California-based Evernote Corporation’s chief executive Phil Libin recent comments suggest he either has extraordinary powers of telepathy, a narrow minded view of the Chinese people or cares for nothing but money.
His ill considered comments following Evernote’s announcement they were opening an office in China despite the their flagship product a popular online note-taking and archiving tool being open to the authorities surveillance and interference was staggering.
According to Freedom House’s summation of media coverage he said“the overwhelming vast majority of people in China aren’t going to care” about exposure to state monitoring and would prefer better service to data security.
First of all the suggestion that he can speak for the Chinese people is equally ludicrous and offensive. Add to that his conjecture that the Chinese care more for efficiency on the internet than fundamental human rights makes for chilling reading.
It is disturbingly like the justification for Mussolini’s bloody rule of Italy and alliance with Nazi Germany was that he made the trains run on time.
I am sure any number of Italians appreciated the ability to be able to more carefully plan their travel. Whether that justified censorship, repression, extrajudicial executions and participation in genocide is not even a question that needs to be asked.







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