Internet giant Yahoo has admitted that it gave Communist China the information it needed to convict a journalist accused of leaking state secrets
The journalist, Shi Tao, was sentenced last spring to 10 years in prison for sending foreign-based Web sites a copy of a message from Chinese authorities warning domestic journalists about reporting on sensitive issues, according to a translation of the verdict disseminated by the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.
Speaking at an Internet conference in this eastern Chinese city, Yahoo’s co-founder, Jerry Yang, said his company had no choice but to cooperate with the authorities.
“To be doing business in China, or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with local law,” Yang said, responding to a question about his company’s role in the case. “We don’t know what they want that information for, we’re not told what they look for. If they give us the proper documentation and court orders, we give them things that satisfy both our privacy policy and the local rules.”
“I do not like the outcome of what happens with these things,” Yang added. “But we have to follow the law.”
Would Yahoo’s reaction be the same if it were Nazi Germany instead of Communist China ? I honestly have to wonder. The amorality of Yang’s comment is disturbing to say the least.It is not, apparently, uncommon however:
Google, the popular Web search site, has been accused by Internet monitors based in the United States and Europe of preventing Internet users in China from accessing sites Chinese authorities deem sensitive, such as those carrying reports about Tibet, Taiwan and the banned religious sect Falun Gong. Cisco Systems has sold China much of the equipment authorities use to block access to such sites, though the company maintains that China’s use of the gear is beyond its purview. Three years ago, Yahoo drew fire for reportedly signing a pledge in which it agreed to abide by all Chinese censorship laws — an implicit promise to bar access to Web sites deemed off-limits.
I am happy to see Yahoo, Google, Cisco, and Microsoft doing business in China. I believe that, in the long run, the spread of computer technology and the Internet will only serve to undermine the control of the Communist Party, despite its efforts to control the flow of information. There is a point, however, at which the value of doing business in a place like China is superseded by other considerations.
An innocent man is in a Chinese jail thanks to Yahoo’s desire to curry favor with its patrons in Beijing. By any measure of morality, that is wrong.
