Yahoo!`s Stand on Free Speech in China - Purveyors of Hypocrisy…or Hope?
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It has been said that ideas are bulletproof. It has also been said that the only way for evil to win is for good men to do nothing. The truth is, people aren’t bulletproof…and sometimes, when it looks like people are doing nothing, something really is happening, under the surface. Yahoo! co-found Jerry Yang pointed this out during a question and answer session at the Thomas Weisel Partners Internet and Telecom Conference in San Francisco recently. “People don’t realize that being in the market every day there, and being on the ground, we are seeing changes, on the whole, for the positive,” he said.
Callahan, in his testimony before Congress, pointed out several examples of the power of the Internet in China. For instance, in late November 2002, state media in China tried to cover up information about the outbreak of a new respiratory illness. But word of SARS got out on the Internet, which “forced the Chinese government to be more transparent and to vigorously attack the problem,” according to Callahan.
Callahan also mentioned the comments of a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher, reported recently in the New York Times. “This expert stated, ‘At first, people might have thought it [the Internet] would be as easy to control as traditional media, but now they realize that’s not the case.’” The Internet’s liberalizing effect may not be merely difficult to avoid, but inevitable.
Even so, there are certain actions that Yahoo! and other search engines hope the government will take to attack these issues. Yahoo! has said that it is willing to “work with industry, government, academia and NGOs to explore policies to guide industry practices in countries where content is treated more restrictively than in the United States and to promote the principles of freedom of speech and expression.” But that does leave one wondering: is this an issue for governments to resolve? Or is there some way for a business to take a stand? And if so, is it then hypocrisy to try to work within the system for change rather than against it?
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