Comments on: Loose lips sink ships. Yahoo helps China jail dissidents again.

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

five fresh fish — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:29:09 -0800

WTF, Yahoo‽ How many Chinese are you going to help put into the hell of Chinese prison, Terry, Jerry, and David?

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:29:24 -0800

"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."

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:33:12 -0800

I am, in a word, disgusted.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:35:27 -0800

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!

By: MillMan

MillMan — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:38:04 -0800

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.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:40:24 -0800

It's not Yahoo's fault. An hour after you turn in one Chinese dissident, you feel like doing it again.

By: onegreeneye

onegreeneye — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:48:14 -0800

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.

By: sdrawkcab

sdrawkcab — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:48:55 -0800

Nice use of the interrobang.

By: setanor

setanor — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:49:58 -0800

Yeah, I just came to applaud the interrobang in there. Now I'll read the article.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:54:07 -0800

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?

By: lalochezia

lalochezia — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:55:33 -0800

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.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:04:59 -0800

Google's over in the corner going "see, 'evil' is relative, not absolute".

By: CynicalKnight

CynicalKnight — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:05:24 -0800

... 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"?

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:28:12 -0800

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?

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:51:47 -0800

If censoring search results isn't evil, and if Yahoo has no stated anti-evil policy, how can this be wrong?

By: jikel_morten

jikel_morten — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:53:55 -0800

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.

By: jikel_morten

jikel_morten — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:54:59 -0800

Do mo evil.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:01:55 -0800

If you ride upon the tiger, you can never get off. 'Cause they get hungry.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:25:38 -0800

Worst of the Web.

By: rmm

rmm — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:38:52 -0800

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...

By: j-urb

j-urb — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:55:28 -0800

Yahoo, Microsoft, & Google are just practicing for the next step which is the U.S.

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 22:56:32 -0800

What profit a nation that it gain the whole market, and loose it's own soul?

By: mediareport

mediareport — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 23:19:38 -0800

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.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 04:25:35 -0800

It's nothing personal. It's just business.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 18:30:34 -0800

Here's some interesting information on this matter: "This is completely blowing the role of Yahoo! in this case out of proportion"

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 18:59:30 -0800

And here's some more interesting information: The Chinese Communist Party disapproves censuring.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 22:28:40 -0800

Here is how they try to stay ahead of the game.