Free speech in China
p2p news / p2pnet: Today is the day Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco face a US congressional human-rights hearing to explain why they’re actively cooperating with China to help keep news and information from the country’s citizens.
The four companies claim it’s simple: follow China’s dictates or be banned from doing business there, in the process robbing the population of Net services, albeit it limited ones.
"In a joint statement issued last month, Microsoft and Yahoo said that they lacked the leverage on their own to influence world governments," says the BBC.
And yet the entertainment and software cartels are aggressively, and successfully, forcing China to follow distinctly non-party lines when it comes to so-called "copyright crime".
Motion Picture Association of America boss Dan Glickman is an old friend. He regularly visits China where Hollywood has set up a number of joint "operations," with the sole purpose of keeping the movie studios fat and happy.
And in Hong Kong, Hollywood star turned California governor Arnold Schwarzenneger recently staged a blatant Hollywood-inspired dog-and-pony show with martial arts comedian Jackie Chan.
But things are apparently different when it comes to free speech.
"Superficially, members of China’s Internet community are free to search for whatever they want. But when using the Google search engine, they will be unable to find information on certain topics," says an editorial in the Tapei Times. "You are free to set up a Web log (blog) and air your opinions, but you may well find that your blog is suddenly and inexplicably closed down. Those who assume that their Internet presence is anonymous may suddenly discover records of their transactions across the Internet used as evidence against them. On the Internet, the Chinese government is an omnipresent Big Brother, and in a cyberspace without borders, it has set up a "cyber curtain."
"That China has been able to create this ‘cyber curtain’ is not a reflection of its extensive power, but due rather to the connivance of the world’s major Internet companies, who have provided the means for China to keep a tight rein on freedom of speech on the Internet. Google openly expressed its willingness to cooperate with the Chinese government, and Google staff have secretly connived with Chinese officials to ensure that certain search terms, which the government finds objectionable, will not turn up any results. Last year, Internet giant Yahoo provided information that helped the Chinese government to sentence "dissidents" Shi Tao (師濤) and Li Zhi (李志) to lengthy prison terms. Microsoft also shut down a popular Chinese-language blog that has published content unacceptable to the Chinese authorities.
"These leading Internet companies claim to espouse freedom and openness yet, in order to win access to the China market, they have seen fit to bow to pressure from Beijing. In doing so, they have sold out fundamental values. Human-rights organizations, Reporters without Borders and the international media, which all uphold freedom of speech, have harshly criticized the behavior of these firms.
"The struggle between money and values that these companies have entered into is a terrible one. The world’s most popular Internet portal site, Yahoo, has stated that it is ‘deeply concerned’ by some governments’ efforts to control access to the Web, and hopes that the ‘cyber curtain’ can be torn down.
"But the company is not so naive as to believe that any company, whatever its size or share price, can resist pressure applied by the Chinese government. That’s why the firm has announced that it will cooperate with Internet, media and communications companies, and the US government, to resist efforts by the Chinese government to monitor Internet traffic. This is a late awakening, but it is certainly better than staying asleep.
"This battle against the pernicious affects of the cyber curtain will be fought on the keyboards and in the minds of every free individual. Every free person should write to the media and to their government to support freedom of speech; every person, organization and nation should express repugnance at China’s violation of human rights, and call for the ripping down of China’s ‘cyber curtain’."
But is it all merely a question of time? Will China eventually let its people go?
"Even as China chills debate, filters out dissenting views and harasses or imprisons critics, many observers believe it eventually will lose the information battle," says the Los Angeles Times.
"I don’t think they are winning because deep in Chinese people’s hearts, they don’t agree or obey," it quotes Pu Zhiqiang, a Beijing lawyer and free-speech advocate, as saying.
"Ultimately, the authorities can’t win with these sorts of tactics."
Also See:
BBC – Net firms face grilling on China, February 15, 2006
Tapei Times – China’s censorship affects us all, February 15, 2006
Los Angeles Times – Battle Heats Up Over Chinese Censorship, February 15, 2006
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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate. It’s a free DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
February 18th, 2006 at 6:41 am
One of the older maxims regarding the internet is: “The internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.” This still holds true today. It requires more dilligent effort and sophistication, but ‘blacklisted’ content can still be accessed by any motivated user despite whatever obstacles might be encountered short of net fragmentation or a walled garden (that allows you to access only a handful of sites.)