Yahoo plea over China rights case
Tuesday, August 28th, 2007
Yahoo plea over China rights case
Yahoo is being sued by the World Organization for Human Rights for sharing information about its users with the Chinese government.
The information has led to the arrests of writers and dissidents.
One journalist cited in the case was tracked down and jailed for 10 years for subversion after Yahoo passed on his e-mail and IP address to officials.
This is not new news, I’ve been tracking it for a while and flickr is a Yahoo company. The only part of Yahoo that I’m associated with is flickr and maybe the only small way I can make a statement about this is to leave Yahoo/flickr and make sure that they know that this is the reason I’m leaving. No doubt I will not be missed but I can’t see staying associated with a company that continues to defend itself in this case. If Yahoo admited they made a mistake (a very bad mistake) I might feel differently, but they’re not.
If you end up leaving flickr, then you have quite bit cleaning to do, since flickr doesn’t automatically remove all your images, when you drop out of pro status.
When is your pro status going to expire? That could be good deadline for “ultimatum” on your case for Yahoo to get their act together, if they don’t want to lose you as a paying customer.
juha: Yes, I have more than flickr cleaning to do as many/most of my images here are hosted at flickr so I’ll need to move higher res versions here, decide on how I want to show them, etc.
My pro account has years left on it as I’m a charter subscriber to flickr and they comped me many years. That’s not a reason I’d stay on. If I decide that the right thing to do is to leave, I’ll spend a weekend, re-locate the images, dump them from flickr, and be done with it.
First I have to decide if leaving is the right thing to do. In doing that I’m not only leaving their hosting service but also a community of friends I’ve made there.
What would you do?
Wow. I have heard bits and pieces about this lately, but I haven’t stuck my head in the middle of the debate. And now that I have, I have a lot of mixed feelings and disappointment with Yahoo.
On the one hand, I recognize the importance of international companies/organizations who work in other countries and must obey the local laws. When I was working for an NGO in Cambodia and Kenya, who also had offices in Vietnam and other countries that limited personal freedoms, we had to change our practices/be selective about our battles for fear of getting thrown out of the country before we could make a positive impact on other people’s lives. We played it safe because of our larger goal to help folks.
Because of my own experience, I can see why companies like Yahoo - who want to take advantage of the vast Chinese market - have made compromises (disappointing compromises) in order to stay in the countries. That doesn’t mean it’s ok, but what it does mean, is that Yahoo has made a choice as to how it values human rights vs. its own bottom line. I’m not sure that the market is such that Yahoo could have the opportunity to stand up to China and suggest leaving the country’s internet market if it were forced to follow rules that American and International Law deem as human rights violations, but I imagine that if enough internet companies banded together in protest, it might be possible. It’s just the wild card of the Chinese economy, and it’s insane potential in the world market. Yahoo isn’t ready to take a chance, and is playing it safe.
I can see why you’d want to leave Flickr for this reason. I love the community, but Yahoo’s response is incredibly disappointing. I’m curious if they’ll change their tune if they really do get sued. The US should hold it’s companies more accountable, but then again, Yahoo could claim that it was operating out of it’s China office’s protocol, and not their silicon valley office’s. I think it’s going to be a long time for me to wrap my head around this, but for right now, I just feel sad. I see the tremendous potential for the internet to improve the lives of people overseas, as well as their quality of life and access to personal freedoms, and Yahoo is completely counteracting this process. It just goes to show the the internet is like putty, and can be shaped for whatever purposes people with good and/or bad intentions have.
As an aside, China has always had very strong limits on its citizens’ internet access (as has Myanmar), and I even did research in graduate school on how organizations like Radio Free Europe were finding ways to radio broadcast in controversial web material so even if it was censored online, people still had access to it. Other underground programmers set-up P2P networks to filter in questionable material. These folks were (are?) called “hactivists”. I wonder what they’re saying about this.
Michaela: all very well said and of course, I’m not defending China here, but any company or government (like the US) doing business there has to make some choices about how far they’ll bend on principles in order to make money.
We all have choices too: how much do we want to be associated with a company that defends these kinds of actions?
On the one hand, we can’t impose our culture on the rest of the world, but in a global economy the grease that makes it all work is various sides tolerating differences. If Yahoo held firm they might have lost a huge chunk of their business. I’d have liked to have been a fly on the corporate wall when they were having that discussion, how it went would be telling.
I’m just grumbling. Time will tell if this idea will get any traction from me.
Richard,
Eric,
I’m writing from the BBC World Service interactive radio programme ‘World Have Your Say.’ This evening, 6 p.m. GMT, we’ll be discussing the lawsuit filed against Yahoo. We’re interested in having you as a participant in this discussion. Please contact us as soon as possible if you would like join the conversation. +44 207 557 0627
Hi Richard,
I had also heard, and read about this. I think it is a great stand to make, but you and many people who admire your input and photos would lose. I agree absolutely with your principles and it is the right thing to do, but would it make a jot of difference? No. Would you feel better for it? Yes.
I know that Smugmug has a flickr exporter called smugglr and you get 50% your first year with them as we discussed yesterday.
Yahoo really need to change their stance on this, but when it boils down to it, it’s all about you know what …
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
And that is such a shame.
Jon
If you’d like to call in during the BBC’s World Have Your Say program, please call at 6 p.m. GMT (roughly one hour from now) at +44 20 70 83 72 72. We’d love for you to a part of the conversation.
Cheers,
Joni
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/
Jon: for me (not flickr/yahoo) it’s not about the money, it’s about what parts of my life I want to try to live in a more principled way, what parts of my life I’m willing to leave a bit looser.
I do think it’s important to at times, put our money where our mouths are: if we don’t like what Wallmart does in China, avoid buying from them, if we like Patagonia’s business model and recycling of materials to make high end clothing, buy from them, etc.
It doesn’t have to be green, liberal, etc., it just has to (at times) be principled or better yet, informed.
The choice is ours.
You can buy yourself time by figuring out, how to make your current site work without flickr’s hosting and then implementing it.
Once your own websites are independent from flickr, your in good position to make decisions on whether or not you wish to stay on flickr. If you and your friends are using RSS readers (Google Reader or something else) it should be relatively easy to keep uptodate on what each others are doing in life and what kind of images you are capturing with your cameras. If RSS feeds can’t replace flickr, then its tough choice and only you can decide how you want to proceed.
Here’s a followup story today on this: Yahoo asks federal court to dismiss human rights lawsuit.
Here’s a bit more on this and Yahoo’s double standard: Yahoo: It Is Better to Light One Candle in the Jail Cell of a Chinese Dissident Than to Curse the Darkness.
As a long term paying member of flickr, I fully support you on this egregious issue. I have posted the following link under all of the photos I have at flickr:
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/chn-310106-action-eng
The link will take you to a letter from Amnesty International to Yahoo, requesting the assistance of Shi Tao’s release. I’ve written to Yahoo and have received nothing. Here is one small part of the letter:
After my membership expires, I do not see myself maintaining a pro flickr account. That is, until human life becomes more important to Yahoo than the bottom line.
Best of luck in your decision, Richard.
Kind regards,
Danny Buskirk
Danny: delighted to see your comment here and thank you so much for your support of my questioning Yahoo’s actions.
For me, the other issue which is upsetting (besides Yahoo’s actions) is the apathy of both the US press, flickr users, and Americans in general about these kinds of issues. I believe, no, I’m quite sure, that the reason we have had two terms of the worst president in US history is because of the apathy of American citizens.
The problem isn’t only Yahoo, it is us.
Thanks for taking the next step Danny.