted by SongZanShiBu at 10:04:29 - Yes, I saw plane and army.

Posted by Old Aunt at 10:55:11 - if you see army and doctors, response.

Yes - by Cat... 10:59:10

Yes - by Aunt Changing Earth 11:14:36

Yes - by QiE drinking XO 11:26:56

Yes - God's finger 11:39:15

Yes, I heard many arrested by family by Dark Blue Rose 11:41:56

Yes by ........

Yushu, Chengduo, Lasitong,Xiewu,ZaNie, KanKou, all these places cannot be visited by Cat........... 11:44:10

Army is coming, checking by family. My family does not have birds, should be ok. By Happy Kitty 11:47:27

The above posts were deleted by noon.

The posts received on July 22 shows there were fight during arrest.

Again, Boxun cannot confirm the above information, hope you can do something on this. (boxun.com)
END QUOTE

Sounds like kids either unaware they can be tracked or really sticking their necks out in harm's way.

They need cheap untraceable satellite Internet connection devices out there!


Discussion of what's being said and suppressed, for example, here: http://www.epidemi.ca/

QUOTE
.... These days, new postings appear on boxun.com.... so detailed that there is no doubt the author(s) has/have a degree of knowledge about the subject, they may even be doctors or virologists involved in testing of samples. ......There are also persistent stories about emergency hospital isolation wards for patients with pneumonia. Pneumonia is common among bird flu sufferers.
.... On July 15, a possible connection between H5N1 and Chinese bioweapons research is mentioned. On July 18, there are, again very detailed, descriptions of an ebola outbreak .... troop movements near Qinghai, of areas being quarantined, people being taken away and fights breaking out between farmers and doctors, and ultimately the military.

For now, all boxun.com reports remain unconfirmed, except for the bird deaths at Qinghai Lake.... the wealth of specifics and details makes it harder to dismiss them offhand.
END QUOTE

It may illegal for Chinese researchers to publish without state authorization -- that's been reported and then denied. Of course it may be illegal to disclose that it's illegal.

the-scientist 20050715

Jul. 15, 2005
A Chinese agriculture ministry official said this week that a paper about the deaths from avian flu of geese in the country, published in the July 6 online issue of Nature, was wrong and had been conducted without government approval.....
posted by hank at 2:10 PM on July 23, 2005

So, China tries to cover up the avian flu story, just as it tried to cover up SARS stories before.
posted by clevershark at 2:29 PM on July 23, 2005

One can see a dangerous chain of lack of responsability in the following

1. Yahoo does logging as ' required by some law ' thus discharging any reponsability on the state making the ' law '

2. Yahoo does the transmissions of logged data because they're 'forced by law' ...again discharging responsability on police or whatnot

3. Yahoo protects the stockholders and investors by doing what is best for their profit, for instance expanding their operation in China so discharging they ratting out of dissident on their ' duty to protect stockholder interests '

As you can see...nobody is (apparently) to blame for the ratting out of the dissident, even if Yahoo _factually_ took a major part in the operation providing the government with substanstial incriminating 'evidence'.

So I'd expect more anti-chinese propagandists to use this as a further proof China is wicked and evil and against freedom...curiously they often if not always forget to mention corporate entities who are happily collaborating with the Big Evil China..sometime with even more caution if these corporations happens to be American.

Today you can't talk about excretory and sexual topics on public radio, tomorrow who knows...why are you hate talking China ?
posted by elpapacito at 2:36 PM on July 23, 2005

elpapacito writes "why are you hate talking China ?"

Because of their long story of political persecution and lack of hesitance in sending the army to crush their own citizens?
posted by clevershark at 3:27 PM on July 23, 2005

I so much long for China to be a great place for its people and the world. It is so sad that the authorities there are so selfish that they do not see that their oppression of the people cannot succeed and instead will hold China back and hold China up to criticism and ridicule by all good and informed people. I am so sorry for the Chinese people, many of whom do not know the truth or who are affraid to accept it, about their government.

As for Yahoo, it should never comply with a government request to ID someone if Yahoo knows the government is a lying dictatorship. Indeed, Yahoo ought to dump the information it has before it can be requested. If Yahoo cooperated in this prosecution, shame on Yahoo.
posted by swlabr at 3:50 PM on July 23, 2005

clevershark writes Because of their long story of political persecution and lack of hesitance in sending the army to crush their own citizens? ?

That could be a good reason, but there's no reason to hate-talk them..just expose their wrongdoings sistematically and the masses of people will (slowly but steadly) recognize there's something rotten in China and act accordingly...but to achieve that in western countries you need an hell of a lot of media pressure to get people foresee the problem becoming as part of THEIR problems.

Good luck finding any official big media outlet helping you in the task..now that a significant part of antisocial-capitalistic interests are moving into the richly exploitable China (actually, they already moved) I doubt you'll find any information amplificator ...and more importantly, you'll never get any systematic advertisement-style pressure on people.

So I only can phantom what hell could have happened in Middle East, what did the populations over there suffer and in what conditions must the majority of population live (expecially intellectual misery, not only economic). Far from sympathizing with terroristic methods, it's no suprise that extremistic religious fanatics easily find recruists among relatively poor and ignorant people.

Surprisingly, the jingoism that characterizes part of some countries (Usa, France come to mind) is another fertile recruiting ground for "we're righteous and civilized" fanaticism.

I HIGHLY recommend the movie Battle of Algeris by Gillo Pontecorvo, which can be found on Chomskytorrents right now. People who have no sympathy for Chomsky should disregard all the other material and get the movie, for it describes the effect of internal terrorism and the reaction of old-colonialistic France.
posted by elpapacito at 4:37 PM on July 23, 2005

elpapacito writes "That could be a good reason, but there's no reason to hate-talk them."

They sent the army to literally slaughter students who were staging a peaceful sit-in. I guess that to some people that may not qualify for bad-mouthing, but to me it does.

Of course "big media" will be silent, as will other corporations. China is big money to them, and we all know how well Beijing has traditionally handled those who criticize it. Does that mean that I'm going to change my tune? Hell no. Doing so would be as stupid and moronic as changing one's voting in order to "vote for a winner" (seriously, how stupid does one have to be to do this, yet it's an act oft undertaken by the unintelligent).
posted by clevershark at 5:12 PM on July 23, 2005

clevershark: constance of "tune" isn't automatically necessarily good. Somehow a number of people believe something "constant" (or unchanging, with is a synonymous)
is necessarily always better then "unconstant" (or changing) but it's a false equation.

For instance, if I repeated incessantly that clevershark is a bumbling idiot that will not make the statement any more "true" then it really is , yet some people will fall to the reassuring and hypnothic effect of repetition and start thinking my statement is "more true" or "true" even if I haven't argued neither why or how or offered any kind of proof (that's one of the mechanisms employed by Fox News FYI btw)

So you'll understand me if It doesn't strike me as obvious that changing tune is moronic and stupid : it CAN be , but it isn't necessarily so and it doesn't seem to me that hate-talking china will do western nations or any other nation any good.
posted by elpapacito at 5:46 PM on July 23, 2005

elpapacito -- you *really* fail to understand what is a very simple point, namely that changing one's opinion based on what others think of it -- whether those "others" are the news media or whatever else -- and for no other reason, is stupid and moronic.

And is talking negatively about China causing bad things to happen, more so than if the tone were more positive? I think that's highly unlikely.

I suppose you could argue against what I just wrote, but I doubt you'd want to.
posted by clevershark at 6:58 PM on July 23, 2005

Find I this thread very amusing. Exposing the malicious despoitsm of yahoo was a fine and noble thing to do. Blows my fucking mind.
posted by gagglezoomer at 8:00 PM on July 23, 2005

clevershark: I'd argue that uniforming one personal opinion to a different person own opinion _strictly only_ because the two opinion differ..... is pointless.

Pointless isn't the same as stupid/moronic...and it's not "just semantics"

For instance take a Joe that is pretty much competent and able on his usual job ..move him into a contest he's not used to ....for instance a debate arena. He'll probably try to express his opinion and it will probably be quartered and scrutinized down to minute details.You and I or others may look at him and see the mountain of logical errors he's committing and evaluate him as "stupid, moronic" because "if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck ..."

What _could_ happen is that he learns about his own errors and learns to avoid common fallacies ; to do so he may also ...gasp..change is opinion because he now sees there's people who can construct and argue much better then he could..he now believes they're "more often correct" then he is. By mere imitation he start adopting the opinion of the what he sees as "smarter" people.

So while he's maybe holding pointless/unfounded opinions he's not necessarily stupid and moronic (in the strict sense of the two words) he may as well just be stuck at a level of understanding and self-awareness insufficient to ascertain his own errors.

Briefly: is changing opinion stupid/moronic ? No. Is uniforming our opinion to another moronic ? No. Is uniforming our opinon to another opinion BECAUSE they're different a sign of stupidity ? Not always it can be a sign of fear of having a "dissenting" opinion.
posted by elpapacito at 8:33 PM on July 23, 2005

elpapacito writes "he may also ...gasp..change is opinion because he now sees there's people who can construct and argue much better then he could."

Implicit in your scenario is that person A is changing his mind, not because he has come to learn new information that would (and should) influence his opinion, but merely because he's so dazzled by the other party's presentation that he's willing to agree with whatever they say. In fact person A might not even understand these new opinions, merely that he's impressed enough by those who hold them that he's willing to surrender his own judgement to them.

You say that's not stupid. I say that it is. We disagree.
posted by clevershark at 8:59 PM on July 23, 2005