There are a lot of people that think the Internet is going to bring information and democracy and pluralism in China just by existing.
From Rebecca MacKinnon
I know plenty of people in China who don't like what their government does to the Falun Gong, but they don't want to entrust their data to the Falun Gong, either.
Whatever Tencent can see, the Chinese government can see.
Pretty much anybody who does creative work in China navigates the gray zone. People aren't clear about where the line is any more, beyond which life gets really nasty and you become a dissident without having intended ever to be one.
There are many cases of activists having their Facebook pages and accounts deactivated at critical times, when they are right in the middle of a campaign or organising a demonstration.
Digital activism did not spring immaculately out of Twitter and Facebook. It's been going on ever since blogs existed.
There is clearly a constituency that appreciates the message that Google is sending, that it finds the Chinese government's attitude to the Internet and censorship unacceptable.
Yahoo! had a choice. It chose to provide an e-mail service hosted on servers based inside China, making itself subject to Chinese legal jurisdiction. It didn't have to do that. It could have provided a service hosted offshore only.
One day, people in China may be able to see the records of conversations between multinational tech companies and the Chinese authorities.
Professional camera crews are rarely there when a bomb goes off or a rocket lands. They usually show up afterwards.
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