M
maryceleste
Guest
The Internet is becoming very popular in China, and their Communist government seems to be doing all it can to crack down on freedom of speech. This is no surprise. The surprising part is that several top American high-tech companies have agreed to actively enable this suppression.
For instance, Google scans web pages for certain phrases (like “Falun Gong,” “Tiananmen square,” “Tibet,” or names of prominent dissidents), and blocks these sites from the Chinese version of their search engine. MSN has removed a dissident’s blog from their Chinese hosting site. Yahoo seems to be doing things along the same lines.
More articles:
Pandia.com
Salon.com
International Herald Tribune
The leaders of the US companies believe they’re doing the right thing. After all, they say, if they don’t compromise with the Chinese government, the people of China might lose access to their search engines altogether. The Chinese might end up without any access to the broader Internet, and have nothing but government-endorsed propaganda sites to look at.
I see their point, but isn’t this a type of consequentialism: doing evil so that good may come of it? After all, these companies aren’t just tolerating the censorship. They’re actively doing it, i.e., writing code (or using real people) to screen for “forbidden words,” blocking the URLs, and removing the sites from their own servers.
So, my question is simple enough:
Is it morally wrong to enter into a business contract that includes providing censorship services for a totalitarian regime?
For instance, Google scans web pages for certain phrases (like “Falun Gong,” “Tiananmen square,” “Tibet,” or names of prominent dissidents), and blocks these sites from the Chinese version of their search engine. MSN has removed a dissident’s blog from their Chinese hosting site. Yahoo seems to be doing things along the same lines.
More articles:
Pandia.com
Salon.com
International Herald Tribune
The leaders of the US companies believe they’re doing the right thing. After all, they say, if they don’t compromise with the Chinese government, the people of China might lose access to their search engines altogether. The Chinese might end up without any access to the broader Internet, and have nothing but government-endorsed propaganda sites to look at.
I see their point, but isn’t this a type of consequentialism: doing evil so that good may come of it? After all, these companies aren’t just tolerating the censorship. They’re actively doing it, i.e., writing code (or using real people) to screen for “forbidden words,” blocking the URLs, and removing the sites from their own servers.
So, my question is simple enough:
Is it morally wrong to enter into a business contract that includes providing censorship services for a totalitarian regime?