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IS NOT ALONE.Yahoo!
and Google have been roundly criticized for signing a "Public Pledge on Self-discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry" with the Chinese government, effectively turning the companies, in the words of one human rights leader, from "an information gateway to an information gatekeeper."Microsoft and Skype block terms they believe the Chinese government wants to censor.
Cisco supplies the routers that allow the government to divert Internet traffic away from references to the Tiananmen Square massacre.
China's system of Internet censorship and surveillance, popularly known as the "Great Firewall," is the most advanced in the world.China is not the only scoundrel.
In March, an Egyptian appeals court upheld a sentence of four years against Abdel Kareem Suliman Amer, for "insulting Islam and the president of Egypt" for his pro-democracy blog.
And in a tantrum against YouTube, the government of Turkey last month abruptly blocked the video service, where lurkers energetically and sometimes profanely argue over Turkey's unwillingness to recognize the 1915 genocide of ethnic Armenians.In a response to criticisms, Yahoo!
has claimed that it is "following local laws." But to claim "the law let me do it" is an evasion of a company's obligation...
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