In the wrong hands, the internet is the perfect tool of oppression
It's been five years since the Chinese cyber dissident Wang Xiaoning was arrested, and then charged, for incitement to subvert state power.
Wang had been fingered as the editor of Free Forum for Political Reform, which, according to Human Rights Watch, was used to "advocate a multiparty political system, separation of powers and general elections". Wang Xiaoning has attracted much attention in the west, because his is the first known case where evidence used to convict was provided by a subsidiary of a western internet company, in this case Yahoo! (Hong Kong) Holdings.
This April, Wang's wife, Yu Ling, travelled to the United States to file a lawsuit against Yahoo! in a San Francisco court. Supported by the World Organisation for Human Rights USA, Yu will try Yahoo! on its home turf by taking advantage of the Alien Torts Claim Act, a 218-year-old law enjoying a renaissance in the hands of human rights lawyers (it brought Shell to the courtroom over its alleged complicity in the murder of the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa). In May, the family of Shi Tao, another jailed cyber dissident fingered by evidence from Yahoo!, added his name to the suit.
Yahoo!, much like its rival internet company Google, insists that in order to do business in China it must abide by local laws. On balance - its executives are heard to muse - surely the internet, made more accessible by Yahoo!'s search and related services, is a Good Thing? But this logic is exposed by recent moves in the west from internet companies to reassure users over privacy online. The data trails we leave behind when we use online services can be highly incriminating. Indeed, in the wrong hands, the internet is the perfect tool of oppression.
Faced with a market that will soon overtake the US as the biggest in the world, global public companies that make their money offering web services are in a bind: they must go into China, or face the wrath of their shareholders.
A favourable outcome for Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao in a San Francisco courtroom will at least make decisions about where to offer their services as complicated financially as they are ethically. But judicial intervention is no substitute for a successful US (and British) foreign policy that induces China to turn around its appalling human rights policy.
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