cross-posted at mediocrisSeems like Yahoo can't work closely enough with the Chinese secret police when it comes to jailing possible political dissidents. After earlier criticism of its cooperation with the Chinese in the jailing of reporter Shi Tao (for revealing state secrets, a favorite catch-all for Beijing), Yahoo has once agained helped the Beijing government by providing key data that lead to the arrest of Li Zhi. Mr. Li apparently posted comments online that were critical of official corruption.
To me, this is much more troubling than Google agreeing to censor its search engine results; which, while still weak-willed, does not actively help the Chinese in searching for thought criminals. In my book, Yahoo is guilty of human rights abuses, pure and simple.
This sort of nonsense that Yahoo, MSN and Google have been pulling simply did not fly during the time of Apartheid. Liberals mobilized against companies who were seen as supportive of that regime.
But in China, things aren't so simple. You can't see who is being repressed because of the color of their skin, and these detentions are often done in secret, found out about months or even years later (we're just learning about the Yahoo participation in the Li Zhi case, even though he's been in prison since 2003).
I would really like to see a bit more outrage here. This is worse than offering crap jobs in unsafe sweatshops. This is about giving the thought police tips on where people might be found. And let's not fool ourselves into thinking that it could never happen in this country. The cry of "state secrets" has been used to try to shut people up here as well.