Inside the decades-long fight over Yahoo’s misdeeds in China
www.technologyreview.com
The Yahoo Human Rights Fund was intended to support imprisoned Chinese dissidents. Instead, a lawsuit alleges that only a small fraction of the money went to help former prisoners.

To manage the fund, Yahoo partnered with Harry Wu—a noted Chinese dissident turned powerful anti-China activist—and his nonprofit, the Laogai Research Foundation. But Wu grossly mismanaged YHRF, spending less than $650,000—or 4%—of the fund’s total $17.3 million on support for online dissidents, according to the current lawsuit. One year, YHRF allegedly spent $0 on what was meant to be its primary purpose. (Some defendants contest these calculations.)

  • happybadger [he/him]English
    44•10 months ago

    Wu was born into an affluent family in Shanghai; his father was a banking official and his mother had descended from a family of well-to-do landlords.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Wu

    edit: Also an accused paedophile:

    In March 2015, a Virginia woman named Wang Jing publicly accused Wu of sexually assaulting her and three underage girls, the daughters of Chinese dissidents who were under her guardianship, in late 2013. Wu denied the accusation. Wang filed a lawsuit against Wu with the Fairfax County Circuit Court, and the case was scheduled to go on trial in January 2017.[

      • @ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
        26•10 months ago

        Who could have thought that the deranged right wingers who froth at the mouth about China were deranged right wingers the whole time!

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]English
        18•10 months ago

        I lived in Shanghai for many years and I just want to add that while there’s more than a few of these Gusanos floating around, the majority of the people are pretty cool and many of them are very patriotic.

      • @cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
        12•10 months ago

        Is this because Shanghai is often viewed as a technologically advanced yet morally depraved equivalent to Las Vegas, in China?

        I hope that I’m able to move to Shanghai one day.

        • @ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
          20•10 months ago

          Shanghai was a primary “treaty city” meaning it was EXTREMELY heavily influenced by the western world and liberal ideology for nearly 2 centuries.

          Its also a financial capital, meaning its full of bankers, investment moguls, and the ultra rich.

          • @cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
            8•10 months ago

            Yeah, I get all of that. From what I’m seeing though, it hopefully looks to be shedding that reputation piece by piece.

            • @ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
              1•10 months ago

              Not really in all honesty, China needs a financial capital for the time being, and Shanghai has worked perfectly for that. Little changed has happened there, and it is a major international hub, so the influence persists.

              Hopefully in the near future.

        • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]English
          9•10 months ago

          Think of it more as the NYC of China. You’ll know when someone is from there because they’ll tell you in the first five minutes of meeting them.

          • @cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
            7•10 months ago

            I’ve often seen and made the comparison myself that Shanghai is the “NYC of the East”, with a bit of Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Singapore and Texas built-in.