Asia Media News Daily/South China News Post: Yahoo office accused of betraying journalist — Yahoo co-operated with mainland Chinese authorities to trace a journalist, leading to his arrest, Reporters Without Borders claimed yesterday

Disgusting news. I guess we all saw it coming, but it still is heartbreaking to see a pioneer of the internet (in those glorious halcyon days of the mid-90’s when the internet had such promise of being an avenue for the radical exercise of freedom of speech for all) become an agent of a totalitarian regime. Shame on Yahoo.

I do think though that maybe the US should have a federal law making it a crime to support a totalitarian state in ratting out journalists in this kind of way. Sure Yahoo might get kicked out of China if it complied with such a US law, but then China would suffer as more and more companies have to pull out, and in the end I think will have to cave in.

Also, I’ve been a customer of Yahoo for email for some time (I love their webmail interface with the premium account) but I think their action means I’ll have to look elsewhere for email services.

Thanks go to Okiedoke for alerting me to this story.