Loose lips sink ships. Yahoo helps China jail dissidents again.

February 8, 2006 7:29 PM

WTF, Yahoo‽ How many Chinese are you going to help put into the hell of Chinese prison, Terry, Jerry, and David?
posted by five fresh fish (26 comments total)

"How many Chinese citizens are now in jail because of information Yahoo provided to the Chinese government? That is the question the not-for-profit Reporters Without Borders is asking. And it's a question which suggests the damage to Yahoo's reputation will be ongoing."
posted by five fresh fish at 7:29 PM on February 8, 2006

I am, in a word, disgusted.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:33 PM on February 8, 2006

Argh, if only I'd remembered this headline in time, I'd have had a better FPP: "Yahoo considers offering incentives to get people to use its search engine."

Well, Yahoo, keeping private things private would sure as hell be a damn fine start!
posted by five fresh fish at 7:35 PM on February 8, 2006

I see some of these companies splitting off their China divisions once they hit a "sweet spot" between a) the value of the China division and b) growing outrage among their customers / governments in the rest of the world.
posted by MillMan at 7:38 PM on February 8, 2006

It's not Yahoo's fault. An hour after you turn in one Chinese dissident, you feel like doing it again.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:40 PM on February 8, 2006

HA!@mr_crash_davis!


On a serious note: It's a good thing China has favored nation trading status with the U.S. And, it sure is fortunate that the U.S. doesn't feel the need to force democracy down the throats of the oppressed in other countries. We'd be in a heck of a mess if that were the case.
posted by onegreeneye at 7:48 PM on February 8, 2006

Nice use of the interrobang.
posted by sdrawkcab at 7:48 PM on February 8, 2006

Yeah, I just came to applaud the interrobang in there. Now I'll read the article.
posted by setanor at 7:49 PM on February 8, 2006

I did not even know it was possible to use an interrobang online. Bravo, sir or madam, bravo.

In the meanhwile, this is me, disgusted. Is there no search engine I can comfortably use?
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:54 PM on February 8, 2006

Notes that chinese prison is bad, putting pro democracy people there is bad, yahoo is bad, etc, but

Out of interest, if yahoo had refused the info on demand, what would have happened? Could China've kicked them out? Made CEO's/staff personally liable (the history of limited liability in china is shaky at best)? Fined/arrested individual workers?

At what point do you open yourself to risk to save others, especially if you're a corporation?

This is not to snark, but I'm intrigued.
posted by lalochezia at 7:55 PM on February 8, 2006

Google's over in the corner going "see, 'evil' is relative, not absolute".
posted by smackfu at 8:04 PM on February 8, 2006

... and while we're at it, how does taking money from spammers to let their email through your spamfilters "help reduce spam in your inbox"?
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:05 PM on February 8, 2006

They keep saying what Google keeps saying: That they are still doing more good (providing information to Chinese people) than bad (folding to the demands of the government)

This seems like a classic slippery slope. At what point are they helping out and at what point, by their complicity, do they become part of the problem?
posted by vacapinta at 8:28 PM on February 8, 2006

If censoring search results isn't evil, and if Yahoo has no stated anti-evil policy, how can this be wrong?
posted by klangklangston at 8:51 PM on February 8, 2006

They keep saying what Google keeps saying: That they are still doing more good (providing information to Chinese people) than bad (folding to the demands of the government)

What's the deal with this? Certainly China has its own share of search engines, no? Sure, they may not be google, but google and yahoo talk as if they're the only ones able to help people get to information online.
posted by jikel_morten at 8:53 PM on February 8, 2006

Do mo evil.
posted by jikel_morten at 8:54 PM on February 8, 2006

If you ride upon the tiger, you can never get off.

'Cause they get hungry.
posted by dhartung at 9:01 PM on February 8, 2006

Worst of the Web.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:25 PM on February 8, 2006

In the meanhwile, this is me, disgusted. Is there no search engine I can comfortably use?

Apparently not. Indeed, what will it cost U.S. companies to go after the lucrative market that is China? Battelle's article is spot on on this, of course. It will be interesting to hear the Congressional hearing on February 15th, although methinks we'll see a repeat of the performance from the cigarette company CEOs from a while back...
posted by rmm at 9:38 PM on February 8, 2006

Yahoo, Microsoft, & Google are just practicing for the next step which is the U.S.
posted by j-urb at 9:55 PM on February 8, 2006

What profit a nation that it gain the whole market, and loose it's own soul?
posted by Goofyy at 10:56 PM on February 8, 2006

just practicing for the next step which is the U.S.

My favorite bit from these stories was a quote from a Google flak a couple of weeks ago who said something like, "Well, censoring info about Tibet and democracy isn't really bad because most folks in China don't search for those things. They just want to go online to play games and chat."

I couldn't help thinking what a perfect rationalization that is for censoring "difficult" topics in *any* country.
posted by mediareport at 11:19 PM on February 8, 2006

It's nothing personal. It's just business.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:25 AM on February 9, 2006

Here's some interesting information on this matter:
"This is completely blowing the role of Yahoo! in this case out of proportion"
posted by tellurian at 6:30 PM on February 9, 2006

And here's some more interesting information: The Chinese Communist Party disapproves censuring.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:59 PM on February 14, 2006

Here is how they try to stay ahead of the game.
posted by tellurian at 10:28 PM on February 14, 2006