On Tuesday, November 25, 2014 1:49:02 PM UTC-6, Leo McArdle wrote: > On 25/11/14 18:42, Adam Porter wrote: > > I think it is common knowledge that the Chinese government exercises > > strict control over its portion of the Internet, and over companies > > like Baidu. > > Yes, but how does that make Baidu a de facto arms of the Chinese > government? All governments exercise varying control over companies.
That generalization is, of course, true, but the degree to which it is true, and the consequences thereof, are the issue. For example, consider this: <https://chrdnet.com/2014/09/chrb-new-cases-of-forced-psychiatric-commitment-detentions-of-prominent-writer-democracy-activist-912-182014/> Here we have Chinese activists being imprisoned and committed to mental institutions by the government in defiance of its own laws. One of them is explicitly so because of blogging. Now, when the Chinese government seeks to identify a dissident in order to imprison him, commit him, brainwash him, put him to forced labor, execute him, etc., based upon blog posts, if they need Baidu's help, what will Baidu do? Of course Baidu won't have a choice--but does that make it acceptable? If such a thing happened with Google or Yahoo in this country, despite abuses by the NSA, et al, a warrant would still be required at some level, and the accused would still receive a public trial, with a right to counsel, chances to appeal, the right to plead the Fifth, etc. It seems to me that this should make partnering with and being virtually employed by Baidu an unacceptable development. Intentions matter when looking back, but results matter when looking forward. Forgiveness does not mean lack of future consequences. And given the concerns about Baidu's being responsible for malware on top of everything else, this development seems mind-boggling, especially without an explanation by Mozilla as to why these concerns are not justified. This leads me to wonder how much of it was motivated by money, and that in and of itself concerns me. Has Mozilla become too large? Has its focus been lost? Is the drive to complete projects like Firefox OS and compete in new markets becoming so strong that deals like these can't be turned down? Has Mozilla's need for money become a liability? Or have I simply misinterpreted Mozilla from the beginning--is it not as altruistic in its mission as it has claimed? Does it really have my best interests at heart as an Internet user? > There we have a potentially useful discussion, rather than this odd > linking of the bad human rights records of various countries with the > companies which operate within them. Given the ways in which those companies are subservient to their countries, I don't think it's so odd. It's not unusual for nations to enact trade sanctions with other nations based upon such abuses, and it doesn't seem unreasonable for Mozilla to take similar stands. _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
