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Googling Censorship

Wednesday 15 February 2006

Jim Harper, Cato director of information policy studies, on search engine censorship in China:

"To avoid government bans on their products and information services, several technology companies have agreed to cooperate with restrictions mandated by Chinese authorities.

"This is censorship. Lovers of freedom deplore state censorship wherever and whenever it happens. But the one thing American technology companies could do worse than cooperating with the Chinese government is refusing and doing less business in China or none at all.

"Nothing should take the focus off the fact that the Chinese government persists in maintaining a deadly communist ideology. Companies making difficult compromises with the Chinese government should not be blamed for circumstances that are entirely of the government’s making. A useful byproduct of their necessary but unfortunate cooperation with the Chinese government is that the Chinese people will be more exposed to the world of information and ideas, including the value and strength of freedom.

"Abandoning China would be no help to the Chinese people. Competing technology providers stand at the ready gto provide government-friendly technologies and information products. Trade sanctions would hurt American companies without helping the cause of freedom. Congress should not restrict trade or use American businesses as a pawn in symbolic gestures that would ultimately hurt the Chinese people."

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