Re: Yahoo! rejects French court ban on Nazi sites

[George Robinson <GRComm...>]

I hate to extend this thread any longer than necessary because it is
off-topic, but I have to respond. While I certain share Hope's dismay at
the existence and flourishing of such a site, I have to agree, perhaps
reluctantly, with Jerry Yang. Follow the reasoning in this case to its
logical end:

In China it is probably illegal to access websites that speak on behalf
of the Tibetan people's resistance to Chinese cultural genocide and the
forcible occupation of Tibet.

In Malaysia, Schindler's List was banned, ostensibly for nudity (!) but
in fact because the head of state in Malaysia is a right-wing Muslim.

It is probably illegal to access websites offering unbiased news
coverage (or pro-Israeli coverage) of the peace process in, say, Saudi
Arabia or Bahrain. 

Get the idea? 

I don't think I need to go on.

While Yang's tone is obnoxious -- always has been if you remember the
flap over messianic jewish sites being listed with bona fide Jewish
sites on Yahoo a few years ago -- his position is not without merit.

George Robinson


Hope Ehn Dennis Ehn wrote:
> 
> Protests or boycotts, anyone? Apparently the head of Yahoo shows more
> "respect for the Internet" than for the Jewish people! (This may be
> somewhat off-topic for a music mailing list, but no more so than the
> previous discussion of online sales of the "Protocols of the Elders of
> Zion.")
> 
> Hope Ehn           <ehn (at) world(dot)std(dot)com>
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> 16 JUNE 2000
> 
> PARIS (Reuters) - The co-founder of Yahoo!  Inc., Jerry Yang, has rejected
> a French court order to stop Web surfers in France gaining access to sales
> of Nazi memorabilia which appear on one of the Web sites it hosts. "We are
> not going to change the content of our sites in the United States just
> because someone in France is asking us to do so," Yang told French daily
> Liberation in an interview published Friday.
> 
> A Yahoo.com auction site puts hundreds of Nazi or neo-Nazi, and Ku Klux
> Klan objects up for auction each day, including films, swastikas,
> uniforms, daggers, photos and medals. Under French law, it is illegal to
> exhibit or sell objects with racist overtones.
> 
> A French court last month ordered California-based Yahoo! to report back
> on July 24 to explain the measures it had taken to prevent the French from
> participating in the sales. Yang said he was not going to take any steps.
> "Asking us to filter access to our sites according to the nationality of
> Web surfers is very naive," he said.
> 
> Lawyers representing Yahoo had told the court that it was not technically
> possible for the company to scan the content of all the sites carried on
> its service. "We have a lot of respect for national sovereignty, we also
> have a lot of respect for the Internet," Yang said. He said Yahoo!  did
> not control the Internet.
> 
> Yahoo! has previously said the French court had set a precedent which
> endangered the development of the Internet across the globe, and appealed
> to those who had started the court action to seek "suitable solutions" to
> the problem. The suit was started by the International League against
> Racism and Anti-Semitism and the Union of French Jewish Students.
> 

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