UK's Journalists Calling For Yahoo! Boycott 111
truthsearch writes "The UK's National Union of Journalists is calling for a boycott of Yahoo! because of its 'unethical behaviour' in China. Yahoo! has given details of at least three people to Chinese authorities who were subsequently imprisoned. 'The NUJ regards Yahoo!'s actions as a completely unacceptable endorsement of the Chinese authorities. As a result, the NUJ will be cancelling all Yahoo!-operated services and advising all members to boycott Yahoo! until the company changes its irresponsible and unethical policy.' Yahoo! sent a response to The Register."
boycott? You serious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Question 1: How can you reduce or stop something that's non-existent?
Question 2: Agreement? Among journalists? Yeah, right.
And yes, I Googled for that definition.
Long Time Coming (Score:5, Insightful)
You can rail against the PROC-friendly attitude of Yahoo! (and others) all you like, but the company simply isn't going to care until you hit them where it hurts...in the pocketbook.
Kudos to the National Union of Journalists for putting their beliefs into action, but will this blow to the pocketbook be enough, or is Yahoo! even going to notice?
Yahoo said it themselves. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ultimately, U.S. companies in China face a choice: comply with Chinese law, or leave.
Most of my quick responses to this boil down to "Then LEAVE," but the money is so shiny, isn't it? In any case, the whole letter is interesting, and is worth reading TFA if you haven't yet.
Not too say democracy is a bad thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, there is some nudging to be made. Google alerts the user when results are being ommitted. Nothing peaks one's interest more than "There's something here they don't want you to see".
Stuck between a rock and a hard place (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally agree that corporations should not be sharing private information with governments. But it would be a lot easier to take the boycotters seriously if they had a sensible suggestion as to what Yahoo could possibly do about it. Just withdraw from the country? Let their Chinese management get arrested for breaking the law by not sharing the data?
Are the boycotters also boycotting every other corporation that does business in China, or just the ones unlucky enough to have a high-profile demand made of them?
Totally foolish boycott (Score:2, Insightful)
Another case of liberals going overboard. Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:Not too say democracy is a bad thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
People keep saying this, but it is not (AFAICT) true: Google.cn inserts a boilerplate notice at the bottom of every page that results may be censored. It does not provide any specific information about the extent or details of censorship.
Whatever (Score:2, Insightful)
While I respect the views of NUJ, I also respectfully disagree with who they are choosing to boycott here. They disagree with China's politics so they boycott a US company? What exactly is that supposed to prove or accomplish? If you want to bring about any sort of change within China through a boycott, then for Christ's sake, boycott all of the crappy sweatshop goods that come out of China!
Yahoo is right (Score:3, Insightful)
It's WILDLY hipocritcal for the US Congress to haul Yahoo in and chastize them for complying with the same kinds of immoral, illegal, intrusive orders that they themselves are allowing the US government to issue.
Glass houses, stones, pot, kettle... etc. etc. This is simply dog wagging.
Re:Yahoo said it themselves. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't forget how this could affect the Chinese people. Not the government, but the actual people. Is it better to just leave them high and dry with no real access to information/eduction or to work at getting them educated to the point that they start asking their own questions? If all the US companies in China just left because of the human rights violations I guarenty you that it would get worse for the Chinese people, not better. Jobless, no access to the rest of the world, they would become the perfect down trodden people for the current government/military to rule over. No one would ask questions because they wouldn't know how or what questions to ask. By staying in the country and working with the people, we are slowly "infecting" them with Western ideas, such as Democracy, free will, individuals' rights, etc. Over time, this leads to a more informed and freedom seeking people.
Which do you want? To feel self righteous and morally superior, or get your hands a little dirty and actually cause some change for the better?
P.S.: Yahoo! said in the article that they don't even known the nature of the investigation when they get a request for data. It could be a journalist being investigated for publishing information the government doesn't want people to know, or it could be a homocidal maniac that likes to wear heads as hats. Either way, they don't know.
Re:Not too say democracy is a bad thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yahoo said it themselves. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yahoo's not providing change for the better in China by creating the illusion of free exchange of information and relatively secure communications. They're just making money. They can feel free to "tight" their profits all they want (that would be the opposite of "loosing" their profits, right?), but don't pretend that they're a force for democratization when they'll gladly help the government catch and imprison anyone who agitates for some actual democracy.
Re:Not too say democracy is a bad thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
They're groups of people, first and foremost. And each individual in that group lives by his/her own moral values. Being a group of people they also operate collectively by a set of moral values. They've chosen money as being more important than free Chinese citizens.
Companies are artificial entities. They only exist because of the people that run them. These are people choosing to not support freedom when they could actually make a public stand. We're not talking about a company choosing profits first because a company is not an entity which can make choices. We're talking about people choosing money over the rights of other human beings.
Re:Not too say democracy is a bad thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
And honestly, if it's not Google Yahoo or MSN's responsibility to bring about revolution, then whose is it? It's nobody's DUTY, but there are many corporations who go out of their way to go beyond their ethical duties to do what's right even though they don't have to. That's called corporate responsibility, and every day ethical corporations make money-losing decisions in the pursuit of what's right; whereas unethical corporations do not. Let us not forget that corporations are still controlled by human beings...
Cheers to the UK journalists for fighting the good fight.
Re:Totally foolish boycott (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "liberals" you mean people, and by "going overboard" you mean caring... then yes, many of us are guilty as charged. Good job stereotyping and trying to negate an opinion based on your pointless classification!
Re:Totally foolish boycott (Score:3, Insightful)
ah yes, the "I was only following orders" defence... Yahoo! ARE to blam for meekly complying with the Chinese. They should have told the Chinese EXACTLY where to get off... but then again, in this day and age, it seems that money comes before principles
Hit the Company by Hitting the Bottom Line (Score:4, Insightful)
Yahoo has, thus far, refused to move its servers from China to the USA.
Both Microsoft and Google have, thus far, declined to locate their servers in China.
In other words, Yahoo has the power to make substantive changes to its business model (to protect human rights) without significantly injuring its position in China. Unfortunately, the entire management of Yahoo, up to Jerry Yang (who is Chief Yahoo and has strong affinity to Chinese values), supports catering to Beijing.
We, in the West, should hit Yahoo as hard as we can by hitting its bottom line. Until Yahoo rises to the decency of Google, which itself is no angel of goodness, we should financially pummel Yahoo by boycotting its services.
Re:Not too say democracy is a bad thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
There absolutely is a way that more information can be worse than less: if the information is misinformation, either by systematic inaccuracy or by systematic bias. Information has been used to oppress the masses ever since the invention of writing. Every oppressive regime that I can think of in recent history has had some analogue of a biased, state-sponsored newspaper. If China can make the whole internet look biased in their favor, that's even worse, because it carries with it the apparent credibility of other nations' opinions.
I concede the possibility that the amount of information that Yahoo and Google make available to the Chinese on balance helps them -- but this is not at all clear, and certainly there is a level at which it is not true. I'm sure that Kim Il Jong's propaganda rag prints the weather report, but I think the citizens of North Korea would be a good deal better off without their government's deafening lies even if it meant that they didn't know whether to expect sun or rain that day. Publishing some legitimately useful information alongside the propaganda does not mean that the whole package is good for the citizenry.
And in any case, this argument that you're making is a far cry from your GP post: that Yahoo should be excused from violating people's fundamental human rights -- and this is not hyperbole; at least three brave souls are languishing in a gulag because of Yahoo's loose lips -- because they can make a lot of money by doing so. If denouncing such a short-sighted and frankly downright evil principle constitutes sophistry, then fuck it, I'll put "sophist" on my business card.
Fiduciary Responsibility (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong-- I don't have any loyalty to Yahoo ('specially that worthless search engine), but if Yahoo didn't take this opportunity on "moral grounds" you can be 100% certain that they would immediately be sued by their shareholders...
Just my $0.02, and btw IANAA (I am not an attorney), just spend too much time with a few that I know.