The free-speech fundamentals of Freewebs

Iria · Apr 26, 2007, 07:22 PM

Source: News.com
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Shervin Pishevar believed he had to speak up.

At the D technology conference in San Diego, Calif., last May, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel was explaining why Yahoo turned over information that likely helped Chinese authorities sentence a journalist to 10 years in prison. Yahoo, Semel reasoned, had to obey the laws of the land in which it operated.

"It hit me hard," said Pishevar, whose family fled Iran after the 1979 revolution there. "I thought about apartheid and the Nazis. I thought that if Yahoo was around in the 1930s Anne Frank might have been blogging instead of writing in a diary. I asked Semel if he would have cooperated with the Nazis in that case." Semel responded that he didn't know how he would feel in such a situation, according to reports of the exchange.

Pishevar's tough question of the embattled Yahoo exec received wide media coverage, thrusting Pishevar into the limelight. But he's no activist. He's president of the Web site publishing company Freewebs, founded by four brothers from Afghanistan whose family had a similar experience running from political persecution: They fled to the U.S. in 1983 after their father was imprisoned for six months, without being charged, by the Communist Afghan government backed by the Soviet Union.

Apr 26, 2007, 07:22 PM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 87	The free-speech fundamentals of Freewebs Source: News.com ________ Shervin Pishevar believed he had to speak up. At the D technology conference in San Diego, Calif., last May, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel was explaining why Yahoo turned over information that likely helped Chinese authorities sentence a journalist to 10 years in prison. Yahoo, Semel reasoned, had to obey the laws of the land in which it operated. "It hit me hard," said Pishevar, whose family fled Iran after the 1979 revolution there. "I thought about apartheid and the Nazis. I thought that if Yahoo was around in the 1930s Anne Frank might have been blogging instead of writing in a diary. I asked Semel if he would have cooperated with the Nazis in that case." Semel responded that he didn't know how he would feel in such a situation, according to reports of the exchange. Pishevar's tough question of the embattled Yahoo exec received wide media coverage, thrusting Pishevar into the limelight. But he's no activist. He's president of the Web site publishing company Freewebs, founded by four brothers from Afghanistan whose family had a similar experience running from political persecution: They fled to the U.S. in 1983 after their father was imprisoned for six months, without being charged, by the Communist Afghan government backed by the Soviet Union.