To Go Global, Do You Ignore Censorship

Introduction:

The article, "To Go Global, Do You Ignore Censorship" looks at the case of Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist who was imprisoned for 10 years under the charge of "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities." Shi Tao worked for the Contemporary Business News in China, and in 2004, forwarded his notes on the Chinese government's instructions on covering the Tiananmen Square anniversary to a US-based network. This decrypted email, coming from a Yahoo email account, brought a great amount of criticism to Yahoo when they assisted the Chinese government in determining the email's origin. Yahoo's position on this action is that they were operating under Chinese law. Others, such as Liu Xiaobo, who wrote an essay on this case, feel this action was completely unethical and led to the conviction of a good journalist who was doing his job. Critics of Yahoo feel Yahoo had an ethical responsibility to protect their customer from the abuse of the Chinese government. A standpoint based on ethical principles shows that Yahoo's actions were not ethical at a Utilitarianism, Rights, Justice, and Care level.

1.) Data Gathering:

From a Utilitarianism standpoint, it is difficult to show that Yahoo's cooperation was unacceptable. Looking at this from a Cost-Benefit position, China is the world's largest internet market, and Yahoo ran the risk of violating the Chinese censorship regulations they signed and agreed to in 2002. Before the Shi Tao incident, Yahoo had recently