Internet Wall of Shame Update: Yahoo!, Again

Internet Wall of Shame member Yahoo! appears determined to keep up with and surpass Google for outrageous kowtowing to Chinese Communist authorities.

Thanks to Yahoo!, another writer is known to be in prison (and note the weasly Reuters headline, which describes the jailed person as an “Internet user,” even though in the body of the story the topic is clearly “Internet journalists and writers”):

Yahoo accused in jailing of 2nd China Internet user
Feb 9, 2:05 AM (ET)
By Lindsay Beck

BEIJING (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. provided evidence to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of an Internet writer, lawyers and activists said on Thursday, the second such case involving the U.S. Internet giant.

The latest storm over Western Internet companies in China comes just weeks after Web search giant Google Inc. came under fire for saying it would block politically sensitive terms on its new China site, bowing to conditions set by Beijing.

Writer and veteran activist Liu Xiaobo said Yahoo had co-operated with Chinese police in a case that led to the 2003 arrest of Li Zhi, who was charged with subverting state power and sentenced to eight years in prison after trying to join the dissident China Democracy Party.

Yahoo gave public security agents details of Li’s registration as a Yahoo user, Liu said in an article posted on U.S.-based Chinese-language news portal Boxun, citing a defense statement from Li’s lawyers.

A spokeswoman for Yahoo said the company was looking into the matter.

“As in most jurisdictions, governments are not required to inform service providers why they are seeking certain information and typically do not do so,” spokeswoman Mary Osako said.

“We would not know whether a demand for information focused on murder, kidnapping or another crime,” she said by phone from California, adding Yahoo thought the Internet was a positive force in China.

But media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said the argument that Yahoo simply responds to requests from authorities did not hold water.

“Yahoo certainly knew it was helping to arrest political dissidents and journalists, not just ordinary criminals,” it said in a statement.

PROFITS AND PRINCIPLES

The group, along with the Committee to Protect Journalists, also called on Yahoo to disclose information on all Internet journalists and writers whose identities it has revealed to Chinese authorities.

The case is the latest in a string of examples that highlight the friction between profits and principles for Internet companies doing business in China, the world’s number-two Internet market.

In September, Yahoo was accused of helping Chinese authorities identify Shi Tao, who was sentenced last April to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets abroad.

The Reporters Without Borders statement is here. Reuters, which certainly had access to RWB’s full statement, “somehow” failed to report RWB’s assertion that Yahoo!’s cooperation with the Chinese government is a routine thing, and RWB’s belief that the dissident journalists in question are in prison now (see bold below; I’m taking “release” to be “release from prison,” not just “release of names”); e-mail me if you think I am wrong), perhaps due to the company’s active cooperation:

Reporters Without Borders called on Yahoo! to supply a list of all cyberdissidents it has provided data on, beginning with 81 people in China whose release the worldwide press freedom organization is currently campaigning for.

It said it had discovered that Yahoo! customer and cyberdissident Li Zhi had been given his eight-year prison sentence in December 2003 based on electronic records provided by Yahoo. “How many more cases are we going to find ?” it asked.

“We were sure the case of Shi Tao, who was jailed for 10 years last April on the basis of Yahoo-supplied data, was not the only one. Now we know Yahoo works regularly and efficiently with the Chinese police.

Do you think Reuters would have failed to report a similar request for information from another organization if it had been about, say, every Al Qaeda member who had his or her conversation listened in on by the National Security Agency?