Amnesty International on China’s Internet Censorship and US Tech Firms’ Cooperation: Where Have You Been?
Excuse the cynicism, but Chinese censorship of the Internet, the co-opting of US-based Internet Service Providers who should know better, and the jailing of dissidents thanks to US tattletales has been going on for more than a year. Google bowed to Chinese censorship strictures in late January, when BizzyBlog’s Internet Wall of Shame was established. Yahoo!’s assistance in the jailing of a dissident journalist was revealed in October of last year.
And Amnesty International (AI) is just now getting around to accusing “Yahoo, Microsoft and Google on Thursday of violating human rights principles by cooperating with China’s efforts to censor the Web and call(ing) on them to lobby for the release of jailed cyber-dissidents”?
I’m sorry. AI is only making sure it’s on the record so they can say, “See, we condemned it.”
It’s also interesting timing, given that the world’s attention is almost entirely focused on Israel, Lebanon, and the Middle East.
This organization, which once had so much potential, will soon return to their unbalanced condemnations of Guantanamo Bay prisoner treatment and civilian casualties in Iraq.
Fortunately, organizations like Reporters Without Borders (here) and Students for a Free Tibet (here) are staying on the case.
