Yahoo, Chinese police, and a jailed journalist

Shi was arrested in November, and convicted in April of "providing state secrets abroad." He had e-mailed personal notes from a staff meeting about overseas Chinese returning for the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.

Yet until the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders released court documents showing that Yahoo's Hong Kong subsidiary played the central role in identifying Shi to police, his case was obscure.

"We think Yahoo's role is very sad in this case, and we hope Yahoo reexamines its policies," says Abi Wright of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has been following Shi's case for months. "But frankly, it isn't Yahoo but the Chinese authorities who are jailing this man, and we feel the focus of attention needs to remain on the authorities."

In the past year, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have been in competition to attract China's 95 million Internet users. They have been pressured to comply with local laws that restrict news and discussion. Google has agreed with authorities to censor its Chinese search engine, for example, as has Yahoo. Microsoft launched a Chinese blog service that forbits users from using certain words.

In China, "netizens" is the term for a class of mostly educated, urban Chinese who regularly use cyberspace for a range of activity and expression that exists in a grey area. Netizens tend to write in a world of information broader than is found in public culture. They read and discuss news and information from outside China that is not officially approved and therefore exists at best, semilegally. Both netizens and chat-room users typically use anonymous e-mail addresses.

Chinese netizens received their first shock two years ago when authorities tracked down one of the most famous anonymous cyber-essayists, Liu Di, who wrote under the name "Stainless-steel mouse." Ms. Liu, a college student, wrote satirically about the fact that while most Chinese no longer believe the doctrines of communist ideology, they must all act as if they do. Her writings caused much mirth - and official wrath. Authorities tracked Liu Di to her college and had the administrators reveal her identity through her IP address. She was then held for more than a year, without charges, before being released. The case triggered an Internet campaign to have her released, and for authorities to relax their policies.

But, in the current Party campaign of "ideological strengthening" and control of information, which has taken place alongside a push for a "harmonious society," the idealism that many felt characterized the Liu Di protest has largely evaporated.

"We understand that the Internet is not a safe space," says a cofounder of a Beijing Internet company. "We all have to be careful."

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