Not too long ago, Scoble (a Microsoft Blogger) got run up one-side and down the other for defending Microsoft’s business decision to block certain words (like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’) from the Chinese version of MSN Spaces. Eventually he was beaten into submission by a lot of people with some really, really weak arguments. There were enough of them, though, that he changed his mind. I suppose it’s a good thing that science doesn’t operate that way. At any rate, I avoided posting about it because I didn’t know enough about the MSN Spaces issue to speak on it.
Today, however, Rebecca McKinnon (an alleged “human rights blogger”) is calling out Cisco because China uses Cisco hardware to block internet traffic to her blog (and all TypePad blogs, Blogspot, blogs, and millions of other sites). There’s a small problem here, though.
Whose job is it to enforce freedom of speech in China? I don’t know what Ms. McKinnon’s personal opinion was on the war in Iraq, but you often find the folks who want to blame corporations for China’s policies are the same folks who opposed the liberation of the Iraqi people. Funny, isn’t it?
Also entertaining is that she calls for the repression of the American people to help the Chinese. Americans, she thinks, should be restricted from selling China technology to censor the internet. If a law like that would guarantee that China would be unable to block internet traffic, I might be encouraged to consider it something less that reckless. The unfortunate truth, though, is that the internet WILL be filtered in China regardless of who supplies the technology, and the fault for such censorship does not lie with Cisco, or Microsoft, or anyone outside of the Chinese Government.
She wants to know about Cisco’s knowledge of how their technology would be used. Be real. They’re selling internet routing technology TO CHINA. Everyone with four brain cells to rub together knows what it’s going to be used for. Bottom line: the economic freedom of Americans is predicated on allowing us to sell our wares to all comers… regardless of how they plan to use — or misuse — that technology.
Now, if she wants to boycott Cisco for that, well, that’s her right — and freedom — as an American. Cisco engages in a practice with which she disagrees, and it’s noble (although misguided) for her to participate in that boycott instead of being a sell-out. The line is crossed, however, when she advocates the limiting of American freedom to make Chinese oppression less convenient.
The bottom line here is that Rebecca McKinnon, at least in her most recent post, is a hypocrite.