Yahoo! Aiding Communist China?
The Martian Anthropologist reported this today. You be the judge. As I said on his site, I’m not sure who the good guys are anymore.
I think it’s time to boycott Yahoo!, don’t you?
In their journey to make even more money, Yahoo! has provided information that helped a Chinese court to convict an online democracy activist of ‘inciting subversion’. In other words, someone in China spoke out against their tyrannical government — and Yahoo! helped the Chinese put that person in jail.
Nice, huh?
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 9 (Reuters) - U.S. Internet companies faced fresh bipartisan criticism in the Congress on Thursday following mounting controversy over Yahoo Inc.’s (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) alleged role in the Chinese government’s eight-year prison sentence against a second dissident.
“I don’t like any American company ratting out a citizen for speaking out against their government,” Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat and member of the House Human Rights Subcommittee, told Reuters on Thursday.
Maybe it’s time to hit Yahoo! where it counts — in the pocketbook. If you are using a Yahoo! service, I challenge you to go elsewhere. Their two most popular services, of course, are their search engine and their email service.
Google out-does them on both.
If anyone needs a free Gmail account so you don’t have to use Yahoo! anymore, just email me at martian.anthropologist@gmail.com .
I challenge anyone with a blog to link to this post and encourage others to stop using Yahoo!’s services.
Technorati Tags: Martian Anthropologist, boycott, Yahoo, Yahoo!, Chinese, democracy, activist, China, Google, Gmail
I think too many people are beating up both Yahoo and Google over this. What is happening is that the information that Yahoo and Google provides to China will break the back of Red China. Yes, a few good people will have to go to prision, but the wall will fall. Look on the positive-freedom side of the story.
http://www.epicguide.com/2006/02/09/chinesse-french-yahooligans/
I read your story and others on your site and I’m not sure I fully understand all the points you are trying to make. I do, however, understand and disagree with the point you are making here that Yahoo! and Google are somehow working to “break the back of Red China”.
If they are doing business in China they ought to follow the laws of that country, but there is a moral question here that was raised by the Martian Anthropologist that is above that in my mind. It is one thing not to interfere in the laws of China, it is quite another to participate in the oppression of human rights.
This is not a political blog so I won’t support an argument here along those lines, but I will say that human rights are not defined or limited by a country’s borders. This man has a right to speak out against what he sees as injustice in his country in the same way that I have a right to speak out about injustice in my own country.
Please visit OneManBandWidth.com for some very interesting and enlightening news from China.
Jeff, I agree that the chinese police state is a human rights issue - BUT - it is only an issue to those in this world that have the “rights”. Americans and Europeans rarely look though the eye of those who are oppressed, they often don’t know anything else. In China’s case, they are standing on the edge of a cliff waiting to fall. The two major reasons, information to the masses, and capitalism. The oppressed will rise up and get greedy, just like the Iron Curtain. Red China will fall in our life time.
Again, I’m not sure I understand where you are going with this entirely, but I don’t think human rights have anything to do with your nationality. Human rights are an issue to me, to you, and to all other humans on the planet.
I also don’t think that me being an American has anything to do with the rights that all humans share. What does being American or European have to do with being able to recognize that someone’s rights are being violated?
As far as China “standing on the edge of a cliff”, I don’t see that their position is that precarious. I also don’t see that this has any bearing at all on whether or not its citizens have the same rights as any other of us on the planet.
Thank you for your comments and thank you for taking the time to return to my site.
[...] Do you remember when I posted an article about Yahoo! aiding communist China by providing information that helped the government jail a man there for speaking out about democracy? The article was originally from The Martian Anthropologist who referenced this article from Reuters. [...]