Human Rights Watch: Western companies support Chinese firewall
Legislation and strict industry standards - this is the only way to prevent the participation of Western companies in Chinese political censorship. Human rights organizations are sounding the alarm.
While American politicians propagate the principles of democracy and condemn China for Internet censorship, American commercial companies do not pay any attention to this. They actively cooperate with the Chinese authorities, guided only by commercial gain. The human rights organization Human Rights Watch published a 149-page report “Race to the bottom: corporate complicity in Chinese Internet censorship” , which lists known cases of cooperation between Chinese authorities and Western private firms and corporations, among which are world-famous Internet companies.
The study was carried out through interviews and extensive testing of search engines in China. Among the "guilty" companies are called Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Skype. Eighteen screenshots are provided as illustrative illustrations of censorship in the Chinese Internet.
For example, Yahoo has been obstructed by human rights defenders for giving the authorities personal information about their users who criticized the Chinese authorities. Because of this, at least four Chinese opposition members were behind bars. Yahoo representatives are justified by simply observing local laws.
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Microsoft censors search results and monitors private blogs that are closed for political reasons.
The well-known slogan “Don't Be Evil” from Google can be questioned, because this company has also begun to censor search results under pressure from the Chinese authorities.
The Chinese version of Skype is configured to track user text chat on specific keywords. Of course, no one informs the users themselves. Again, excuses are references to local legislation.
The organization Human Rights Watch considers it especially ironic that the firms, whose very existence depends on the freedom of speech on the Internet, are engaged in censorship. In order to gain a foothold in a very important and promising Chinese market, they are ready to do anything.
According to human rights defenders, firms are required to take the demands of the Chinese authorities more seriously. For example, if these requirements are justified by reference to legislation, then it is imperative to request a written request and to comply with the legal procedure. To assist the authorities can only as a last resort, when there is no longer a choice.
Companies Yahoo, Microsoft and Google say that by their presence in the Chinese market they expand the opportunities of local residents to access information. For example, through the Chinese versions of Western search engines you can get more information on sensitive topics than through Chinese search engines. However, human rights activists insist that Yahoo China’s search censorship methods are no better, and sometimes even worse, than the methods used, for example, Baidu, the most popular search engine in China.
Human rights activists are convinced that the divisions of Western companies in China should and can follow a number of requirements.
* Do not store user data in the jurisdiction of local authorities.
* Do not perform the role of active censor.
* Do not comply with oral, undocumented demands from the authorities, when it comes to freedom of speech and political censorship.
* To publish on their websites information about cases when the authorities forced them to resort to political censorship.
* When on the search site the search results are filtered for political reasons, then this should be reported to the user who made the search query.
The requirement to comply with these rules by US companies can be enshrined in US law or in some industry standards.
While American politicians propagate the principles of democracy and condemn China for Internet censorship, American commercial companies do not pay any attention to this. They actively cooperate with the Chinese authorities, guided only by commercial gain. The human rights organization Human Rights Watch published a 149-page report “Race to the bottom: corporate complicity in Chinese Internet censorship” , which lists known cases of cooperation between Chinese authorities and Western private firms and corporations, among which are world-famous Internet companies.
The study was carried out through interviews and extensive testing of search engines in China. Among the "guilty" companies are called Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Skype. Eighteen screenshots are provided as illustrative illustrations of censorship in the Chinese Internet.
For example, Yahoo has been obstructed by human rights defenders for giving the authorities personal information about their users who criticized the Chinese authorities. Because of this, at least four Chinese opposition members were behind bars. Yahoo representatives are justified by simply observing local laws.
')
Microsoft censors search results and monitors private blogs that are closed for political reasons.
The well-known slogan “Don't Be Evil” from Google can be questioned, because this company has also begun to censor search results under pressure from the Chinese authorities.
The Chinese version of Skype is configured to track user text chat on specific keywords. Of course, no one informs the users themselves. Again, excuses are references to local legislation.
The organization Human Rights Watch considers it especially ironic that the firms, whose very existence depends on the freedom of speech on the Internet, are engaged in censorship. In order to gain a foothold in a very important and promising Chinese market, they are ready to do anything.
According to human rights defenders, firms are required to take the demands of the Chinese authorities more seriously. For example, if these requirements are justified by reference to legislation, then it is imperative to request a written request and to comply with the legal procedure. To assist the authorities can only as a last resort, when there is no longer a choice.
Companies Yahoo, Microsoft and Google say that by their presence in the Chinese market they expand the opportunities of local residents to access information. For example, through the Chinese versions of Western search engines you can get more information on sensitive topics than through Chinese search engines. However, human rights activists insist that Yahoo China’s search censorship methods are no better, and sometimes even worse, than the methods used, for example, Baidu, the most popular search engine in China.
Human rights activists are convinced that the divisions of Western companies in China should and can follow a number of requirements.
* Do not store user data in the jurisdiction of local authorities.
* Do not perform the role of active censor.
* Do not comply with oral, undocumented demands from the authorities, when it comes to freedom of speech and political censorship.
* To publish on their websites information about cases when the authorities forced them to resort to political censorship.
* When on the search site the search results are filtered for political reasons, then this should be reported to the user who made the search query.
The requirement to comply with these rules by US companies can be enshrined in US law or in some industry standards.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4270/
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