Web giants urged to act over threats to freedom.

Alagi Yorro Jallow

On the same day that Amnesty International launched a campaign for internet freedom,Google’s Principal Scientist,Krishna Bharat,faced questions from IPI delegates.

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During one of the sessions ‘The Rise of the Internet Journalist,’Bharat was quizzed about Google’s controversial developments in China,where the Google.cn search engine is adapted to block results of a search on topics deemed to be politically sensitive.

Bharat said’We faced a choice in China,whether to provide 99 percent of the information at all.We took the decision that it was better to provide quite a lot of something rather than nothing at all.’

Donnacha Delong,editor of Amnesty International’s news.amnesty,disagrees.Amnesty’s new campaign,irrepressible.Info,is aimed at stopping governments from censoring the internet.Delong says that developments on the net in China are perhaps their biggest worry.

He said’The problem is that a range of companies would put their business interests ahead of human rights issues.They’re willing to go in and provide products to the Chinese government without thinking how they’re used,and what they ‘re used for’.

Along with Google,companies ncluding Microsoft,Cisco,and Yahoo have been criticized by the human rights campaigners for producing technology that has led to the arrest of ‘dissent’ journalists,the suppression of information and denial of freedom of speech in China.

‘And these companies were perfectly happy to provide the technology to let them do that,’Delong added.Dan Gillmor,a dedicated blogger and advocate for grassroots media,who was also on the internet journalism panel,said ‘Clearly some companies are participating in some technology or co-orporating in ways that raise troubling issues.

‘I hope they will find ways to have good business over time that do not rely on helping governments to deny people fundamental human rights’

Delong Believes companies are tangled between respecting human rights and pursuing their business interests.

‘It can be confusing because,on one hand,Bill Gates has invested a lot of money in projects that promote human rights.But at the same time,his company has been involved in shutting down freedom of speech’.