Human Rights: At the Mercy of the Stockholder
June 13, 2007 |
The business side of me understands that China is a country more and more companies are moving into, and that a company like Yahoo! has to be competitive and move into China if its competitors are already there.
The other side of me, however, is frustrated that while there is a very vocal minority who protested some of the board's selections for directors at their most recent shareholders' meeting, only 4% of those same shareholders supported the creation of a human rights committee to review global policies.
Google, Yahoo!, and other companies all chant the same mantra: that it's better for citizens of countries like China to have access to some information than none at all. But realistically speaking, it has nothing to do with altruistic purposes or wanting to be law-abiding corporate citizens. Let's face it; it's all about money, and allowing the censorship that the government requires is what will keep these companies doing business there.
This is the same shareholder meeting where one director received 32.6% votes against election, and 34.6% of shareholders voted for a proposal that would have based executives' pay on "superior performance against competitors."
I can't help but notice that Web 2.0 seems to highlight a great divide between those viewing the Internet as a global community growing ever smaller, allowing us to reach out to others in a much more direct fashion (such as services like Kiva and FINCA International), and those who view the expanding Internet frontier as a new gold rush.
It's not that I'm against profit (obviously as I'm a professional writer), but I have a much harder time in this age of online social networking and vlogging and podcasting seeing things from a purely business perspective. It seems contrary to submit to censorship in some countries while utilizing things like Google Earth to highlight atrocities in Darfur. Would that same use of Google Earth exist if Darfur was an alluring business opportunity?
