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Yahoo Defends Itself On China Allegations

Posted by Zonk on Fri May 12, 2006 04:38 PM
from the good-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder dept.
Yahoo! Politics
Vitaly Friedman writes "Yahoo defends its policies in China as doing more good than harm, even as multiple dissidents have been jailed based on Yahoo Mail evidence. From the article: 'Yahoo continues to defend itself against charges that its Chinese operations have been responsible for the jailing of multiple dissidents. Multiple reports have surfaced which tie Yahoo Mail to various Chinese court cases that have ended in imprisonment for writers with politically unpopular opinions.'"
politics yahoo
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  • Anyone want to buy a bridge? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Distinguished Hero (618385) on Friday May 12 2006, @04:44PM (#15321603) Homepage
    "Yahoo defends its policies in China as doing more good than harm, even as multiple dissidents have been jailed based on Yahoo Mail evidence."

    Only a Yahoo would believe such a claim. In related news, has anyone read Gulliver's Travels? I take it the people who chose the name for the company didn't.
    • Pretty lame article. There's all of one line of "Yahoo defending itself." The rest is just rehash of stuff we've heard for months. Here's the Yahoo line:

      "You have to get whatever news you possibly can into China as opposed to pulling back," he said. "Will they be edited? Yes. Should you go home? No."

      There, now you don't have to waste your time reading this so-called "article."
      I've seen blog entries by drunken teen-agers with more content and insight.

  • In the imaginary country of Jailand... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Xiroth (917768) on Friday May 12 2006, @04:49PM (#15321629)
    In other news, in Jailand, a nation with a rate of imprisonment of people who later turned out to be innocent which recently topped 45%, a police spokesman commented that as the rate was below 50%, the police force was still doing more harm than good.
  • Q: Doesn't 'Yahoo' mean Chinese Whore?

    A: It does now!

  • Welcome to the real world! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by i am kman (972584) on Friday May 12 2006, @04:57PM (#15321701)
    Jeez - why do people expect these for-profit companies to be driven by the same idealistic, personal visions they have for the internet?

    The internet is a technology - it's goal is not to undermine communism or authoritarian governments or to impose US ideals/values upon other countries. So why are so many people 'shocked' that companies like Yahoo! actually abide by the laws in the countries they do business in?

    Look at wikipedia - just how successful do you think they'll be in China now that they're officially blocked??? Exact same thing would happen to Yahoo!
    • The thing is, Yahoo isn't just abiding by the laws of China - it's acquiescing to their non-binding requests. Also, the Internet isn't just a technology - it's the result of users taking advantage of this medium to create their own content, whether corporate or personal. As such, the Internet has it's own cultural ideals, etc. People are angered by Yahoo! because it is going against the libertarian Internet cultural ideals, as well as going against the American ideology that says liberty and freedom are

    • Re:Welcome to the real world! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Asic Eng (193332) on Friday May 12 2006, @07:40PM (#15322734)
      On the other hand: why should it be an excuse for anyone to engage in amoral behavior, that they are doing so in order to earn more money?

      It seems a little absurd to expect morals of a person, and then if that person founds a company say "oh that's alright, the company can do whatever is legal". What would be the benefit of giving companies such a free pass?

  • Yahoo can't do it? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Itninja (937614) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:00PM (#15321724) Homepage
    From TA:
    "He went on to say that Yahoo cannot change Chinese policy and that it needs help from the US government to do so."

    So clearly, Yahoo is also powerless to change there own business practices.
    I mean, that totally makes sense, right?

  • Private companies are not David. (Score:3, Informative)

    by RealityThreek (534082) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:07PM (#15321773)
    Yahoo CEO Terry Semel ... went on to say that Yahoo cannot change Chinese policy and that it needs help from the US government to do so.
    He is completely right here. We are expecting private companies to fight a battle that Chinese citizens and/or the US government should be fighting. Yahoo has to play by the rules China sets up and it is absurd for any of us to expect otherwise. Their only other choice is to go home.

  • What's one customer... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Original Replica (908688) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:08PM (#15321786) Journal
    "These companies are trying to walk a fine line between offending the Chinese government, on the one hand, and offending the American government on the other."
    Yeah, who cares about the actual people being taken away as long as we don't offend any governments. Morals and ethics are just there to appease the media and government officials, right?
    • The Chinese government can shut down their oeprations in China completely. The US government have given them a close eye and are considering putting requirements on companies that do business in China.

      The lone customer will do what exactly?
  • One Yahoo guy says whatg Yahoo always says about this, then Ars Technica asks its readers to discuss. This is news?

  • Here's a ranking of prisoners per capita (Score:4, Informative)

    by jfern (115937) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:21PM (#15321861)
    Guess which country is a solid #1 for prisoners per capita?

    http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_pri_per_ca p [nationmaster.com]
    • Perhaps that is because other countries (e.g. China) employ less official as well as "more capital" methods of taking care of "prisoners" than the US. According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], 90% of executions world wide are carried out by China (and who knows how under-reported such matters are within China).

      P.S. On the same page, you'll find that "Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen" still officially execute juveniles. "China, the most frequent user of capital punishment, does not allow f
    • That only covers documented prisoners. This [straightdope.com] sheds a bit more light on the issue.
  • Ahhh, the old "greater good" fallacy. What a load. The only "good" coming out of this is Yahoo's bottom line. Which is far more valuable than the lives of a couple of lousy dissidents, evidently. Well, if they're doing this in China, I wonder what they're doing to the Americans. Oh, yeah. Pretty much the same thing. With even less evidence of any crime. We should start seeing some arrests in the near future, but "national security" interests will prevent us from ever finding out.

  • Boycott Yahoo says NYT's Kristoff (Score:3, Informative)

    by forgoodmeasure (885419) on Friday May 12 2006, @07:28PM (#15322670)
    In an opinion piece on 19 Feb 2006, Kristoff of the New York Times all but called for a boycott on Yahoo. He thought that Google got a bum rap, Cisco and Microsoft were sleazy (but nothing like Yahoo), and that Yahoo was a national disgrace.

    Kristoff: "...nobody should touch Yahoo until it provides financially for the families of the three men it helped lock up and establishes annual fellowships in their names to bring Web journalists to America on study programs."

    I think Kristoff's suggestion sounds doable.

    Pay only link: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6 0815F63B5A0C7A8DDDAB0894DE404482&n=Top%2FOpinion%2 FEditorials%20and%20Op-Ed%2FOp-Ed%2FColumnists%2FN icholas%20D%20Kristof [nytimes.com]

    The website that coordinates the Yahoo boycott follows:
    http://www.booyahoo.com/ [booyahoo.com]

    Booyahoo has a link which details some of the alternatives to Yahoo services (hotmail, etc.) Some Slashdot users may want to help flesh it out.

    Wikipedia lists some of the Yahoo owned sites and services (to avoid?):
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo [wikipedia.org]!
  • Yahoo made money. To them, that's all that matters. The taxes on their profits help fund your schools, your hospitals, your roads, your military.

    The profit chain doesn't just stop with Yahoo. Ultimately, the suppression of the Chinese people benefits Americans, and most other western countries. Not just through Yahoo, but through the collusion of countless other multinational companies with the Chinese oligarchs.

    Our societies profit from the oppression of other nations. They did it during the colonial era, and they are doing it right now. The method has changed, some might say it's less severe now, but the result is the same.

    People lose their freedom, so we live in opulence. And for most people in the west, it's a price they are more than happy to accept. Compassion is a rare commodity in the face of profit.

    • Re:Why is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Arandir (19206) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:01PM (#15321737) Homepage Journal
      But Yahoo! is a US company. Not only that, it is a publicly traded company. News of what Yahoo! is doing in China is very much something to be concerned about.

    • It's a concern because Yahoo is a US run corporation helping a communist government crack down and imprison people for things that are not crimes in a truly free nation.

      Of course China is worth billions to the US so not much is said about it. If it were, say, Cuba, then politicians would be beating their chests and wanting to invade as Cuba has little financial impact on the US economy. China does.

      It's all about the almight fucking dollar.

    • Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Distinguished Hero (618385) on Friday May 12 2006, @05:14PM (#15321822) Homepage
      China is not the United States and they not only can, but do run things differently. ... I say let China do what China is going to do and lets concentrate on making things better in America first - then we can work on improving China's (online) rights.

      Except that in at most 20 years, China will be a superpower, so if you don't fix them now while they might still listen to you, in 20 years they definitely won't listen to you. In 30 years, China may very well be the superpower, at which point how broken the US is affects me and the majority of the world's population a lot less than how broken China is.

      I'll leave you with one though: around the annexation of Czechoslovakia, Neville Chamberlain remarked: "How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing!" or something to that effect. I'm sure people might have said something of a similar effect regarding the Holocaust if they had known: "[The Third Reich] is not the United States and they not only can, but do run things differently. ... I say let [The Third Reich] do what [The Third Reich] is going to do and lets concentrate on making things better in America first - then we can work on improving [The Third Reich's] rights." In fact, I do believe many people did in fact say many things to that effect.
      • To clarify, the annexation of Czechoslovakia referred to the annexation thereof by Nazi Germany, and "The Third Reich" = Nazi Germany. Forgive me for being condescending, but I simply do not have much faith in the capacity of people with mod points to know or understand these things.

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