Collusion and Collision in Internet Censorship

A new report targets the likes of Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, Skype, and Cisco for their role in aiding China's "Great Firewall."

In the pursuit of profits, principles often become collateral damage.

This is the dilemma U.S.-based internet companies operating in China struggle with. Economic opportunism, unchecked by moral and ethical concerns, incurs more than just bad publicity – it costs lives and personal freedom.

Western internet companies in China are navigating a precarious grey zone between collusion and collision, where compliance with domestic laws is often used to justify collaboration in China’s official censorship regime.

It is a reality that businesses must obey the rules and regulations of the country in which they operate. But at what point does industry have to take it upon itself to choose ethics over growth, and socio-political responsibilities over economic prosperity?

These are complex questions, and subjects of a new report by The SecDev Group, “Collusion and collision: Searching for guidance in Chinese cyberspace.”

China’s online monitoring and surveillance system is pervasive: It is a vast network of overlapping regulations and legislation coupled with a technically sophisticated filtering regime. It is officially known as the Golden Shield, but more aptly referred to as the “Great Firewall.” Behind it are almost half a billion internet users. It is a lucrative environment for western technology companies, and the lure of profits can tempt even the most ethical corporations.

Our report examines the actions of Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, Skype, and Cisco. These companies demonstrated varying levels of complicity, but all of them acquiesced to Chinese online content restrictions or contributed to the climate of censorship.

As gatekeepers of the internet, search engines like those provided by Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft triage and prioritize vast amounts of information. Skype provides a secure platform for online communication, and Cisco sells routers that sit at key internet gateways. These companies are stewards of human knowledge and communication, but they can also be powerful tools for repression and information control. Their actions have vast implications for privacy, freedom of speech, and access to information.

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In 2005, Yahoo! handed over the personal account details and email correspondence of dissident journalist and poet Shi Tao, who was convicted for leaking state secrets and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Microsoft’s blogging platform, MSN Spaces, blocked Zhao Jing’s popular blog for his politically sensitive posts. Skype, with its Chinese partner TOM, customized its VOIP software for China: Not only did it filter text messages, but it also uploaded and stored user information, including caller details, to publicly accessible servers. According to a leaked presentation, Cisco has been helping build China’s online surveillance system since 2001.

Even Google, with its corporate ethos of “don’t be evil,” introduced a domestic google.cn service in 2006 that filtered search results. The difference is that Google withdrew its filtered platform in 2010, redirecting visitors to its Hong Kong-based site. In doing so, Google abdicated its role of censor, leaving that task to the Great Firewall and the Chinese government.

The dilemmas faced by western internet corporations are not restricted to Chinese cyberspace. While China is certainly the most important case financially and politically, western companies’ complicity in internet-related violations of human rights has been occurring in other countries as well, and the caseload is growing fast.

Our report presents tangible recommendations for western companies caught between a natural compulsion to make money and a social commitment to do so ethically. To do nothing is bad for business and bad for democracy. Inaction undermines the values of openness, access to knowledge, individual privacy, and informed choice. It threatens the future of the internet and diminishes its value as a driver of global development and prosperity.

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How does one enforce such standards, and who is responsible? Voluntary codes such as the Global Network Initiative, while well-intentioned, lack enforcement muscle. U.S. congressional attention has been forthcoming, and measures such as the Global Online Freedom Act, which would impose export restrictions on countries that practise extensive online censorship, have generated interest but no action yet. U.S. policy pronouncements on internet freedom, such as those made by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are encouraging and may yet lead to change.

Ultimately, in countries that practise online censorship, a shift needs to occur towards more transparent and accountable domestic cyber policies. Until that happens, industry has a responsibility to work with key stakeholders, including policymakers, to find real-world solutions that balance economics and ethics, profits and principles in the growing, global censorship maze.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.