Shi Tai, Li Zhi and Jiang Lijun currently are sitting out 8-10 year sentences in Chinese prisons for promoting multiparty democracy in one-party China. The mistake that put them in jail was trusting that the contents of their email accounts would be kept out of sight of officials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) . In 2004, CCP government officials learned that the men were using their Yahoo accounts to send information about pro-democracy groups in China. The government simply asked Yahoo who was sending the messages, and Yahoo—eager to please such a large client—meekly disclosed the information. 

In 2006, a congressional panel gave Yahoo a slap on the wrist for helping undermine efforts to democratize China. Yahoo argued that it needed to comply with the laws of the country in which it operated. In fairness, what Yahoo did was widely accepted as business as usual. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have all worked hard over the years to carve out a niche in the 1.3 billion-person market in China. They all seemed only too happy to make sure that their search engines were filtered in compliance with China’s restrictive censorship system, (AKA the Great Firewall of China). The uproar over the arrests of Chinese human rights activists resulting from Yahoo’s compliance quickly faded.

It appears, though, that the status quo of corporate titans meekly complying with Chinese internet suppression may have come to an end. On January 12, 2010, Google announced that it had been hit with cyber attacks. The attacks were targeted at academics, dissidents, and journalists who had voiced opposition to policies of the Party. Though the CCP has not claimed responsibility for the attacks, it is clear that it is a primary suspect not only because of its grievances with the parties involved, but also because of the relatively low number of organizations capable of the sophisticated attack on Google’s database.   In retaliation, Google decided to abandon its 33% of the market share of the largest group of internet users in the world. It moved its operations to Hong Kong, forwarding google.cn visitors to google.hk and its unfiltered search engine; however, it is unclear if Google will still be available to internet users in China.

Google (motto: “Don’t be Evil”) has a reputation for being socially attuned and in favor of liberal movements. While moral outrage probably was a factor in Google’s act of defiance, it is important to note that Google also had intrinsic motivations in this gesture. Google works hard to assure its users that their accounts are secure, and that’s a promise it can’t make in China today. This was a move to show customers that Google is really committed to keeping its users’ information private. Regardless of whether Google’s retaliation was based on moral or economic principles, it is clear that its new practices in the region constitute a complete reversal of its previous compliance with CCP demands.

Capitalist enterprises that deal in viral information have become the bread and butter of 21st century Western societies, but it is becoming increasingly clear that autocratic regimes throughout the world don’t like the soup.  In fact, Chinese cyber attacks on Google are only part of the story. The CCP and other authoritarian regimes are wise to recognize the danger posed to them by the Information Age.  This danger became clear during the protests in Iran last summer as YouTube and Twitter were the means of broadcasting images of Iranian State police forces suppressing protesters to millions of PCs around the world.

It is impossible for organizations like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft to sit on the fence and pretend—as Yahoo did in 2004—that they can successfully ignore or even stifle their potential in aiding democracy throughout the world. They will have to decide if they are going to support or challenge the brutal oppression of basic human rights. The Internet, for all its faults, has become an unexpected beacon of light that vampireic regimes around the world are struggling to shutter.

Zach is a senior majoring in political science.  Ken is a senior majoring in international relations.