Free Speech in Red China, but Not in Germany?

The writer of this article complains that there should be free speech in Red China, but not in Germany. Some are in trouble for “incitement to subvert state power” and others are in trouble for “incitement for racism.”

He further complains that the German government isn’t doing enough to censor the Web. That is odd considering the numerous political prisoners Germany has in its prisons for speech crimes.

He also complains that “Nazi violence” is at its peak in Germany. Of course when the government suppresses dissent and the population is unable to discuss things like Third World immigration and make peaceful change, many find violence as the only outlet. The Looney Left creates self-fulfilling prophecies.

He further complains that in Germany it is more important to prevent the selling of bad meat than racist videos. The problem with his comparison is that bad meat is being peddled as good meat. People choosing to look at “racist videos” know what they are.

However, “morality” is in the eye of the beholder and many people don’t accept his version of it.

Yahoo and Google are surfing on morality’s boundaries - Labour news from UNI global union - for trade unions in a global services economy. -

On Monday (August 27), Yahoo’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two Chinese dissidents reported c.net news. The two journalists and the wife of one of them accused the search engine to have “willingly” transmitted information about their online activities to the Chinese government which led both men into jail.

One of the journalists, Mr. Shi Tao, has been charged with “state secret” violation after he informed foreign reporters that the Chinese government suspected possible trouble related to the commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Although he sent the message through an anonymous account, he was arrested thanks to the help of Yahoo’s Hong Kong subsidiary which supposedly provided the authorities with the IP address connecting a PC to Shi’s e-mail.
The reporter is now purging a 10-year sentence in prison renowned for abusive treatment of prisoners.

The other plaintiff, Mr. Wang Xiaoning who worked as an editor at a pro-democracy publication, was put into jail for “incitement to subvert state power”. He was also sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. His wife is suing Yahoo because she has suffered “severe psychological and emotional suffering” as a result of the detention.

Yahoo responded by saying that “this is a lawsuit by citizens of China imprisoned for using Internet in China to express political views in violation of China law. It is a political case challenging the laws and actions of the Chinese government and has no place in the American courts”.

I could agree with the fact that this case might not be resolved in the U.S. But that is not the question. What doesn’t fit with Yahoo’s behavior are the declarations of its spokesman Kelley Benander who declared the company is a strong believer of human rights and it respects freedom of expression and privacy around the world.

This statement is completely opposite to delivering private information to a non-democratic government such as China’s one. It is true that “Yahoo has no control over the sovereign government of the People’s Republic of China, the law it passes, and the manner in which it enforces law”, but it has control over the IP addresses it communicates to the government…

But bad behavior from companies which declared to believe in human rights is very common in the IT industry. Microsoft has also been decried for its policy of cooperation with the Chinese government in the last years.

Recently, Google whose founders often declared their company act to build a better world, has also been under attack because of its subsidiary “YouTube”. In fact, the video-sharing website is accused to host clips that incite racial hatred, the German public TV revealed.

The incriminated videos include clips of a 1940 anti-Semitic propaganda film and music videos showing Nazi military operations during World War II.

Germany’s Central Council of Jews is considering pressing charges against Google Germany said Salomon Korn, Vice President of the organization.

German youth protection body Jugenschultz.net has already complained more than a hundred times to Google Germany to remove the clips. But there was no reaction from the company. It is now one year that these contents are freely available on the web.

Google will certainly say that it is impossible to control all the contents on YouTube. That might be true, but do you think that German authorities would have to complaint a hundred times and wait for a year before a supermarket would remove rotting food from arrays?

While Neo-Nazi violence is at its pick in Germany since Berlin’s wall came down, it is still more dangerous to sell bad meat than racist videos apparently.

These two examples, which I didn’t intend to compare, are here to remind IT companies that morality is something you can’t only advertise. Sometimes it is also good to act with it.