Only weeks ago, I decried the Orwellian Agreements Yahoo!, Microsoft, and other technology companies signed with the Chinese government to spy on the Internet activities of Chinese citizens. Of course, the tech titans involved protested with indignation that they would never become stool pigeons for China’s police state.
But no amount of protestation could disguise their hypocrisy. After all, here were American corporations that exploited democratic freedoms to make unprecedented fortunes now collaborating with a totalitarian regime to deny people in the most populous country on earth similar freedoms.
This is why you’d be forgiven for thinking of Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang (L) and David Filo as Chinese special agents – as notorious in China for preventing freedoms as Eliot Ness was famous in America for preventing crime.
It came as no surprise, therefore, when international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders reported last week that Yahoo! had helped the Chinese government entrap and sentence Chinese journalist Shi Tao to 10 years in prison (a.k.a. the Ministry of Love) for the crime of daring to use his email account to:
…post on the Internet a government order barring Chinese media from marking the 15th anniversary of the brutal crackdown on democracy activists in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
I would recommend boycotting Yahoo! But, since they’re probably monitoring every key stroke I make on my computer, I fear terminal cyberspace reprisals….Doublethink!
News and Politics
Anonymous says
What sell-outs. Thank you for this because the more people who know about it the more it will affect the bottom line for these creeps.
Anonymous says
How do you spell Jerk off!
Y-a-h-o-o
But what’s so differant about these companies having dealings with one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet anyway. It’s all condone by our government in the name of capitalism. We’ll never stop trading with China no matter how oppressed their people are or one sided the trading is.