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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Sloppy finger-pointing? [SocioPolitico]

As a student I went through a period when I was a reasonably active letter-writer for Amnesty International, and I still have a lot of sympathy for the aims of the organisation and the objectivity of their analysis. Seeing reports this week of their newest report, on internet censorship in China, it was distressing to see them claiming Sun was part of a group of corporations conspiring with the Chinese government to remove the liberty of citizens, either to access the Web or in some cases totally. One never wants to work for an 'evil empire' (another story some time...), so I decided to investigate on what they base their claim that:

Foreign companies, including Websense and Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Microsoft, have reportedly provided important technology which helps the Chinese authorities censor the Internet.

Digging up a PDF of the original report they cite as the source, it seems the connection is tenuous. Although Sun is named in the report, it is actually not in connection with providing internet censorship capabilities - instead, it's in connection with a different government contract. Of the other companies named, each has merely been the original source of standard technologies which have been turned to the end of censorship. I'm not sure John Leyden in The Register actually went back to the sources and checked them, but his comment:

And how much control do vendors have over the use of their technology? Much depends on whether the Chinese are adapting general purpose technologies for questionable ends or whether vendors are actively courting repressive regimes by developing Big Brother features in their products.

echoes the same sentiment from the Nortel spokeswoman in the SCMP article.

So what's the agenda here? Is this a case of Amnesty taking side-swipes at the easy targets - the big, evil corporations who make stuff that the oppressors use and must therefore be culpable - or is there a basis in fact of suspecting a lack of ethical foundation at work? Personally I find it far from proven from the hearsay evidence Amnesty cite in their report, but I'll watch for hard evidence as I travel. I admit I had thought better of Amnesty than to rabble-rouse with hearsay, though.

posted at 4:03 PM (UK) | |