Investing Caffeine

U.S. to China, “What’s Wrong With a Little Porn and Anarchy?”

June 23, 2009 at 5:30 am 1 comment

The U.S. recently scheduled talks with the Chinese government to discuss the appropriateness of automated personal computer (PC) content filtering (including, pornography,  Falun Gong, and governmental protest content). Falun Gong is a meditatitve spiritual discipline frowned down upon by the Chinese government.

I can picture it now, U.S. officials calling up Chinese President Hu Jintao and saying, “Hey Hu, why not lighten up a bit on the freedom crackdowns  – what’s the big deal with a little pornography and anarchy?” The Chinese government feels that in the absence of structured laws, which would limit access to inappropriate content, the natives will become restless and ultimately disruptive. PC manufacturers would prefer not to reengineer PCs and increase the embedded costs to consumers by adding additional components. However, given the size of the Chinese PC market, the dominant foreign manufacturers are likely to cave to Chinese government demands, given the massive long-term potential of this Asian market. We have already seen Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), and Microsoft (MSFT) make concessions to the Chinese government in the algorithmic search arena.

The thematic parallels presently occurring in China apply to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) as well. Lord of the Flies is a story about a group of stranded kids (surviving a plane crash) that battle for survival on a deserted island. Due to the lack of law, adult supervision and questionable tendencies, all hell eventually breaks loose. The Chinese government, managing a population of 1.3 billion people, fears a similarly hellacious outcome if an uncontrolled, lawless population consumes unfettered, unhealthy content. Given mistakes we’ve made abroad (e.g., Abu Ghraib, and Guantanomo), the Chinese and other countries are questioning the strength of our moral compass in judging or guiding other countries’ policies.

Although the U.S. government’s intentions are in the right place to protect the personal freedoms of people globally, we are not currently in the strongest moral position right now to cram our beliefs down other’s throats. Even the freest of societies such as our own limits certain actions – such as underage voting, underage drinking, and public nudity (O.K., I’m stretching a bit).

Regardless of your political views, one can appreciate the fear of anarchy in the hearts of the Chinese government. Practically speaking however, given the openness and rapid expansion of the global internet, the Chinese can only slow the expansion of individuals’ freedoms – recent events in the Middle East just provide additional evidence to this premise.

DISCLOSURE: At the time of publishing, in addition to owning certain exchange traded funds, Sidoxia Capital Management and some of its clients also owned GOOG, but  had no direct positions in YHOO, MSFT, or any other security referenced. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.

Entry filed under: Financial Markets, Government, Politics, Stocks. Tags: censorship, china, content filtering, Falun Gong, goog, internet, msft, PC, porn, web filter, yhoo.