Amnesty International has prepared a list of IT companies whose products are being used by the Chinese government in its efforts to censor Internet content and round up dissidents. The question is, of course, whether these companies are morally compromised. Personally, were I a shareholder in one of these companies, I wouldn’t be happy that they were profiting from this sort of activity. On the other hand, the Chinese government could just as easily use Linux and other open source tools for this sort of thing. Should people not work on Linux because it can be abused? Obviously not.
Naming names
Amnesty International has prepared a list of IT companies whose products are being used by the Chinese government in its efforts to censor Internet content and round up dissidents. The question is, of course, whether these companies are morally compromised. Personally, were I a shareholder in one of these companies, I wouldn’t be happy that they were profiting from this sort of activity. On the other hand, the Chinese government could just as easily use Linux and other open source tools for this sort of thing. Should people not work on Linux because it can be abused? Obviously not.
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