Guarding the Internets - Human Rights
I subscribe to an RSS news feed, that renews itself everyone few minutes or so. This morning, I turned on my computer to find a particular article in which it Yahoo! is being sued by Human Rights Organizations in the US for violating those rights, when the Chinese branch of Yahoo! handed over its internet logs on particular journalists who have posted "information" that went against the government.
The full article is here. Couple with the past atrocities committed in China, one would wonder how this affects us in such a technological age. I've included a video below to give a hint of what it's like to be in China, for those who've never known.
The big question is that of: how do we differ between different laws from different states? Because the internet is such a multi-national object, by deferring to particular laws in one country might be breaching the laws of another. Yahoo! is based in the US, so technically they should uphold US laws as the bar, yet in this case they've had to release privy information to the Chinese state, which is unlawful in US. I see it as Yahoo! as being capitalist bastards, who are more willing to sacrifice certain people, or positions, so they can have a higher monetary gain. The internet is a massive market in China, and Yahoo! wants a piece of it. If they didn't give the information, they might loose it, so they have the information away.
That's possibly just being harsh, but the country is rife with corruption, and from what we can tell, the uneveness of how this great economic revolution's benefits to various populations and sectors within Chinese society are creating a lot of unrest. Numerous officials and military officers at the top level of the Chinese government have absolutely no problem with killing/torturing "dissendents", as well as their own people. They are killers with no meaningful legal apparatus to prevent them from doing anything they please. So-called dusty piles of 'constitutions' never produces and impediment to the exercise of raw power, or means of redress when the full scope of that damage that power has done is revealed.
I'm not saying the West is perfect either, as there is also corruption, violations both subtle and flagrant to the constitutions of the "free" countries. Wealthy oligarchs and aristocrats can wield an unhealthy amount of influence, but somehow, the people still hold an enormous amount of power, and can still upset even the most entrenched political groups.
Of course, there is no perfect country/political system. Yet, what I cannot accept is the fact that these global dominating companies such as Yahoo! should have to defer to a monopolistic state when they have been formed and grown up under a system of freedom, of human rights, and defend their co-operation with laws which we find both immoral and of utter distaste in the idiotic rationalization of "we're just following orders".
What say you?
The full article is here. Couple with the past atrocities committed in China, one would wonder how this affects us in such a technological age. I've included a video below to give a hint of what it's like to be in China, for those who've never known.
The big question is that of: how do we differ between different laws from different states? Because the internet is such a multi-national object, by deferring to particular laws in one country might be breaching the laws of another. Yahoo! is based in the US, so technically they should uphold US laws as the bar, yet in this case they've had to release privy information to the Chinese state, which is unlawful in US. I see it as Yahoo! as being capitalist bastards, who are more willing to sacrifice certain people, or positions, so they can have a higher monetary gain. The internet is a massive market in China, and Yahoo! wants a piece of it. If they didn't give the information, they might loose it, so they have the information away.
That's possibly just being harsh, but the country is rife with corruption, and from what we can tell, the uneveness of how this great economic revolution's benefits to various populations and sectors within Chinese society are creating a lot of unrest. Numerous officials and military officers at the top level of the Chinese government have absolutely no problem with killing/torturing "dissendents", as well as their own people. They are killers with no meaningful legal apparatus to prevent them from doing anything they please. So-called dusty piles of 'constitutions' never produces and impediment to the exercise of raw power, or means of redress when the full scope of that damage that power has done is revealed.
I'm not saying the West is perfect either, as there is also corruption, violations both subtle and flagrant to the constitutions of the "free" countries. Wealthy oligarchs and aristocrats can wield an unhealthy amount of influence, but somehow, the people still hold an enormous amount of power, and can still upset even the most entrenched political groups.
Of course, there is no perfect country/political system. Yet, what I cannot accept is the fact that these global dominating companies such as Yahoo! should have to defer to a monopolistic state when they have been formed and grown up under a system of freedom, of human rights, and defend their co-operation with laws which we find both immoral and of utter distaste in the idiotic rationalization of "we're just following orders".
What say you?
posted by Unknown at 3:13 PM
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