Yahoo which fought for its "Right For Free Speech" in the
French Courts in the Nazi Memorabilia case has now yielded to the pressure
from China to the extent that it will not only remove content from its
Chinese web site that is inimical to the Chinese Government, but also agrees
to remove links to sites which could be against the Chinese Government
policies.
Washington Post in its
article on August 19th termed it as strange that Yahoo should fight the
democratic Government of France but meekly surrender to China. But for
observers in India would see this as a consistent attitude of the American
Government which always supports the dictatorial Pakistan against the
democratic India.
It appears that what moves the current American
Government and Yahoo is "Commercial Interests" and not Human Rights
principles. If Yahoo/US Government sees more money in its dealings with
China, it is prepared to sacrifice every principle that made America the
great country it is.
Internet was the greatest gift to mankind which could
unite the fractured societies into a one borderless Netizen Society. despite
the many problems associated with anonymity and 'Crimes across physical
borders', the unique nature of the Internet society held a hope for a future
society where the "Netizen" was a unique digital personality who could own
digital properties and undertake digital activities in the digital world
without the constraints that affected the physical world existence.
The main reason for the yahoo-China policy kind of
developments is that the Netizens are not organized to express their views
as a cohesive unit. Unless they come together to assert "Cyber Democracy" of
the People of the Cyber Society to govern the Cyber Space by the people of
the Cyber Space, their voices will be lost in the wilderness. Until then we
will not only have dictators who would frown at "Search Engine Links to Anti
Establishment Sites", but also Commercial interests who would like to "Hack
into Netizen's Rights" to protect their IPR. One need not be surprised that
there will soon be "Ambush Marketing Strategies" from International
Cricket Council kind of organizations which may state that "After visiting
my site, you cannot visit my competitor's site for 24 hours !!" .
It is ironic that many are supportive of the curb on the
freedom of speech but not prepared to curb the evils of the Cyber society
such as Cyber Pornography. A similar tendency prevails in the Indian ISP
scenario today where ISP s are prepared to block commercially inconvenient
sites but not pornographic sites or anti national sites.
It is time for all of us to reflect whether we are
allowing commercial interests to destroy the founding principles of the
Internet and losing an opportunity to create a global village which not only
has no political border but also no social border separated by parameters
such as sex, age, or religion.
