Who Profits from Censorship? Timothy Karr Tells All

Back in 2004, when I was still a student at a private university in Washington, I was appalled to discover that the company who regulated my university networks, Cisco, also sold products that allowed the Chinese government to censor websites and regulate information access. Cisco is not the only company profiting from authoritarian regimes. Timothy Karr, the campaign director for Save The Internet as well as a contributer to The Huffington Post, has written extensively on US companies aiding and abetting censorship overseas. One of his recent reports, "Censorship: Made In the USA" is a damning indictment of American companies supporting the crackdown of Arab bloggers and newsreaders simply by doing business with regimes not particularly for civil liberties.

Karr cites a new report published by the OpenNet Initiative, an NGO advocating for an Open Internet. The report lists several US companies who have sold technologies that red list or block access to websites to oppressive governments. These include the popular McAffee, Inc., Websence, Inc., and Palo Alto Network.  Previously, Karr had published a story concerning another US company, Narus, "which sold to Egypt and Libya an Internet spying technology that lets state security forces track online and cellphone communications and even target the speaker's whereabouts for arrest." This story kicked off an investigation by the House Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department. Karr writes that the results of these investigations are still pending.

According to Karr, Rep. Bill Keating (MA) is the only voice on Capital Hill promising to propose legislation that would prevent US companies from selling censorship technology. Karr has posted a link to a petition to both Rep. Keating and Sen. Dick Durbin (IL) to get this legislation moving forward. Of course, despite citizen action I have my reservations that these measures will succeed. One could say, the United States has a political interest in promoting free media, but on the other hand it depends.

This is not the first time American companies have committed abuses overseas where the interests of capitalism take precedence over liberal ideals. The logic these companies operate on is that simply because they sold the perpetrators the tools of the crime leaves them innocent of the crime because they're just doing business and are not responsible for the purposes for which their products are used. This logic is flawed because in the long-run these companies will suffer 'moral costs' of their amoral investments. Here moral realism can be applied: public opinion will ultimately tarnish the reputation of these companies and when the political status quo is overturned in countries where oppression has been the norm (as currently seen in the Middle East) they will lose their business. Companies can't continue doing business this way and profit in the long-term without considering the people they're exploiting and how that will effect their markets and image in the future. It's simply bad business. Short-term profits won't compensate for long-term losses.

On the bright side, however, some American companies understand the concept above and have taken steps to do business by promoting civil liberties. In 2009, Google faced-off with China over censorship barriers and had its license to operate in China revoked. Google has since renewed its license with China without making concessions to censorship. Moreover, Google is crafting and seeking influence Internet policy by supporting an open and free Internet. If other US companies followed Google's business model, conducting their business practices to empower people with their services and products instead of repressing them, they would be creating greater opportunity and profiting themselves by the very act of profiting others.

Update: A really fascinating story on Google just came out in which the Internet giant is investing $1 million on Internet censorship detection technologies. Go Google!!!

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Timothy Karr also runs a popular blog, MediaCitizen (http://mediacitizen.blogspot.com/), covering issues as far ranging as criticism of media policy, censorship, analysis on old media and new media.