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Amnesty Intl. Sees Red over Yahoo China
The human rights group is calling for the Internet company to be
more socially responsible in China, but others say the Web giant is doing a lot of good
Amnesty
International is turning up the pressure on Yahoo! (YHOO ) to change
directions in China. Amnesty International USA, the American branch of
the international human rights group, is sending an official to Yahoo’s
annual shareholder meeting on May 25 at the Santa Clara Convention
Center in Silicon Valley. Anthony Cruz, the San Francisco-based Amnesty
official who plans to speak at the meeting, intends to use the meeting
as a platform to demand action from Yahoo executives. “We’re calling on
them to take a stand against China,” says Cruz.The human rights group
has purchased shares in Yahoo “so we can have a say in the company’s
human rights policy,” Cruz says. It’s not just Yahoo that is coming
under scrutiny from the group. Earlier this month, Cruz showed up at
Google’s (GOOG ) shareholder meeting thanks to Amnesty’s ownership of
some of that Internet search company’s shares. Cruz says that at the
Yahoo meeting he’ll call on the company to take action to win the
release of political prisoners in China.This will be just the latest
bout of unfavorable publicity that Yahoo executives have had to endure
regarding Yahoo China. Over the past few months, the Internet outfit
has been subjected to withering criticism from activists and lawmakers
in the U.S. for censoring its Chinese Web site and cooperating with
security officials in China investigating dissidents who used Yahoo’s
e-mail service.
SENSE OF OBLIGATION.
For instance, during congressional hearings in February, Rep. Tom
Lantos, a Democrat from California and survivor of the Holocaust,
compared the behavior of Yahoo and others in China to that of companies
cooperating with the Nazis under Hitler.Yahoo critics are particularly
incensed by the case of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist now in prison
thanks in part to evidence that Yahoo China supplied to police. Yahoo
has long contended that its Chinese arm had no choice but to provide
the information, since the company has to comply with local laws. Cruz
says that the explanation isn’t satisfactory. “You should have some
obligation to not immediately give out the information,” he says. “They
gave it so quickly without even looking into it.”Yahoo no longer owns
Yahoo China, having sold the company last year to Chinese e-commerce
specialist Alibaba. However, Yahoo now owns 40% of Alibaba, making it
the largest shareholder in the company. Yahoo has one seat on the
Alibaba board, with Japanese Internet powerhouse Softbank (SFTBF )
holding another, and Alibaba itself holding the remaining two.DOING GOOD?
For its part, Alibaba says that critics like Amnesty’s Cruz don’t
understand the good that Yahoo China is doing inside the country. “What
should not be lost in the debate is the fact that the Internet and the
Internet companies in China are having an overwhelmingly positive
impact on the lives of ordinary Chinese,” says Porter Erisman, an
Alibaba spokesman based in Hong Kong.Erisman points to the way the
Chinese use Yahoo China to get information, learn about the rest of the
world, and communicate with people outside China. “If [Yahoo’s critics]
see what is really happening on the ground in China and the amount of
openness and social liberties being created by the Internet, they would
realize that pursuing profits and helping China become more open are
not mutually exclusive,” he says. “What we see on the ground every day
is that China is changing very quickly.”
REMAINING AWARE.
While Alibaba encourages people to focus on the big picture, Amnesty
wants the spotlight on the human rights cases. Cruz says that he’s
going to call on Yahoo to demand the release of journalist Shi as well
as Li Zhi, jailed for eight years in 2003 after posting comments online
that criticized government corruption. Cruz knows that the chances of
Yahoo doing what Amnesty wants are quite slim.But he says that’s not
the point. “It’s important to continue to put pressure on companies and
make shareholders aware that this is happening,” he says. “That’s the
important thing, to get exposure on the issue.”China’s Internet market
is already the world’s second largest, and it’s only going to get
larger in the years ahead. At the same time, calls from activists like
Cruz in the West are probably going to get louder. For Yahoo, this is
one headache that’s not going away.
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