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Members of a hepatitis B support group in China, numbering about 300,000, lost their online forum in a Chinese crackdown on civil society. Now some say they may be forced into taking drastic measures, even during the Olympics.

In an unusually prominent threat of collective action in China, Lu Jun, who ran a recently blocked site for carriers of hepatitis B, said some disgruntled members may be planning protests during the Olympics, according to the Financial Times:

Mr. Lu, who heads a rights group that has helped carriers sue companies such as IBM and Foxconn for discrimination, said the Web site was a gathering place for sufferers who had little other opportunity to vent their frustrations, or find support from doctors and fellow patients. By shutting it down, the Chinese government risked pushing patients to take drastic actions, Mr. Lu said.

"A common refrain in the messages we have received from members since the Web site was shut down is: 'I love my country, but my country doesn't love me,'" Mr. Lu said.

(The site) "In the Hepatitis B Camp" was first shut down by the government last November. On Tuesday, Mr. Lu said an official had told him at the time that the closure was due to the upcoming Olympic Games. Mr. Lu managed to reopen the Web site by moving it to an overseas server, but Beijing last month began blocking access to the Web site within China, just 10 days after government officials participated in an event for World Hepatitis Day at the Great Wall.

Senators Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) discuss their concerns about Internet censorship by foreign countries, including China. Chinese authorities serve up the cartoon cops (pictured here) on its citizens' screens from time to time as reminders that they're being monitored.

(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com)

WASHINGTON--Senators on Tuesday pressed executives from Yahoo, Google, and Cisco Systems to justify their business practices in China and other Internet-censoring countries, with Cisco in the hot seat over new allegations of cozier-than-confessed ties with the Chinese police.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who led the morning hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee's human rights panel, said he is actively considering whether to draft new legislation that, similar to a pending House of Representatives proposal, would place a host of new restrictions on American companies doing business in Internet-restricting countries.

Durbin said he appreciates the efforts of American companies to promote free expression in otherwise oppressive countries but believes some are falling short on those pledges.

"Perhaps it's time for Congress to consider converting this moral obligation into a legal obligation," he said.

Still, the event lacked the pervasive finger pointing and name calling that punctuated two previous hearings about similar topics in the House of Representatives during the past two years.

Durbin set the tone for the less antagonistic hearing, which lasted barely two hours and counted only three politicians present at its most crowded, by saying up front: "This is not a black and white issue, and this is not an easy issue. U.S. technology companies face difficult challenges when dealing with oppressive governments."

Cisco and China: Censorship collaborators?
Two human rights activists present at the hearing, however, said it's clear that the companies aren't doing nearly enough to resist demands that they censor their services and called for new legislation to address that issue.

Cisco general counsel Mark Chanlder listens to Shiyu Zhou, a Chinese human rights activist, after Tuesday's hearing. Zhou says internal documents show Cisco has been assisting the Chinese government's censorship aims, which the company denies.

(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com)

Although Yahoo has arguably faced the most protracted scrutiny from politicians at previous hearings, Cisco endured the bulk of the questions this time.

A portion of the hearing focused on a 2002 internal Cisco presentation, which was provided to the subcommittee by Shiyu Zhou, deputy director of a group called the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, which creates technological tools designed to circumvent censors. In Zhou's view, the 90 PowerPoint slides, which Cisco says were produced by a lower-level Chinese employee working in China, suggest the company assisted the Chinese government in meeting its censorship aims, although Cisco vehemently denied those allegations.

The slides--a translated copy of which was provided to CNET News.com--include descriptions of the Chinese government's so-called "Golden Shield Project," which is responsible for operating China's "great firewall." One slide lists one of the project's main objectives as monitoring and controlling the Internet to combat the "Falun Gong evil cult," a spiritual practice that the Chinese government has persecuted.

Another slide lists planning, construction, technical training, and maintenance as "opportunities" for Cisco, which Zhou argues "flatly rebut(s) Cisco's repeated and self-serving claims" that it has sold the same generic routers and other equipment to China as to any other government and does not in any way assist with its censorship goals. Zhou said he provided the subcommittee just before the hearing with another presentation that offers additional evidence to that effect.

Cisco general counsel Mark Chandler attempted to defuse those allegations, saying he was "appalled" to see the anti-Falun Gong line included in the presentation. He denied once again that his company has participated in any way in the Chinese government's censorship activities, saying Cisco does not customize its equipment to meet those aims.

"We disavow the implication that this (presentation) in any way reflects Cisco's views," Chandler told the committee.

Durbin called the presentation "troubling" and asked Chandler to explain what policies Cisco has in place to make sure its employees don't cooperate with foreign censors.

Chandler said the company has an "extensive written code of conduct," and "employees who would customize our products in such a way as to undermine human rights would not be consistent with the code of conduct." He added that Cisco isn't sure exactly what devices the Chinese government uses to monitor and filter its network but believes the Chinese government itself has devised those tools.

An industry code of conduct
As they have done in the past, executives from Google, Yahoo, and Cisco each defended their current practices, saying they have no choice but to comply with the law in the countries where they operate. But, on the whole, they said they firmly believe the presence of their technologies does more good for the people of the countries who can access it, even if it's used in a restrictive way, than would the utter absence of their services.

"It isn't perfect, as we know, that but we do think that something about being there is right," Google deputy general counsel Nicole Wong told the subcommittee.

Durbin voiced some skepticism about that argument. "When you are asked to be complicit through your companies in restricting the flow of information for the public good and the public health, aren't your hands a little dirty at the end of the day if you participate in that?" he asked the companies.

As Durbin sees it, there are two areas of concern: when companies censor information, such as search results, based on government requests; and when they turn over private information about subscribers in response to government requests related to activities that wouldn't be illegal in the United States.

The Illinois Democrat cited Google and Yahoo's censorship of search results on their Chinese search engines, as required by Chinese officials, and grilled Yahoo deputy general counsel Michael Samway over Yahoo China's decision a few years ago to turn over information about dissident writer Shi Tao that led to his imprisonment.. (Yahoo, for the record, currently owns a minority stake in Yahoo China.) Rather than hinting more closely at what sort of legislation he has in mind, Durbin stuck to asking broad questions.

"Should we declare it wrong for an American company to in any way cooperate with censorship and repression?" Durbin asked.

Wong, Chandler, and Samway each reiterated their calls for additional help from the government, whether through trade negotiations or new legislation, to protect their operations in countries where legal standards differ dramatically.

They also pointed to their efforts during the past 18 months to begin working out a solution on their own, by devising industry standards for dealing with such countries, in conjunction with human rights organizations, socially responsible investors, and academics. The companies said agreement is on the way, although a Human Rights Watch representative, Arvind Ganesan, seemed somewhat less optimistic about the companies' willingness to have their overseas practices monitored by a third party, as human rights activists have proposed.

Durbin questioned why the code of conduct hasn't been completed sooner, challenged each of the representatives present "to no longer tolerate the delay," and warned that Congress would be monitoring their progress closely.

"I hope within the next 48 hours we'll have an announcement," Durbin said, referring to the code of conduct. "That would be terrific."

The Pirate Bay, a popular BitTorrent tracking site, has launched a blogging service where bloggers won't have to fear censorship, according to TorrentFreak.

(Credit: The Pirate Bay)

The new blogging site, dubbed BayWords, is powered by Wordpress and will eventually make money off ads.

The Pirate Bay already has an uncensored image-hosting site call BayIMG and has confirmed it is working on an uncensored video-hosting site.

Brokep, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, told blog TorrentFreak that the group decided to launch BayWords after a friend's Wordpress blog was removed for linking to copyrighted material.

"Many blogs are being shut down for uncomfortable thoughts and ideas," the group wrote on the BayWords home page. "We will not do that. Our goal is to protect freedom of speech and your thoughts. As long as you don't break any Swedish laws in your blog, we will defend it."

While you can use the blog to write about whatever you want, that doesn't mean that everyone will be able to read it. In February, a Danish court ordered a Danish ISP to block access to The Pirate Bay, and Chinese authorities block access to content regularly.

The group also faces a possible lawsuit from musical artist Prince over copyright issues.

This blog is often faced with the question of whether to post methods of accessing sites that are inaccessible from China because of government controls. I want to turn the question to readers, who I hope will have some opinions. Help me decide whether to reinstate a workaround for Chinese Wikipedia.

The argument for posting: I tend to believe it would be selfish to keep circumvention methods to myself when others who are less habitually engaged with technology news would also appreciate a way around the blocks. For instance, before the BBC News site was unblocked, I posted information on a URL that would let users through because of a quirk in the addressing on the BBC site--namely, the newsvote.bbc.co.uk mirror of news.bbc.co.uk was not blocked. I believed readers of Sinobyte would like to be able to use BBC News, and I got positive feedback in private.

The argument against posting: People who argue against posting workarounds hold that publicizing circumvention increases the likelihood of detection, and following that, more thorough blocks. It's a simple and persuasive point. If the authorities responsible for implementing blocks want something inaccessible, they might keep track of how people are beating their blocks and try to fight back.

Dealing with disagreements: Back when I posted the BBC URL, someone dashed off a comment criticizing my journalistic responsibility. I disagreed on that point and responded as follows: "I appreciate your concern, but in my experience merely posting something like this doesn't get a block in place. Moreover, on the journalistic responsibility point, this post doesn't put anyone in jeopardy, and most Internet users around here know how to get to what they need anyway. Guides on higher-profile sites than mine telling users how to access censored sites haven't led to simple blocks of several proxies. I think this URL an easy and valuable thing for some readers, and I know I'd appreciate seeing it in my RSS."

Indeed, especially on the journalistic ethics argument, I feel a particularly strong inclination to post the information. I was educated (or was it indoctrinated?) in a particular U.S. sense of proper press behavior. The main document of journalistic ethics in the United States is the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics. It's a long list of "don'ts" phrased as "dos." In my reading, the code gives arguments both for and against posting.

• For: under the heading "Seek Truth and Report it," the code asks us to:
  -- Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.
  --Give voice to the voiceless; official and unofficial sources of information can be equally valid.
• Against: meanwhile, under "Minimize Harm," we see:
  --Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
  --Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.

SPJ's code is by no means my personal code, but it is a useful starting point from a perspective of professionalism. In essence, this 20th century formulation of journalistic ethics asks us to weigh the value of free information with any harm that information may have.

My argument for posting: As I've mentioned above, I tend to lean toward publishing workarounds. It's not only because I tend to believe making this information more widespread is good for free information; it's because I see the potential harm as minimal. In the BBC example, far from causing an overall block, having the workaround posted happened to precede the full unblocking of BBC News' English site (and in one city, the Chinese version). Likewise, with the recent question of whether to keep the Wikipedia workaround online, this comes at a time when the English version is already available and the Chinese one still subject to a block. Celebrate as I may that I can read two major sites without a proxy, the censorship (the "harm," if you like) is still in place for Chinese users unable to read English well.

The Internet blocking regime in China, in my experience, is full of holes. It's popular to speculate that authorities know they cannot affect a total block but are working instead to deter users not committed to accessing restricted information and perhaps to encourage self-censorship. Especially in English, vocal critics of internet censorship remain unblocked. Rebecca MacKinnon, a former reporter who teaches at Hong Kong University, blogs vocally about freedom issues. Ted Chien, who asked me to take down the URL, a decision I'm taking under consideration now, blogs about some of the same issues in English and Chinese on Blogspot, which is now unblocked.

Even before a recent opening that may be connected to the Olympics in August, government blocks were far from complete. Determined individuals can get through the blocks, and the government does little to eliminate proxies, even as it blocks a large amount of information through site-wide blocks or keyword filtering. And when one workaround fails, another inevitably arises. Though I haven't actually had any of my several free proxies blocked while working from Beijing over the last nine months or so, friends who have seen theirs go have simply switched. My ultimate question, then, is what's the value of a workaround if we don't tell people about it?

I'd love to hear from others on this issue. Please comment here or e-mail me directly at sinobyte /[at]/ gwbstr.com.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang cracks a smile while chatting with reporters after a speech Thursday at Georgetown University.

(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com)

WASHINGTON--The last time Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang was called from Silicon Valley to the nation's capital, politicians lambasted him as a moral "pygmy" and subjected him to multiple hours of grilling about the company's role in the conviction of a Chinese cyberdissident.

But in a dim, historic library on Georgetown University's campus here on Thursday afternoon, the portal's chief executive was a guest of honor--or, as university President John DeGioia put it, "an individual of such great distinction...someone who deeply understands the importance of scholarship to the advancement of society."

Yang was there to offer "reflections" during a program spotlighting research by Irene Wu, the first recipient of a Yahoo-sponsored scholarship designed to encourage studies focused on the links between international values and Internet technology. He used the brief appearance to reiterate his call for the U.S. government to lead the way on what he characterized as the difficult issue of doing business in countries with more restrictive laws.

"Every day we witness multiple laws, multiple jurisdictional issues," he said in response to an audience member's question after a brief scripted speech. "These are not issues that I think we can arbitrarily decide as a company. More often than not we are faced with very gray areas of freedom of expression versus censorship, legal versus not legal."

Yahoo--along with Microsoft, Google, and others--has endured heated criticism from members of Congress and human rights groups (and a handful of lawsuits) for providing information about its users to the Chinese government, allegedly prompting arrests and imprisonment of dissidents for dubious reasons. The companies have said that such cooperation is necessary to comply with Chinese law. (Yahoo currently owns about a 40 percent stake in Yahoo China and sold the rest to the Chinese company Alibaba Group a few years ago.)

Since then, those companies been working with academics, human rights organizations, and socially responsible investors to try to draw up industry standards for dealing with countries that limit information flows and their citizens' freedom of expression. Yang said in his Thursday speech that he hopes a final product will be announced in the "near future."

Thursday's event, which lasted about and hour and was followed by a wine-and-cheese reception, drew about 70 people, most of whom were Georgetown students and faculty. Among the attendees were two of Yahoo's top in-house lawyers, Michael Callahan and Michael Samway, and human rights activist Harry Wu, who is helping to coordinate a humanitarian aid fund that Yahoo established as part of a high-profile settlement Yahoo reached last year with two jailed dissidents and their families.

Harry Wu and Yang also met jointly with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein about human rights issues earlier on Thursday, a Yahoo spokeswoman said.

At the Georgetown event, Yang urged the government to take an active role as well, citing his calls earlier this year for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to help secure the release of jailed Chinese political dissidents who used the Internet to spread information.

"Companies in our industry try to figure this out on our own...but we think we're hitting more gray areas than ever before," Yang said, later adding: "I do think we will have to come up with different models that work in different places. At least I'm convinced there's not a one model fits all answer to that question."

Although they've welcomed government involvement on the diplomatic front, Internet companies have been less enthusiastic about new regulations backed by human-rights groups that would require them, among other things, to store electronic communications outside designated Internet-restrictive countries.

The Yahoo fellowship at Georgetown is slated to continue for eight years, with next year's fellow expected to be picked by month's end, said John Kline, director of the master of science in the school's Foreign Service Program. Yang said he hopes the scholars who receive the awards may help to resolve how companies should sort out conflicting laws and moral regimes.

Irene Wu, for her part, already holds a doctoral degree and used her fellowship to take a hiatus from her post as director of research at the Federal Communications Commission's international bureau. The self-professed "intellectual adventure" allowed her to study the extent to which technology over the years has produced a "transformative effect" on international politics.

And just in case anyone was wondering, we reporters in attendance didn't shirk our duties to swoop down upon Yang after the event and inquire about the latest on Microsoft's big bid. In response, predictably enough, he flashed us a smile and declined to comment.

I just got done mentioning how hard it is for me to fully participate in Wikipedia from China. But English-language Wikipedia is suddenly accessible tonight from Beijing.

Obviously, Chinese officials read this blog and care very much about my opinions. (Blogspot's available too, but I didn' t ask for that. So whatever.)

I can't say I discovered this on my own. Danwei's "Net Nanny" post tipped me off.

I can confirm that both Wikipedia and Blogspot work from my connection and that this will make my life easier.

But as Danwei, the Chinese media and culture site, reports, Wikipedia's Chinese-language site is still blocked. Thus unfortunately, the argument that I made previously--that Wikipedia still lacks very important participation from this part of the world--will continue to stand.

The iconic Olympic sites in Beijing

(Credit: Graham Webster)

An Associated Press article coinciding with the change notes that Olympic officials are grappling with how to keep up appearances with foreigners as they arrive in Beijing. The usual estimate is that 500,000 people will come for the games. In the article, an official was quoted as saying he hoped the Internet would be open for media during the games:

Kevan Gosper, vice chairman of the IOC coordinating commission, said blocking the Internet during the games "would reflect very poorly" on the host nation.

"Even this morning we discussed and insisted again," Gosper said. "Our concern is that the press is able to operate as it has at previous games--at games time."

Gosper said the Chinese had an obligation under the so-called "host city agreement" to open Internet access to 30,000 accredited and non-accredited journalists expected to attend.

"There was some criticism that the Internet closed down during events relating to Tibet in previous weeks, but this is not games time," Gosper said.

Danwei calls this an "explanation," but I think it's more ambiguous. This change is similar to the unblocking of the English BBC News site in recent days: the Chinese counterpart is still blocked. The strategy of allowing open access in English and other non-Chinese languages while restricting Chinese-language sites feels like a P.R. move. Journalists from other countries will stop complaining so much about not being able to screw around online and comment on their friends' blogs, and the Chinese authorities still get to control content for the majority of Chinese Net users.

The two changes may also reflect a technical similarity, and possibly new infrastructure. The Chinese and English Wikipedia sites are differentiated using subdomains: cn.wikipedia.org vs. en.wikipedia.org. Similarly, the URLs for English and Chinese news on BBC are easily differentiable. This may mean a shift from IP filtering to URL filtering. Either way, offending requests still appear to be met with "connection resets."

That's right, Wikipedia now has 10 million articles. But participation in this global brain-share is restricted in China.

Wikipedia being blocked is news to no one in China, but there's a bit of a catch-22 even for those who use proxies to get around the restrictions: many proxy URLs and anonymizers are banned from editing Wikipedia to reduce vandalism.

When I want to see an article on Wikipedia, I pop it into the Anonymouse Web site, and the content comes right up. But if I see a mistake in an article, I'm unable to make my contribution.

Vandalism on Wikipedia is a serious issue. People turn entire pages into insults directed at their subject. Others insert more insidious misinformation that's hard to detect. The community is generally very good at catching these things, but banning open proxies was seen as a good way to reduce the number of people doing these things with impunity. If you don't want your own IP to get banned for vandalism, maybe you'd use a service that hid your identity.

Tor is perhaps the best known relatively robust anonymizing tool online. The Global Voices Online project promotes it in its guide to anonymous blogging. (It's in English, but not blocked in China.) But Tor nodes, too, are usually blocked for editing.

This means that people in China would have to display exceptional ingenuity to participate in the great compilation of information going on at Wikipedia. Some time ago, I wrote a review of now-Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein's book Infotopia. Sunstein focuses his book on the great potential, and potentially great downfalls, of online information gathering by massive communities.

To his reservations, I add one. By no means am I the first to point this out, but when Wikipedia excludes most Internet users from the most populous country on Earth, it's got a long way to go before its relative robustness in English is matched in Chinese. Of course, the billions of individuals not online around the world are also missing their say.

Here's to 10 million nodes in this emerging body of knowledge, but idealists should be careful to note the limits of the project. I just hope the franchise extends more and more. If nothing else, I have a lot to learn from people who aren't yet participating.

For the second year in a row, Google shareholders will be asked to hold the Web search giant accountable for protecting free speech, regardless of international borders.

One of the proposals to be submitted at the annual shareholder meeting scheduled for May 8, would require Google to create policies to protect freedom of access to the Internet, according to the company's proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and released publicly on Tuesday.

"Technology companies in the United States have failed to develop adequate standards by which they can conduct business with authoritarian governments while protecting human rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression," the proposal states.

The measure would require that Google: not host data that can identify individual users in Internet restricting countries; resist demands for censorship; inform users when it has censored content; and tell users about its data-retention practices.

The proposal is similar to one Google shareholders rejected a year ago that would have prohibited Google from proactively censoring itself.

The measure is being submitted by the St. Scholastica Monastery and the Office of the Comptroller of New York City, which serves as the custodian of the pension and retirement funds for city employees, teachers, police and fire department and the board of education.

A second proposal would establish a board committee on human rights that would review and make recommendations regarding human rights issues raised by the company's activities and policies. That proposal comes from Harrington Investments, which manages assets for institutional and individual investors and specializes in socially responsible investing.

Google's board is recommending that shareholders reject both of the measures.

The proposals are timely, in light of China's recent ban of YouTube because of clips showing protesters in Tibet, and a YouTube ban in Pakistan that triggered a two-hour global blackout of the popular video-sharing site.

While Yahoo has received the harshest criticism after its cooperation with Chinese authorities led to arrests of Internet journalists, complaints about Google's policies started in earnest two years ago when Google began censoring Web searches in China.

The proxy statement also includes other nuggets of information. For instance, Google's board adopted a policy in October that specifies the company will only enter into transactions with family members when the transaction is in the best interests of the company. Last year Google invested more than $4 million in 23andMe, a company targeting Web-based genetics tools that was started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. That financing was reviewed and approved by Google's Audit Committee.

The board also approved spending $1.1 million--$7,000 per hour--to charter a corporate jet for executives to fly in last year.

Also permitted were: Google's sponsorship of the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million international competition to land a robot on the moon; $1 million in financing for Comsenz, a provider of social-networking software and hosted services for Web sites in China; and the $20.3 million acquisition last year of PeakStream, developer of a software application platform for multiprocessor systems.

William Long at Moonlight Blog reports that YouTube is again accessible from his connection in China.

I'm in Osaka, Japan, but a friend in Beijing, who prefers to be identified as "Hot Mama in Beijing," confirms.

Hot Mama adds an anecdote: Last Friday, YouTube was accessible but anything related to what we called T%%% to avoid filters would return a message to the effect of, "This content is not available in your country." Though it would be relatively easy for Chinese filters to replicate this result, this may indicate some effort on YouTube/Google's part. Mama reports that YouTube soon went completely dark, until just now.

Another glitch that emerged, which may suggest some sort of Google involvement, is that when Mama was sending Gmail messages, anything containing the nonredacted T%%%, or even its first three letters, would return an error message she'd never seen, stating that there was an error while sending.

This is by no means certain to be Google involvement. Transmitting sensitive keywords may have triggered a stall that Google recognized as trouble--something Hot Mama would not have usually seen in Beijing or New England. Similarly, YouTube may have correctly interpreted the block and redirected to a human readable error page rather than the usual "reset connection."

I asked Hot Mama, who also wanted me to mention she's a truck driver (seriously), to try to access her Gmail, which had been terribly slow, using an anti-censorship micro-tactic: Instead of accessing http://mail.google.com, go for https://mail.google.com. The result was stark, she said. Everything loaded much faster. This suggests that encrypted communications are not being seriously delayed but that language filters are engaging a larger portion of traffic than usual.

The YouTube messages are still vexing. Was YouTube cooperating or was this a very smart error message? To have a Google property that's not Google China itself cooperating with Chinese censorship would be unprecedented, to my knowledge.