Representatives of the technology giants Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Yahoo appeared before a Congressional panel recently to defend their companies' dealings with the Chinese government and its Internet censorship programs. These U.S. companies have sold China equipment that can be used to censor information and limit expression on the Internet, and some companies have even gone so far as to do the censoring and limiting themselves.
For example, Google recently launched a Chinese portal for its popular search engine. Searching for the phrase 'Tiananmen Square' through Google's U.S. site yields 3,390,000 hits, many of which mention the Chinese government's massacre of peaceful protesters there in 1989. The same search through the Chinese site returns only 35,300 hits, none of which mentions the massacre.
Formerly, Internet censorship in China was done by the government within its borders; now Google does the government's dirty work for it, on its own servers in the United States. Who knew that one of the biggest censors in the world was based in California?
In the movie 'Spiderman' Uncle Ben teaches that with great power comes great responsibility. Google, Cisco, Microsoft and Yahoo are among the most powerful companies on earth, and sadly, they have decided to pursue profits instead of progress by collaborating with a repressive regime to further restrict its citizens' rights. To passively allow one's products to be used for oppression is sad but pardonable, but actively participating in restricting freedom and supporting a corrupt and tyrannical regime is unconscionable.
Complacency in the face of tyranny was one of the 20th century's greatest crimes. Far too many people and companies passively cooperated with or indifferently ignored problems that took millions of lives and oppressed millions more. It is a universal responsibility to do all possible to uphold the rights of others, and that responsibility does not end on the job; it continues with greater force. Ultimately there may be very little that Internet companies can do to free the Chinese people; however, that fact does not absolve them of the responsibility of standing up for others' rights.
If the United States and its economic might do not stand up against tyranny in China, who will? Making the Chinese government's efforts to suppress information and ideas easier only prolongs the pain and suffering that must occur before the Chinese people are free, and it bloodies the United States' hands along the way.