The Net Draws Tighter
I’ve been sitting here blogging this morning, listening to the phone-in on BBC Radio 5 live, whose topic was Google’s capitulation to the Chinese government’s censorship of free speech.
A Google representative was all over the airwaves saying that this wasn’t censorship, oh no – on the contrary, allowing the Chinese access to Google was expanding democracy and is thus an integral part of the ‘Google Mission’. I paraphrase, but you get the drift.
Please. Do give us some credit for brains, people. the Google mission is to make money, there is no other mission than this. Google has shareholders and its first duty is to the bottom line and shareholder’s dividends, however it may try to spin the contrary impression with its use of fundie codewords like ‘mission’.
There is a reason why people are outraged at Google’s recent actions, and yes, I know browsers can use non-China Google, and proxy servers, but that’s hardly the point. The point is who owns our browser and IP history? Can it be owned, and if so, whose is it? If it’s ours, what right have search engine companies to give it up on the first demand from government?
This is bedrock stuff about the future of the internet and free expression. I’m thinking it’s time for any activist anywhere to move entirely to open source and away from proprietary and web-based software. Quickly, before the use of open source in itself becomes a data mining marker for the NSA, if it’s not already. Darn those Linuxing turr-ists and their suicide penguins!
This example from Reporters Sans Frontieres via the manly Jesus’ General is an example of why any capitulation by search engine companies or ISP’s to government is a Bad Thing.
Information supplied by Yahoo ! helped journalist Shi Tao get 10 years in prison
The text of the verdict in the case of journalist Shi Tao – sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for ?divulging state secrets abroad? – shows that Yahoo ! Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. provided China?s state security authorities with details that helped to identify and convict him, Reporters Without Borders said today.
?We already knew that Yahoo ! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well,? the press freedom organisation said.
?Yahoo ! obviously complied with requests from the Chinese authorities to furnish information regarding an IP address that linked Shi Tao to materials posted online, and the company will yet again simply state that they just conform to the laws of the countries in which they operate,? the organisation said. ?But does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical onsiderations ? How far will it go to please Beijing ??
Reporters Without Borders added : ?Information supplied by Yahoo ! led to the conviction of a good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out. It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government?s abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate.?
Translated into English by the Dui Hua Foundation (which works to document the cases of Chinese political prisoners), the verdict reveals that Yahoo ! Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. provided the Chinese investigating organs with detailed information that apparently enabled them to link Shi?s personal e-mail account (huoyan-1989@yahoo.com.cn) and the specific message containing information treated as a ?state secret? to the IP address of his computer.
Tags: Google Censorship China Open Source
