24 February 2006
INTERNET GIANTS CRITICISED FOR AIDING CENSORSHIP
IFEX members are at the forefront of efforts to raise awareness about Internet censorship in dozens of countries around the world, including China. In particular, they are highlighting recent cases in which Western Internet companies, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco Systems, have aided Chinese authorities in censoring and repressing individuals who distributed sensitive information or criticised the government.
In the past month, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have testified in U.S. congressional hearings to raise concerns about the conduct of Western companies in China.
Yahoo has helped Chinese authorities prosecute three journalists - Shi Tao, Li Zhi, and Jiang Lijun - by providing information about them from their e-mail accounts. In Shi Tao's case, it led to the journalist's arrest and subsequent 10-year jail sentence in 2005 for "leaking state secrets abroad." In 2004, Shi Tao had sent an e-mail to an overseas website describing Chinese government instructions on how his newspaper should cover the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Microsoft has agreed to Chinese demands that it shut down blogs deemed "offensive", including the blog "Michael Anti", written by Zhao Jing. Google is now filtering out results in its Chinese search engine (google.cn) so that users in China are denied access to information on Tibet, Falun Gong and other sensitive topics. Meanwhile, Cisco Systems has supplied China with equipment and technologies that critics say enable authorities to control what the country's 100 million Internet users view online.
CPJ says these companies should use their influence in the marketplace to resist Chinese demands to monitor and control Internet activity in China. By aiding authorities in censoring citizens, U.S. Internet companies are helping China become "the model for [other] repressive regimes wishing to restrict the flow of information," CPJ argues.
Human Rights Watch notes that China is already exporting Internet monitoring technologies to other repressive governments, including Zimbabwe.
CPJ and Human Rights Watch say there should be legislation in the United States forbidding U.S.-based companies from turning over names or other information that would identify specific individuals to foreign governments, when that information is sought to regulate or punish free expression.
RSF recommends, among other measures, regulations barring U.S.-based companies from locating their host servers within repressive countries. "If the authorities of a repressive country desire to close down a publication hosted by a US company, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by US judicial authorities," the group says.
Visit these links:
- Human Rights Watch's Testimony: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/02/02/china12595.htm
- CPJ Testimony: http://www.cpj.org/regions_06/asia_06/testimony_china_internet_14feb06.html
- RSF Testimony: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16471
- Video of Congress Hearings: http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/afhear.htm
- Washington Post Special on the Internet in China:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/world/asia/index.html
- OSCE Recommendations on Internet and Free Expression:
http://www.osce.org/documents/html/pdftohtml/15239_en.pdf.html
- Draft Global Online Freedom Act: http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2006/02/global_online_f.html
- U.S. State Department to Form Internet Censorship Task Force:
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0206/021406tdpm1.htm
RSS