Google Gets on the Right Side of History

By BHRP

Flickr Creative Commons | Tomislavmedak

By Rebecca Mackinnon | The Wall Street Journal

One night in the mid-1990s when I was working as a journalist in Beijing, I went out to dinner with some Chinese friends. I had just finished reading a book called “The File” by the British historian Timothy Garton Ash. It’s about what happened in East Berlin after the Berlin Wall came down and everybody could see the files the Stasi had been keeping all those years. People discovered who had been ratting on whom — in some cases neighbors and co-workers, but also lovers, spouses and even children. After I described the book to my Chinese dinner companions — a hip and artsy intellectual crowd — one friend declared: “Some day the same thing will happen in China, then I’ll know who my real friends are.”

The table went silent.

China today is very different from Soviet-era Eastern Europe. It’s unlikely that its current political system — or its system for blocking foreign Web sites known widely as the “great firewall” — will crumble like the Berlin Wall any time soon. Both are supported and enabled by the current geopolitical, commercial and investment climate in ways that Soviet-era Eastern Europe and the Iron Curtain never were.

I do believe, however, that in my lifetime the Chinese people may learn more about some of the conversations that have taken place over the past decade between Internet company executives and Chinese authorities. When that happens, they will know who sold them out and who was most eager to help the Chinese Communist Party in building a blinkered cocoon of disinformation around their lives — and in some cases deaths.

This censored environment makes it easier for the Chinese government to lie to its people, steal from them, turn a blind eye when they are poisoned with tainted foodstuffs, and cover up their children’s deaths due to substandard building codes. It is a constant struggle, and sometimes literally a crime, for people to share information about such matters or to use the Internet to mobilize against corruption and malfeasance.

That is the information environment that China’s business elites, many of whom have gotten rich running Internet and telecommunications companies, are responsible for helping to build and maintain. For now they are national heroes, having made great (and lucrative) efforts on behalf of China’s economic growth and global competitiveness, making China a force to be reckoned with on the global stage. But if history takes some unexpected turns — and that’s the one thing you can count on Chinese history doing — it won’t always be on their side.

By announcing it will no longer censor its Chinese search engine and will reconsider its presence in China, Google has taken a bold step onto the right side of history.

Four years ago when Google entered the Chinese market and launched Google.cn, Chinese bloggers called it the “neutered Google.” At the time, Google executives said the decision to bow to the Chinese government’s censorship demands had been made after heated internal debates. They said they had weighed the positives and negatives and concluded Chinese Internet users were better off with the neutered Google than with no Google. They drew a red line under search and said they would not bring any other Google products containing users’ personal information — including email and blogging — into China. They held to that line.

Over the past four years I tested Google.cn from time to time and compared its search results with the Chinese market leader, Baidu. I found that Google.cn tended to censor search results somewhat less than Baidu. This supported Google’s argument that it at least gave Chinese Internet users more information than the domestic alternatives.

Google executives also pointed out that a notice appeared at the bottom of every page of censored results on Google.cn, informing users that some information was being hidden from them at the behest of Chinese authorities. In this way, the logic went, they were at least being honest with the Chinese public about the fact that Google was helping their government put blinkers on them.

The company’s effort to walk a fine line between Chinese regulators and free speech critics ended up being unsustainable. Anticensorship activists still viewed its compromise as contributing to the spread of censorship around the world. On the other hand, the compromise was also unacceptable to Chinese authorities, who were unhappy that Google wasn’t censoring as heavily as Baidu. Last year Google came under a series of attacks in the state-run media for failing to censor porn adequately when users — horror of horrors — typed smutty phrases into the search box.

As Google considers exactly what it will do next now that it has refused to censor, some Chinese users are expressing support and sending flowers, others are upset, and others are thumbing their noses, good riddance. Competitors are gloating. Google is in for a rough few months ahead. In the longer run, history will reveal to the Chinese people who their real friends have been.

Chinese Censorship May Force Google to Shut Down Site

By BHRP

Flickr Creative Commons | McKay Savage

By Brian Womack and Ari Levy | Bloomberg

China is unlikely to allow Google Inc. to provide uncensored Internet search results, potentially forcing the company to close its operations in the country, two people familiar with the matter said.

Google is planning to talk with Chinese authorities in the next few weeks about how it operates in China. Those discussions may result in Google pulling out of the country shortly after that, one of the people said. There is still a chance that Google will strike an agreement with China, the person said.

By leaving China, Google would be giving up access to the world’s largest Internet market. Google will make about $600 million of its revenue in China this year, according to Imran Khan, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. Analysts predict the company will have sales of $20.4 billion in 2010, according to a Bloomberg survey.

“There is a high probability that Google.cn will not be allowed to operate in China without its search results being censored,” Khan said in a note to clients. “If Google is not allowed to operate in China, beyond the immediate revenue loss, this could potentially have a far-reaching impact on the company’s overall long-term growth rate.”

Google, owner of the most-used search engine, said yesterday that it would end self-censorship of its product in China after attacks on e-mail accounts of human-rights activists. The Mountain View, California-based company said the move may lead to it closing offices in the country. The series of “highly sophisticated” attacks on Google and at least 20 other companies last month, as well as limits on free speech, led to the decision, Google said in a statement on its blog.

Yahoo! Inc., the second-ranked U.S. search engine, was one of the other companies targeted by the attack in China, according to a person familiar with the matter. Yahoo, which said yesterday that it “stands aligned” with Google in condemning Chinese cyber attacks on users, said today that it doesn’t generally disclose attacks on its computer systems.

“We take appropriate action in the event of any kind of breach,” Yahoo said in a statement.

Matt Furman, a spokesman for Google, declined to comment on Google’s plans for China beyond the statement yesterday. Google said in an e-mailed statement today that it isn’t commenting on specific companies involved in the attack.

Google has trailed Baidu Inc. in China since releasing a censored version of its search engine four years ago. Google would continue to operate at a disadvantage in China because the government favors local competitors, said Clay Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co. in Boca Raton, Florida.

“The Chinese market is always going to be a struggle for Google,” said Moran, who estimates Google made about 1 percent to 2 percent of its revenue last year from China. “We’re not overly concerned with the potential diminished growth prospects because we felt the market would always pose a significant challenge.”

Google fell $3.39 to $587.09 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock has declined 5.3 percent this year. Baidu’s American depositary receipts rose $52.99, or 14 percent, to $439.48. They have added 6.9 percent this year.

China’s Internet authorities are seeking more information about Google’s intentions, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing an unnamed “high-ranking” official with the State Council Information Office. Wang Lijian, a Beijing-based spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said he couldn’t comment as he was unaware of the situation. China’s foreign ministry declined to comment.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Chinese government should respond to Google’s “serious” allegations.

Separately, Google said today that it boosted security on its Gmail e-mail service. The company said it will encrypt e- mail as it travels between Web browsers and its servers by default. Previously, users had to opt into that service.

Google’s decision to stop self-censorship “lays down the gauntlet to other Internet companies operating in China: to be transparent about what filtering and censorship the government requires them to do,” Kate Allen, Amnesty International U.K. director, said in a statement.

Companies in industries ranging from finance to technology, media and chemicals had been targeted by hackers, Google said. The attacks went after 34 companies, most of them from California’s Silicon Valley, the New York Times reported, citing unidentified people familiar with Google’s investigation.

“Western companies such as Google face a dilemma in China,” said Norbert Pohlmann, a professor and head of the Internet-security research at the University of Applied Sciences in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. “On the one hand, they’re eager to benefit from China’s dramatic economic growth. On the other, they have to deal with local laws and values that are different from the West. Especially for media companies, it’s a tricky issue as China has a different definition of privacy and human- rights.”

Google said it’s notifying other companies that were attacked and is working with U.S. authorities. Adobe Systems Inc., the world’s biggest maker of graphic-design programs, said a “sophisticated, coordinated” attack targeted network systems it managed.

Google said the attack on its corporate infrastructure originated from China and resulted in the theft of intellectual property. The attackers’ main goal was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists, the company said.

Gmail users who are advocates of human-rights in the U.S., China and Europe have also had their accounts accessed, most likely through phishing scams or malware on the users’ computers, Google said.

“The Chinese have long censored the Web, but this is the first time they have targeted accounts overseas,” Arvind Ganesan, head of Human Rights Watch’s business and human-rights program, said in an interview from Geneva. “If this wasn’t done by the security services, then it was certainly done by a proxy for them.”

With phishing scams, hackers pretending to be legitimate Web sites ask users to divulge confidential information. Malware, meanwhile, includes programs that record users’ keystrokes as they type in passwords.

A departure by Google from China would follow years of clashes over censorship and highlight the challenges global companies face operating in a one-party state that controls the flow of information.

Google and Yahoo were among companies that were criticized by U.S. lawmakers in 2006 for complying with the Chinese government’s restrictions on the Internet. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang said in 2005 that a court order obliged the Sunnyvale, California-based company to hand over user records that led to the conviction of a Chinese journalist.

Google is still censoring search results on Google.cn, its Chinese search engine, Courtney Hohne, a Singapore-based spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “Nothing has changed at all,” she said.

Baidu accounted for 58.4 percent of China’s Internet search market in the fourth quarter, compared with 35.6 percent for Google, according to researcher Analysys International. Baidu declined to comment on Google’s decision.

Google’s plan to stop censoring on its Chinese site “sets a great example” for other companies, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Access to Google’s YouTube video site was blocked in China after Tibet’s government-in-exile released a video on March 20 that it said showed Chinese police beating protesters. The video was described by China’s official Xinhua News Agency as a fabrication.

Last year, China pushed personal-computer makers to install filtering software on their machines. The government backed away from that requirement in June, though it later said it would require the software on computers in schools and Internet cafes.

2009 Unprecedented Year For Online Repression

By BHRP

Flickr Creative Commons | Zensursala

by Clothilde le Coz, Reporters Without Borders

2009 was an unprecedented year for online repression.

For the first time since the Internet emerged as a tool for public use, there are currently 100 bloggers and cyber-dissidents imprisoned worldwide as a result of posting their opinions online in 2009, according to Reporters Without Borders. This figure is indicative of the severity of the crackdowns being carried out in roughly 10 countries around the world. (In one example, Burma handed out long prison sentences to online dissidents.)

The number of countries pursuing online censorship doubled in the past year — a disturbing trend that suggests governments seek to increase their control over new media. In total, 151 bloggers and cyber-dissidents were arrested in 2009, and 61 were physically assaulted.

The crackdown on bloggers and ordinary citizens who express themselves online comes at the same time that social networking and interactive websites have become extremely popular, not to mention powerful vehicles for free expression.

China Still Leads in Online Censorship

China was once again the leading Internet censor in 2009. Countries such as Iran, Tunisia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan also blocked websites and blogs, and engaged in surveillance of online expression. In Turkmenistan, for example, the Internet remains under total state control. Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer is still in jail, while the famous Burmese comedian Zarganar still has 34 years left on his prison sentence. These are but a few examples.

The list of approximately 120 victims of Internet censorship in 2009 also includes leading figures in the defense of online free speech, such as China’s Hu Jia and Liu Xiaobo, and Vietnam’s Nguyen Trung and Dieu Cay.

People are usually targeted because they speak out on political matters, but the global financial crisis is also on the list of subjects likely to provoke online censorship. In South Korea, a blogger was wrongfully detained for commenting on the country’s disastrous economic situation. Roughly six people in Thailand were arrested or harassed just for making a connection between the king’s health and a fall in the Bangkok stock exchange. Censorship was slapped on media in Dubai when it came time for them to report on the country’s debt repayment problems.

Overall, wars and elections constituted the chief threats to journalists and bloggers in 2009. It is becoming more risky to cover wars because journalists themselves are being targeted for murder and kidnappings. It’s also just as dangerous for reporters in some countries to do their job at election time. Journalists have ended up in prison or in a hospital thanks to their election reporting. Violence before and after elections was particularly prevalent in 2009 inside countries with poor democratic credentials.

Iran Election Crackdown

Iran saw the most violence, censorship and arrests due to an election. Its elections this past summer saw more than 100 arrests, and many prison sentences handed down. The country, which is on the Reporters Without Borders list of “Enemies of the Internet,” has also deployed a sophisticated system of Internet filtering and monitoring, especially in recent months. The country’s main ISPs depend on the Telecommunication Company of Iran, which recently came under control of the Revolutionary Guard, and does not hesitate to flout international treaties or to restrict the free flow of information.

Within hours of the announcement of President Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad’s election “victory,” journalists were being arrested by the intelligence ministry, Revolutionary Guard, and other security services. Most were taken to Tehran’s Evin prison. At least 100 journalists and bloggers have been arrested since June, and 27 are still being held. Today, Iran is one of the world’s five biggest imprisoners of journalists.

Since the election, national and international media in Iran have been subject to massive and systematic censorship that is without precedent. For the first time since the 1979 revolution, the security services are vetting the content of newspapers before they’re published.

The Iranian regime’s offensive against online free expression took a new direction in December after Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi announced he was going to prosecute two conservative websites for “insulting” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Meanwhile, several Internet service providers cut access to prevent political opponents from disseminating information during opposition demonstrations on December 27. After the demonstrations, the intelligence ministry and Revolutionary Guard began rounding up government opponents and journalists, arresting an estimated 20 people in the latest wave. Those targeted included a dozen or so journalists and cyber-dissidents. Alireza Behshtipour Shirazi, the editor of Kaleme.org (opposition leader Mirhossein Moussavi’s official website), was arrested at his Tehran home and taken to an unknown place of detention.

Trouble in Democratic Countries

Democratic countries have also enacted online censorship. Several European nations are working on new steps to control the Internet in what they say is a campaign against child porn and illegal downloads. Australia is also planning to set up a compulsory filtering system that poses a threat to freedom of expression.

Communications minister Stephen Conroy announced in December that, after a year of testing in partnership with Australian Internet service providers, the government will introduce legislation imposing mandatory filtering of websites with pornographic, pedophilic or particularly violent content.

Google Australia’s head of policy, Iarla Flynn, raised concerns, saying, “Moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy-handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.” In a Fairfax Media poll of 20,000 Australians, 96 percent strongly opposed a mandatory Internet filtering system.

Yet that proposal — as well as many others around the world — continues to move ahead. Hopefully, 2010 will be a better year for free speech online.

China’s Lonely Dissidents

By BHRP

by Jaroslaw Adamowski

The Guardian

Should anyone still doubt that history always repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, second time as farce, an incident that took place last Wednesday in Prague might very well change his or her mind.

On 6 January 1977, Václav Havel, then a leading Czech dissident as well as a playwright banned by the communist regime, was arrested along with Pavel Landovský and Ludvík Vaculík for writing a petition that called for the democratisation of the regime and publishing it in a samizdat version. Their arrest contributed to the cause – the Charter 77 manifesto reached the west apace and at some point was even more widely discussed abroad than in Czechoslovakia. Ultimately, 12 years after the dissident movement’s emergence, the Velvet Revolution wiped out the oppressive regime and Havel was soon to become the country’s president.

Thirty-three years later, history’s ironic pen writes a rather peculiar postscript to the democratic outbreak of 1989. On 6 January 2010, Havel showed up with fellow communist-era dissidents at China’s embassy in Prague with a new petition, this time calling for the liberation of Liu Xiaobo, a leading Chinese dissident. Sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment last December, Xiaobo was convicted on charges of subversion, which, in the language of the human-rights-allergic regime, stands for the crucial role that he had played in drawing up and distributing the Chinese version of the Czech manifesto, entitled Charter 08.

As the Velvet Revolution’s veterans arrived at the embassy, a literally closed-door reception was awaiting them. Nobody, let alone the ambassador himself, bothered to take the open letter from Havel’s hand, a rather unusual situation considering that he had been first Czechoslovakia’s, and then the Czech Republic’s president for almost 13 years. In the end, the protesters were forced to leave the petition in the embassy’s letterbox. All of this on the 33rd anniversary of the Charter’s emergence. Ignored by one communist regime as a dissident, as an ex-president, Havel would still be ignored by another.

Without a shred of doubt, this incident is part of a bigger picture. Beijing’s gradually increasing contempt for Europe’s human-rights discourse, already apparent during Akmal Shaikh’s disgraceful trial, is becoming more pronounced as the west’s economic leverage over China has been replaced by China’s leverage over the west. What possible sanctions could the west, let alone the UK, launch in order to force respect of basic human rights on China? The Chinese regime has a very precise sense of balance, and it is no coincidence that Shaikh’s execution took place now; he was the first European citizen to be put to death in China in more than half a century.

Were Václav Havel to be reborn as a Chinese dissident 20 years after 1989, his voice would certainly be crushed not only by China, but also by shabby smartphone manufacturers. It seems that nowadays, every single tech company expanding to the Chinese market would block the Charter 77 app in advance before anyone could download it. Beijing’s grip on the internet will only tighten, and even though an oppressive government quashing the voice of dissent is no new phenomenon, western corporations’ complicity in persecuting the dissidents surely is. And we are all getting used to it.

Hence, Liu Xiaobo’s oppression in 2010 is more severe than that faced in 1989 by Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia, Lech Wałęsa in Poland or other dissidents from behind the Iron Curtain. Despite the internet, Twitter, Facebook, mobile phones and all that technology has to offer, modern dissidents are in no better situation than their predecessors were 33 years ago. On the contrary, the likes of Xiaobo seem to be more on their own than the 1989 revolutionaries were. Perhaps it is time to dust off the good old samizdat.

Bahrain, Tunisia Filtering Individual Twitter Pages

By BHRP

From Open Net Initiative’s Blog:

Over the past few weeks, reports have trickled in to Herdict and via Twitter, alerting us of the filtering of individual Twitter pages in Tunisia and Bahrain (as well as, possibly, China). In Tunisia, the accounts of exiled activist Sami Ben Gharbia (@ifikra), engineer @Ma7moud, and popular independent news source Nawaat (@nawaat) have been confirmed inaccessible, while in Bahrain @FreeBahrain was allegedly blocked on New Year’s Day, but has since become accessible.

Twitter is no stranger to being blocked: Both China and Iran have blocked the social networking/microblogging site in the past, and Saudi Arabia reportedly blocked two individual Twitter users’ pages in mid-2009. What is particularly interesting is that the governments of Tunisia and Bahrain have now demonstrated capability to block individual Twitter pages, thus silencing certain voices while still keeping a major communication platform open. Only time will tell if this is to become a trend globally.