Nora Sleeth is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.
are taking a to freedom of speech and have filed suit against Chinese search engine Baidu and the Chinese government.
currently provides the leading search engine in China, with as many as . Baidu鈥檚 success is primarily with Chinese government policy. Baidu鈥檚 domination was fuelled by Google鈥檚 to pull out of China in March of 2010. Google elected to redirect Chinese searches to Google鈥檚 Hong King servers, . In doing so, Google rejected the Chinese government鈥檚 censorship practices and gave Baidu a in the Chinese market.
Through Baidu, the Chinese government is able to censor the Internet content made available to Chinese citizens. social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, pro-democratic materials, YouTube, pornography and gambling, and criticism of the Chinese Communist Party. The censorship policies are to control citizen behaviour and promote a stable society.
Baidu is a co-defendant to the Chinese government in the lawsuit, May 18, 2011,聽at the Southern District of New 91亚色 District Court in Manhattan. The eight American plaintiffs are Chinese residents of New 91亚色 and who the censorship of their writings and videos violates their freedom of speech and the American constitution. The censorship is by Baidu鈥檚 compliance with the Chinese government鈥檚 requests.
According to counsel for the plaintiffs, Stephen Preziosi, the allegations are that Preziosi has also stated that Baidu and the Chinese government are in violation of both federal and New 91亚色 human rights laws as The lawsuit requests $16 million in damages, or $2 million per plaintiff, but does not ask for any changes to the Chinese government鈥檚 censorship policy. Preziosi has said that any expectation of change is
China鈥檚 Foreign Ministry Chinese citizen鈥檚 freedom of expression is guaranteed in accordance with Chinese law. As such, it is a sovereign matter, and therefore, according to international law, it is not within the jurisdiction of foreign courts. Regardless, China to the lawsuit or a default judgment will be filed against the nation.
The decision in this case an important precedent governing American involvement in foreign affairs.聽 While controversy is likely to arise regarding the question of American jurisdiction over foreign government, the global nature of the Internet clearly results in a broader impact of one nation鈥檚 anti-free speech policies.
The case is filed as Zhang et al v. Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New 91亚色, No. 11-03388.