[huridocs-tech] China: Internet companies aid censorship

Legislation and Code of Conduct Needed to Ensure Ethical Business
Practices

(Hong Kong, August 10, 2006) -- Legislation and a strong industry code of
conduct are necessary to end the complicity of Western Internet companies
in political censorship in China, Human Rights Watch said in a report
released today. China’s system of Internet censorship and
surveillance, popularly known as the "Great Firewall," is the most
advanced in the world.

In the 149-page report, "Race to the Bottom: Corporate Complicity in
Chinese Internet Censorship <http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/china0806/>,"
Human Rights Watch documents how extensive corporate and private sector
cooperation - including by some of the world's major Internet companies -
enables this system of censorship.
 
"Western Internet companies are complicit in actively censoring political
material without telling users what's happening and why," said Rebecca
MacKinnon, a consultant to Human Rights Watch. "We believe that companies
could act more ethically and still operate in China. It is time for
Internet companies to decide whether they want to be part of the problem
or part of the solution."
 
Research was performed through interviews and extensive testing of search
engines in China, and includes 18 screen shots to illustrate examples of
censorship. The report vividly illustrates how various companies,
including Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, and Skype block terms they believe
the Chinese government will want them to censor.
 
Human Rights Watch strongly criticized the decision by Yahoo! to release
the identity of private users to the Chinese authorities. This assisted in
the imprisonment and heavy sentences of four Chinese government critics,
Shi Tao, Li Zhi, Jiang Lijun, and Wang Xiaoning. In a letter to Human
Rights Watch, published in the report, Yahoo! states that it was only
following local laws.
 
Microsoft has censored searches and blog titles to avoid sensitive
political topics, and deleted or blocked whole blogs expressing peaceful
political views. Google's slogan, "Don't Be Evil," was called into
question by users after it launched a censored search engine,
http://www.google.cn, in response to Chinese government pressure. Skype's
Chinese software is configured to censor sensitive words in text chats
without informing the user, which the company has justified as consistent
with local best practices and Chinese law.
 
Human Rights Watch said it was ironic that companies whose existence
depends on freedom of information and expression have taken on the role of
censor, even in cases where the Chinese government makes no specific
demands for them to do so. While companies say they censor under pressure
or are only following local regulations, there has been little effort to
resist demands or pressures from the Chinese government to censor. Human
Rights Watch urged the companies to use all legal means to resist demands
for censorship of searches, blogs, and web addresses. Companies should
only comply with such demands if they are made via legally binding
procedures that can be documented and after the company has exhausted all
reasonable legal means to resist them.
 
Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google all argue that China&rsquo;s Internet users
have greater access to information because the companies operate in China,
despite their compromises. "Race to the Bottom" demonstrates that within a
difficult environment, different companies have been making different
choices about where they draw the ethical line, with widely varying
results. Tests showed that Chinese Internet users can access greater
amounts of information using the censored http://www.google.cn and MSN
Chinese search engines than they can using providers based in China. But
the tests showed that Yahoo! China&rsquo;s level and method of search
censorship is as bad and in some cases worse than the heavily censored
Baidu, China&rsquo;s most popular homegrown search engine. The tests also
showed that Google is the most transparent in informing users about
censorship.
 
"Race to the Bottom" includes many examples of blogs by Chinese users
outraged by the decisions of these companies. "Yahoo!'s role in the Shi
Tao case and Google's decision to turn censor in order to curry favor with
the Chinese government show the extent of corporate capitulation to
China," said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. "But
Internet companies are learning they can&rsquo;t become partners in
political censorship without provoking outrage and a loss of trust by
users, including those in China."
 
Human Rights Watch called the United States, the European Union and other
jurisdictions to pass legislation prohibiting companies from storing
personal user data on servers in China. The aim of this legislation should
not be to prevent U.S. or other international companies from operating in
China. Rather, the goal should be for companies in the business of
disseminating information and ideas to adhere to these goals in China, not
to participate in or facilitate censorship or the arrest of individuals
involved in peaceful expression, and to set a strong example of ethical
corporate behavior.
 
"Laws are needed to end this race to the bottom and establish a level
playing field so that the Chinese government can't pick off companies one
by one," said Adams. "Otherwise the standard set will be that of the
company trying the hardest to please the Chinese government."
 
Human Rights Watch believes the following principles should be included in
legislation on corporate responsibility to uphold human rights:

* No user data should be stored in jurisdictions where there is a strong
record of punishing individuals for exercising basic rights such as
freedom of expression;
* Companies should not take on the role of active censors;
* Companies should be prohibited from complying with oral, undocumented
requests from the authorities for censorship of political speech;
* Companies should make public on their websites when a government has
forced them to censor political speech;
* When a search returns no results, or only censored results, companies
should be required to clearly inform users; and
* Legislation should be adopted by all countries and should apply to
companies operating in all countries.

"The aim of effective legislation and corporate codes of conduct should be
to help companies all over the world best serve the interests and rights
of their users and customers, and to avoid being used by governments as
tools for political manipulation - and in some cases abuse of people's
fundamental human rights," said MacKinnon.

Human Rights Watch Press release



================== HURIDOCS-Tech listserv =====================
Send mail intended for the list to <     >.
Archives of the list can be found at:
http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/maillist.php