American Cyber Companies KowTow to Commies
Google censors Chinese search results. Microsoft has agreed to censor its blogs in exchange for China to quit pirating its software. Yahoo has turned over usernames and other logged information about its users to Chinese authorities that subsequently led to arrests of some dissidents. And Skype has agreed to provide a version of its software that will remove banned words from its text chat feature.
These are distasteful things, and as a freedom-loving society, we Americans view such gross actions on the part of the Chinese government and its censorship campaign as an intolerable act. And to see our own American-based companies working with the Chinese government to suppress the freedoms of its people is equally astonishing.
Michelle Malkin debuted her new website, HotAir, which is an excellent video blog about conservative issues, and her first feature is a video about these issues of Chinese censorship and American corporate kowtowing in order to get a slice of the Chinese market. See the video here.
Don’t get me wrong, I also dislike the activities of the American companies, who, in order to compete in the market, must comply with Chinese national law, of which, censorship is a big part. But I have a different take, and its one in which the ends justify the means.
With the tools that Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and skype are providing (remember, skype also has encrypted voice chat), Chinese citizens for use in their pursuit of freedom, the chinese citizens will be able to better organize and express their feelings about freedom on a scale that they have never been able to achieve as farm peasants or factory workers. Yes, the Chicoms are trying to make some examples of its citizens, and it is sad. The US government should put pressure on the Chicoms about that.
But not necessarily US businesses. They know business, and it is not their job to be diplomats. We have a State Department for that. And a congress that could pass laws against the types of business dealings that these companies are engaged in. Whatever the distaste, they are not breaking any laws of the US.
The Chinese are pursuing their freedom every day. The number one cyber attack detected every day are internet probes from China looking for anonymizing open proxy servers. This represents a nation of people who desperately want free speech and to circumvent government censorship by trying to surf the web as an anonymous person from any other country. And the penalty of scanning the internet, or hacking of any kind, is harsh. Now, with Google, MS, Yahoo and others, they have the necessary tools to help them achieve their goals by expressing themselves, organizing, sharing information and learning more about the rest of the free world.
Free speech is much harder to obtain with gardening tools than it is with the world’s best software.
