After selling out ‘cyber dissidents’ in China, Yahoo tries to atone

Yahoo has set up a fund that will provide legal defense and family support to Chinese ‘cyber dissidents’ like the ones they threw under the bus in 2004:

Business journalist Shi and pro-democracy blogger Wang were given 10-year jail sentences as a direct result of information provided to Chinese authorities by Yahoo, their lawsuit alleged.

Shi has been imprisoned since 2004 for divulging state secrets after he posted a Chinese government order forbidding media organizations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising on the Internet.

Police identified him using information provided by Yahoo.

…

Yahoo had defended its actions on the grounds that it had to comply with China’s laws in order to operate there.

“After meeting with the families, it was clear to me what we had to do to make this right for them, for Yahoo and for the future,” Yang said when the settlement was announced.

“We are committed to making sure our actions match our values around the world.”

Yang said that was the reasoning behind establishing a Human Rights Fund to provide humanitarian and legal aid to dissidents who have been imprisoned for expressing their views online.

I went to a hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last fall where Jerry Yang was grilled over this incident. Chairman Tom Lantos fired the first and most devastating salvo by saying: “morally, you are pygmies.”

I don’t know how much good this fund will be able to accomplish, but the effort goes some way towards redeeming Yahoo’s ethical lapse. At the very least, it ensures that incidents like these won’t happen again. That’s a step forward in repelling China’s systematic suppression of free speech online.