Forgive me if this has already been discussed here before, but I did a search and found nothing, so here goes...
As some of you already know, Yahoo has been assisting the chinese government in turning over journalists who are promoting any sort of pro-democracy agendas.
For example, Microsoft bans "democracy" and "Dalai Lama" from the Chinese version of its blog site.
Google and Yahoo have complied in banning words like 'democracy' 'Tiananmen Square' & any other words the government finds unfit from it's search engines.
It doesn't stop there though, in order to have a Yahoo account in China, a host of detailed information is mandatory, including full name, age, address, and a process of proof of address etc..
Currently, there are appoximatly 65 prisoners in China for violating internet content laws, many who have been placed there with the help of western corperations like yahoo.
To be fair Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang was quoted as saying in the Washington Post this month."I do not like the outcome of what happens with these things, but we have to follow the law."
In which case I ask, WHY? Also, why does Yahoo go the extra distince to work side by side to jail bloggers?
What if the customs of the culture are even blatantly more horrific? Still comply? This logic doesn't sit well with me.
"We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm
Now, that the Chinese government is conducting full scale witch hunts on bloggers, activists, educators etc...Whose assisting in the roundup? Western search engines are, all for the right price $$$ apparently.
Earlier this month Yahoo paid $1bn (£556m) for a stake in China's biggest e-commerce firm, Alibaba.com.
My first instinct is to hold these western companies accountable for assisting in a culture of basic human rights violations.
What do y'all think about this? Activism wise, what can we do about it? Thoughts? Suggestions?