SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Yahoo shareholders overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to establish an anti-censorship policy at their meeting Tuesday. A proposal to establish a human rights committee to review worldwide implications of its policies, specifically in China, also went down in defeat.

The anti-censorship proposal only received 15 percent support, and the human rights committee received 4 percent.

In a controversial move in 2005, Yahoo gave emails of political dissidents to Chinese authorities. The emails were used as evidence to prosecute and imprison the dissidents.

In September 2005 Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based advocacy group, accused Yahoo and other Internet companies of "carrying out censorship for the Chinese government."

At the stockholder meeting, Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang said that Yahoo has held talks with the Chinese government about censorship. Yang also told shareholders that Yahoo had been lobbying the U.S. government to assist Internet companies in fighting censorship and supporting human rights in countries like China.

“Yahoo is committed to protecting human rights globally,” Yang said.

Shareholders also voted against board-nominated directors, although all were re-elected, and investors confronted Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel about executive pay and stock performance. One speaker said he "expected a kind of personal apology" from Semel and the board of directors after poor performance by the company.