I am fed up with Western companies collaborating with dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, helping them restrict the internet and monitor communications by those who disagree and oppose them. Julien Pain of Reporters without Borders writes in Dictatorships catching up with Web 2.0.
These days, “subversive” or “counter-revolutionary” material goes on the Internet and political dissidents and journalists have become “cyberdissidents” and “online journalists.” … The Web makes networking much easier, for political activists as well as teenagers. Unfortunately, this progress and use of new tools by activists is now being matched by the efforts of dictatorships to fight them. Dictators, too, have entered the world of Web 2.0.
He expands:
The predators of free expression are not all the same. China keeps a tight grip on what is written and downloaded by users, spends an enormous amount on Internet surveillance equipment, and hires armies of informants and cyberpolice. It also has the political weight to force the companies in the sector–such as Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems–to do what it wants them to; all have agreed to censor their search engines to filter out Web sites overcritical of the authorities.
Long-time readers of Samizdata.net will know that one of the bees in our bonnet is collaboration of Western corporations with totalitarian and authoritarian regimes anywhere, in any way but especially when it comes to limiting the technology that could help dissidents to communicate among themselves and with the outside world – the first step to any meaningful resistance. Both Perry and I and others have blogged about it when Yahoo, Cisco, Microsoft or Google put their foot among the oppressors’ jackboots.
I have often said, although have not blogged it anywhere in detail yet, that had the internet existed in the days of the Cold War, its end would have come much sooner and possibly in a different manner. I say this on the basis of my own experience of the power of communication and information dissemination within an oppressed society. Not just the serious political information. I remember the first 15 minutes of any clandestine meeting was spent sharing new jokes. All of them political, of course. And then there were western adverts that caused considerable damage to the communist propaganda. Soft-focus commercials for washing powder, chocolates, electrical appliances that we did not know even existed. The images of a world beyond got through thanks to the clear reception of the few TV channels near the borders with the Western countries. Speed that up, add scale and the rips the internet could have made in the Iron Curtain are beyond measure… imagine all the YouTube videos testifying to the ubiquitous presence of technology (cameras, computers and connectivity, not to mention homes, past-times and the luxury of being able to post inane clips online) for the exploited workers in the corrupt and decaying capitalist countries. Hmmm.
Even without quaint anecdotes from dissident days, most people can appreciate the importance of free flow of information and see what the internet has done for freedom of speech. What I see is a shift in the balance of power between systems (political and corporate) and the individual (citizen or consumer). That is why I do what I do (crusade against advertising and for individual empowerment) and why I am a big fan of technology like blogs, wikis, tagging, VoIP etc, and especially of applications such as Skype that is P2P, encrypted and distributed by individuals. Since its beginnings a few years ago, it has spread like wildfire precisely because it is secure and decentralised and, most importantly, unmonitored.
The Web phone service Skype, for example, has made it much easier for journalists – and Reporters Without Borders – to communicate with their sources. It works especially well because it is encrypted, so conversations are hard to tap.
Apparently, not any longer, which is the source of my anger and disappointment:
But China has already signed an agreement with Skype to block key words, so how can we be sure our conversations are not being listened to? How do we know if Skype will not also allow (or already has allowed) the Chinese police to spy on its customers?
After Googling “Skype” and “Chinese government”, I found more about the story which broke some time ago. Shame on me for missing it:
In September 2005 Skype and TOM formed a joint venture company to “develop, customize and distribute a simplified Chinese version of the Skype software and premium services to Internet users and service providers in China.” The Chinese client distributed by TOM Online employs a filtering mechanism that prevents users from sending text messages with banned phrases such as “Falungong” and “Dalai Lama.”
Human Rights Watch provides a comprehensive summary well worth reading in How Multinational Internet Companies assist Government Censorship in China. (Scroll down to point 4 for Skype.)
The real issue for me here is a moral one, not political or technological, although they define the context within which the moral choice should be exercised. I know and believe that technological innovation will prevail in the end. In fact, I am banking on it. For each repressive use of technology there will be new ways of bypassing it. My problem is that this merely treats the symptoms, not the disease. It leads to a kind of arms race, dictators and geeks locked in a battle to bypass each others’ technological resources and cleverness. True, geeks may be winning on that front. But the dictators are still oppressing and the losers (apart from the victims), in more ways than one, are the companies that have made the pact with the devil. To explain where I am coming from, let me quote the Black Book of Communism, the most erudite and articulate book about the horrors of communism to date (2000 edition p. 11):
In addition to the question of whether the Communists in power were directly responsible for these crimes, there is also the issue of complicity. Incredibly, from the 1920s to the 1950s, when hundreds of thousands of people served in the ranks fo the Communist International and local sections of the “world party of the revolution”, Communists and fellow-travellers around the world warmly approved Lenin’s and subsequently Stalin’s policies. continued…
Undoubtedly, of course, it was not always easy to learn the facts or to discover the truth, for Communist regimes had mastered the art of censorship as their favourite technique for concealing their true activities. But quite often this ignorance was merely the result of ideologically motivated self-deception. Starting in the 1940s and 1950s, many facts about these atrocities had become public knowledge and undeniable. And although many of these apologists have cast aside their gods of yesterday, they have done so quietly and discreetly. What are we to make of a profoundly amoral doctrine that seeks to stamp out every last trace of civic-mindedness in men’s souls and damn the consequences?
Today the likes of Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Skype, Yahoo! cannot be excused even on the basis of ignorance…
Robert Conquest wrote: The fact that so many people “swallowed” [the Great Terror] hook, line, and sinker was probably one of the reasons that the Terror succeeded so well. In particular, the trials would not be so significant had they not received the blessing of some ‘independent’ foreign commentators. These pundits should be held accountable as accomplices in the bloody politics of the purges…
But what self-deception kept Western European Communists, who had not been directly arrested by the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD, the secret police), blindly babbling away about the system and its leader? Why could they not hear the wake-up call at the very start?
The complicity of those who rushed into voluntary servitude has not always been as abstract and theoretical as it may seem. Simple acceptance and/or dissemination of propaganda designed to conceal the truth is invariably a symptom of active complicity. Although it may not always succeed, as it was demonstrated by the tragedy in Rwanda, the glare of the spotlight is the only effective response to mass crimes that are committed in secret and kept hidden from prying eyes.
They say that history repeats itself… a truly depressing and frightening thought.
Thank you! Too many libertarian and conservative commentators seem to think “as long as a private company does it, it’s ok!”.
No it fucking well isn’t.
Skype is without any doubt whatsoever making the decision that their desire to make money out of Chinese people is more important that being directly complicit in the repression of the Chinese people by their government.
Fine. You know what, mate? There are a lot of other VOIP companies out there and when so my Skype-In and Skype-Out accounts run out, fuck ’em. And not only will I go to someone else, I’ll let Skype know why I hate them and the new company will hear why I’ve come to them instead. And yeah, I’ll be bad-mouthing these shits to everyone who’ll listen.
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This is going to become more common. How can a company ignore a market of 1.3 billion people.
TESCO have just opened in Beijing and it was featured on UK news. In particular the TV coverage featured the different product lines TESCO China had from the more mundane TESCO UK lines. One of these was live turtles for the pot.
On a lighter note…
My father works in a TESCO. He was asked by a very posh tweed-clad lady if they had any turtles like those she’d seen on TV “because turtle soup was so delicious”. Apparently she hadn’t been able to find any live ones for sale.
And this was in Northumberland. The dirty, filthy bastards.
Around here (South Manchester) I’m used to strange food. We’ve got a Polish & Iranian (?!) grocers up the road. I once asked my wife what something in a jar labelled with too many consonents was. The missus is a Russian grad and can get by in Polish. It was pickled tripe. Apparently a delicacy.
This is totally OT, isn’t it?
Anyway, Adriana, you mention the idea that TV commercials and stuff were influential in ending the Cold War. Do you know if there is any truth in two things I heard:
1) Dallas was shown in Romania in order to show the empty, decadent lives of capitalists, became wildly popular and helped precipitate the fall of Ceacescu. I guess you could call it the JR shot Ceaucescu theory.
2) Sales of the perfectly crafted but politically irrelevant pop of ABBA in the Eastern Block cost these countries so much foreign exchange that it helped end the Cold War.
I would love to believe there is even a scintilla of truth in either theory.
I believe it was Esienhower who told us to beware the military industrial complex. Years ago it may have been considered melodramatic. It is obvious that all the power and influence resides with governments and corporations. And when they can’t agree they have the powerless fight their battles.
I don’t think the Chinese government have to worry about Skypecast much however as its so unstable as to bordering on the useless. It is sad to see Skype sucking up to the Chinese however.
I spent two months in Beijing last year, and all my international telephoning was done via VOIP (though not Skype). Skype might be a problem in China, but VOIP isn’t.
Apart from that, though, the Great Firewall worked pretty well – blocked out this blog anyway. . .
“I once asked my wife what something in a jar labelled with too many consonents was. The missus is a Russian grad and can get by in Polish. It was pickled tripe. Apparently a delicacy.”
I’ve never heard of pickled tripe, but tripe is widely available and consumed in Poland (not exactly a delicacy usually but not day in and day out fare either).
Was this the jar? It was “Tripe in broth”
http://www.pudliszki.pl/images/dania/dg_flaki_w_ros_520.jpg
There was a time when I almost always had a jar or two hanging around as it’s a very good hangover preventitive.
Yes, Michael I think it was. I can see it working against hang-overs. One sniff of that I would throw up any alcohol I’d consumed of the evening. That was a very large jpeg of tripe.
Who gives a fuck about hangover cures? The decadence of people in the west is such that Skype’s actions will hardly merit a raised eyebrow (perhaps people are too busy nursing their hangovers). With so many sleepwalking into gradualist regulatory totalitarianism, how can you expect such sheep to care about complicity with tyranny in China? These same people are complicit with ever more tyranny in Brussels and London and Paris and New York.
Thunderbolt,
Now calm down.
What’s the point of freedom if you can’t enjoy it?
This is a pretty serious subject and I must confess I rather share Thunderbolt’s exasperation. I would rather be thinking of innovative ways to shit on companies who do the equivalent of building the gas chambers that people get murdered in by their governments, which is what helping China spy on people is very much the equivalent of… people will get their lives destroyed or ended because of what Skype and Cisco do. In my view it makes them legitimate targets for a great many things and make of that what you wish.
A brand is a valuable thing and damaging the brands of companies what do wicked things is a good way to hurt them. Trading in China is one thing but actively assisting the Chinese government to find dissidents so they can kill or imprison them (which is exactly what these companies are doing) just because you want to do business, well, that should should carry a cost.
Sadly most high tech companies are run by people who were taught in school and college (before they dropped out) that “capitalism” (civil interaction) is evil – and they believed what they were taught.
So when they set up companies they justified their “greed” to themselves either by funding endless fashionable causes (Bill Gates), or by lots of P.C. postures – such as the “do not be evil” motto at Google.
The idea that a businessman could be, in the normal run of events, an honourable person who regarded personal honour as bound up with his everyday work – well such ideas were alien to them.
So whenever they come under real pressure (such as from the Chinese government) their “ethics” collapse – because they were never really a code of honour in the first place (they were just an ethics mantra, such as might be taught in a business studies course).
An enterprise should be the great work of the businessman. The ultimate expression of his life – what he has built and how he has built it.
There should be no need to justify oneself by handing out money to “good causes” (although there is nothing wrong with helping people) or comming out with P.C. statements.
The businessman should not need to say anything at all other than “if you seek my monument, look around you”. And he should not need to say even that.
I never understand why, but there are many who seem to believe that if something is done in the name of ‘business’ ethical behaviour is not relevant, regardless of the fact that everything done by and for a business is also done by a person. As many people so often argue here in relation to the public sector, you cannot separate your own actions from those of the organisation for whom you work, especially if you are sitting at or near the top.
That applies equally to Yahoo, Cisco, etc in their dealings with the Chinese government.
“That applies equally to Yahoo, Cisco, etc in their dealings with the Chinese government. ”
Does it also apply to Adriana, who, in the blog to which she directs us, has Google-sponsored search? Or not, as long as none of us use the search box?
That rather strikes me as a bit ‘hard of thinking’ Nathaniel. I suspect Adriana is not a Google shareholder or even an employee doing their bidding.