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Jeff Jarvis (tell me more...)
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Jeff Jarvis submits:
I said in What Would Google Do? – and argued the point in a talk at Google (GOOG) in Washington – that Google and other technology companies have more influence than they know – and should use it – in protecting free speech and pressuring censorious governments. I see evidence of the strategy working – or hope I see it – in China’s decision Tuesday to delay its noxious Green Dam requirement for all PCs sold there. Government and companies put pressure on; China blinked.
Yahoo’s (YHOO) new CEO, Carol Bartz, said in July that it’s not her job to fix governments. But neither is it a company’s job to enable tyrannical governments in their tyranny. Technology companies from Cisco (CSCO) to Nokia (NOK) to Siemens that have provided technology to enable censorship and tracking, and companies from Yahoo to Google that have handed over information about users to governments that use it to oppress citizens should be ashamed. And we need to shame them. We need to give them cover by demanding behavior that is not and does not support evil.
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