Yahoo!`s Stand on Free Speech in China - Appeasing Anti-Nazis
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You might remember that, some years ago, anti-Nazi activists sued Yahoo! because French web surfers could buy Nazi-related items on Yahoo!’s website. This violates the anti-Nazi laws which every French citizen is supposed to follow. Yahoo! initially reacted with disbelief. It’s an American company; the Internet has no borders; surely they could not be bound by French law! Heather Killen, then Yahoo!’s senior vice president of international operations, was quoted as saying that “It is very difficult to do business if you have to wake up every day and say, okay, whose laws do I follow?”
In fact, Yahoo! blocked the sale of Nazi paraphernalia from its French website. But the activists argued that French citizens could still view the American version of Yahoo!’s website, which carried no such restrictions. So the French court told Yahoo! to block French citizens’ access to those parts of its American site, which Yahoo! argued would be technically difficult and overly restrictive. The case wound up in an American federal court, where it was eventually thrown out because it wasn’t “ripe” enough. But the way this case was handled brings up points that are relevant to the China situation.
The first issue to keep in mind is that Yahoo! had a separate site in France. That site complied with the laws in France without question; since there is a law that says, among other things, that Nazi paraphernalia cannot be purchased by French citizens, the search engine’s site in France blocks auction listings for Nazi artifacts and Nazi apologist websites. This makes sense; if you’re going to do business in a particular country, you must abide by that country’s laws.
The case raised another interesting issue, which is not directly relevant at the moment. Because of the way it was handled, the ruling indicated that United States courts can have jurisdiction if a plaintiff who is not a U.S. native tries to enforce censorship orders from another country on U.S. websites. So if China tried to enforce censorship orders on Google’s U.S. website, a U.S. court could rule on the case.
There was a third issue that the court was at least very clear on: if the French activists had tried to order Yahoo! to prevent U.S. citizens from seeing Nazi paraphernalia on its U.S. website, that would have been an easy ruling. Clearly, U.S. laws would apply—and such censorship would not be permitted. It is worth noting that, at least on this level, sovereignty laws have been recognized on the Internet. The digital world is not borderless, and hasn’t been for more than half a decade.
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