Stop the Hipocrisy

I didn't intend to be overly political in this blog, but I want to get on my soapbox long enough to ask people to join my BOYCOTT of YAHOO.

The deal is this: Reporters without Borders is reporting yet another journalist was turned in to the Chinese government for his online prodemocracy postings. This is the THIRD time Yahoo has been implicated in this, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are more cases.

Frankly, I'm fed up. All internet companies operating in China participate to some degree with the censorship of internet searches and content - a very disgusting practice. However, only Yahoo! has been implicated in helping the PRC track down its supposed dissident journalists. I think this is reprehensible behavior, and I urge all of you to completely stop the use of all Yahoo email and web services.

After the first such report, I stopped all use of Yahoo search engines and removed Yahoo Widgets (formerly called Konfabulator) from all of my computers. I also refuse to use or recommend Flickr (a Yahoo owned service) as well as any Yahoo! email account.

Sure, it's bad enough that companies like Google and MSN join Yahoo in censoring internet content - but at least they aren't collaborating with these bastards in jailing people who disagree with their government.

And I just don't get this sack-less, hands-off treatment the world is giving China. If they intend to be regarded as a world-class power, they should start acting like one. Sure, I'm just as critical of the US for their abuse of free-speech and privacy rights and outright colonialism. But even now, the US is bending over backwards to these S*Bs, suppressing the free-speech rights of a woman and a reporter in the presence of the visiting Hu Jintao - in the US! WTF!

I cannot accept that the US and other G7 nations would continue to look the other way on China, just because of the economic opportunities this totalitarian state provides corporations. I cannot accept that China was granted the rights to the Olympics or deserves any level of respect by responsible governments and companies until they change their ways. It is truly absurd to think otherwise.

Remember, this is the government that murdered thousands of their own people in Tianamen square in 1989, leads the world in capital punishment, has destroyed much of their farmland and waterways for the economic benefit of the few, promotes the enslavement of the peasant class (population majority) in factories, and continues to threaten the only real Chinese democracy - Taiwan. I could go on.

Enough is enough!

Join my Yahoo! boycott, and at least push for responsible behavior by the tech industry.

OK, off my soapbox for now.