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Facebook will do anything to get China to accept its friend request. As China cracks down on dissidents and Google condemns that country’s authoritarian leadership, Facebook is considering a partnership with Chinese censors.
Will you make sure your Facebook friends know? Click here to share it on Facebook.
Facebook’s lobbyist Adam Conner just told the Wall Street Journal, “Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others….We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we’re allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before.”
Astounding. And this disregard for civil liberties is nothing new: Facebook has consistently dodged hard questions about free speech. Last year they refused to attend a U.S. Senate hearing on “global Internet freedom” and the company won’t join the tech industry’s Global Network Initiative, which promotes human rights and free speech. Will you demand that Facebook start respecting civil liberties? Click here to sign the petition.
PETITION TO MARK ZUCKERBERG AND THE FACEBOOK TEAM: Your callous disregard for free speech and human rights is completely unacceptable. Partnership with censors in China or anywhere else is counterproductive, bad for business, and just plain wrong.
Click here to sign the petition. We’ll make sure Facebook gets the message.
10 Comments
The IMF just announced that within the next 5 years China will have the world`s largest economy. The average Chineeze dud cares as much about freedon of the inter-net as he does what is on the moon`s rear end. He does look forward to his nation becoming once again the terror of mankind as in the time of Emperor China of Great Wall fame. The Chineeze people have more folks with IQs over 140 than we do with people with IQs over 115. It is time to leave these folks alone. The days of the Yellow Peril have come and gone. They could drive us into depression anytime they want. We are reaping 40 years of no draft, easy divorce, and abortion on demand. Our young people are mental and physical wrecks. How many of you liberals and progressives if you had the choice would send your kids to a big City school in America or a big city Chineeze academy? We have a few minutes to get our house in order before we become their helots who produce their grain supply.
Zenostoa
One more reason why I don’t have a Facebook account and have no plans to open one…ever.
Thank you for this diary! A humorous touch is that I am unable to
access Facebook because it’s “not cool enough” to support my
browser!
To address a related issue, many Chinese people have risked and
even sacrificed their lives for democracy and human rights, as
illustrated by the events in Tiananmen Square in the spring of
1989, when the Democracy Movement thrived and then was suppressed
by the brute force of bullets and tanks. As Joan Baez once sadly
quipped, there has been a kind of agreement of some powerful
governments conveniently to forget this episode — but _we_ must
not forget!
The very fact that the Chinese authorities take such trouble to
censor the Internet, and to persecute those who share or seek
information, shows that China has its Daniel Ellsbergs and
Bradley Mannings — in short, that the spirit of Tiananmen Square
lives!
More generally, we can and should struggle against governments
that violate human rights — China, the U.S.A., and others –
while also struggling very actively against anti-Asian and other
racist stereotypes that are themselves one of the real “perils”
we unfortunately still face in the 21st century.
The whole Government Sacks scheme with Facebook boils down to theft by counterfeiting and should give folks cause for pause. This is a nice rundown: “Facebook Makes Pact with the Devil – Goldman Sachs Private IPO – Welcome to Neo-Feudal Facebook! (Jan. 4, 2011).
Exactly. Facebook sucks. Nothing they do or don’t do in China will change that.
If anyone in Vegas is taking over-and-under bets on when Facebook will be rendered obsolete by a better and cheaper product, I’ll take the under.
We have enough domestic and foreign problems not to be bothered with FB and it’s Chinese relationship.
There are many other essential causes right here in the USA that are not being dealt with.
FB/China is a distraction to the immediate needs of we the people.
There are many angles to this in addition to what I have already mentioned.
Start with the Chinese’s government’s “loose on the outside, tight on the inside” policy much of which is employed in the US (hello, the West helped design and tested such technology under the guise of the Olympics ; see “China says it needs IBM supercomputer for Olympics weather forecasts,” Aug. 29, 2007). More reads:
“The Great Firewall Of China” (video, Journey Pictures, May 27, 2008) Comment: Rebecca MacKinnon is full of sh#t.
‘Chief Designer of “Great Firewall of China” Also Uses VPN‘ (English subtitles, Feb. 21, 2011)
“Inside Google’s China misfortune” (Apr. 15, 2011)
“Apple’s Location Tracking Is An Outrage — Where’s The Apology?” (Apr. 25, 2011)
“Chinese citizens share their thoughts about Google” (Jan. 15, 2010)
More at Electronic Freedom Foundation
John Perkins says it’s all about the rents and counterfeiting: “Libya: It’s Not About Oil, It’s About Currency and Loans” (April 26, 2011)
Same for China but first you have to have the digital infiltration. Like gOOgle, Facebook/Government Sacks can fulfil that order just fine.
“Ai Weiwei arrest protests at Chinese embassies worldwide” (Guardian.Co.Uk, Apr. 17, 2011)
From petition to Free Ai Weiwei!:
World-famous and beloved Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been “disappeared” by China’s state security forces. Every trace of Ai’s life and art have been erased from the Chinese internet, and his only hope may be a global outcry for his release.