Michael Connolly, a product unit manager on MSN Spaces, adds onto the China discussion with a post titled “Running a Service in China.” Here’s a quote from his post: “In China, there is a unique issue for our entire industry: there are certain aspects of speech in China that are regulated by the government. We’ve made a choice to run a service in China, and to do that, we need to adhere to local regulations and laws. ”
Scobleizer
Rackspace's Startup Liaison Officer
Wow. Microsoft having no integrity. What a shock.
Wow. Microsoft having no integrity. What a shock.
I’m sorry that “we are just following the law” argument is nonsense.
Michael Anti’s blog did not violate any Chinese law nor is there any law or regulation which compels MSN to take down his blog. You can prove me wrong by quoting which law or regulation compelled MSN to remove the blog.
People in the Chinese blogging community are very knowledgable about what the rules are and what they can get away with and what they can’t.
What has everyone upset is that as far as anyone is aware of, Michael Anti did not violate any rule imposed by the Chinese goverment yet his blog got taken down. He is currently still in China, blogging quite openly on other sites.
I’m sorry that “we are just following the law” argument is nonsense.
Michael Anti’s blog did not violate any Chinese law nor is there any law or regulation which compels MSN to take down his blog. You can prove me wrong by quoting which law or regulation compelled MSN to remove the blog.
People in the Chinese blogging community are very knowledgable about what the rules are and what they can get away with and what they can’t.
What has everyone upset is that as far as anyone is aware of, Michael Anti did not violate any rule imposed by the Chinese goverment yet his blog got taken down. He is currently still in China, blogging quite openly on other sites.
What law would be too much for Microsoft to bear? What law would be too much for you, Scoble, to personally bear being affiliated with Microsoft if they enforced? I think you should really think about these questions.
What law would be too much for Microsoft to bear? What law would be too much for you, Scoble, to personally bear being affiliated with Microsoft if they enforced? I think you should really think about these questions.
FYI. Michael Anti has moved to another site which is blocked by the Chinese firewall. A fairly large number of Chinese bloggers are now reproducing his blogs verbatim on MSN spaces.
Do you now plan to shut them all down?
FYI. Michael Anti has moved to another site which is blocked by the Chinese firewall. A fairly large number of Chinese bloggers are now reproducing his blogs verbatim on MSN spaces.
Do you now plan to shut them all down?
Unlike many, I have not had a beef with Microsoft until this moment. Their aggression is good business. The Justice Department went after a monopoly that had not yet formed (though I think it would have eventually formed). But this conformity to China’s censorship policy has incredible implications concerning the element of trust – and now a touch of fear. I have finally become convinced that Microsoft is not a benign power but one that sucks up to money and power because that is where its priorities are.
Unlike many, I have not had a beef with Microsoft until this moment. Their aggression is good business. The Justice Department went after a monopoly that had not yet formed (though I think it would have eventually formed). But this conformity to China’s censorship policy has incredible implications concerning the element of trust – and now a touch of fear. I have finally become convinced that Microsoft is not a benign power but one that sucks up to money and power because that is where its priorities are.
“Certain aspects of speech” — the fact that he used this phrase reeks of bullshit used to obfuscate the main point. Why not spell out what those aspects of speech are? Oh, I know: it would sound really awful if he did.
“Certain aspects of speech” — the fact that he used this phrase reeks of bullshit used to obfuscate the main point. Why not spell out what those aspects of speech are? Oh, I know: it would sound really awful if he did.
[...] BEJING – Microsoft is being criticized by international free speech advocates for its decision this week to censor a prominent Chinese blogger. This is the latest in a number recent cases of US-based technology firms helping the Chinese government suppress speech that is critical of government actions. The MSN Spaces-hosted weblog of Beijing media researcher Zhao Jing, who writes under the pen name ‘Michael Anti,’ was shut down after he published articles critical of management changes at the Beijing News. The three posts were censored for viewers inside China last week, and the blog was shut down completely on December 31, including Zhao’s access to all Weblog content, according to Zhao in an XFN-Asia report. China continues its aggressive campaign to closely regulate subversive speech, and there have been several media reports of related actions in recent months. Microsoft defends its current actions by stating that its corporate policy is to comply with the local laws of countries in which it operates. Last year Yahoo! was widely criticized for its decision to turn over the e-mail records of journalist Shi Tao to Chinese police after he circulated a government order to suppress media commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident on its 15th anniversary. Shi was sentenced in 2005 to a 10 year jail term, and Yahoo!’s disclosure was a key piece of evidence in the case against him. Cisco and other networking firms have been working with the Chinese government to implement what has become known as the ‘Great Firewall of China.’ Google has been accused of censoring Chinese content on its Chinese search engine, and Atlanta-based Verso Technologies said in a November 2005 release that it has begun ‘a paid trial of Verso’s NetSpective M-Class Solution to filter Skype and other peer to peer (P2P) communications with a Tier-One carrier based in China.’ Robert Scoble, a Microsoft employee and its ‘resident blogger,’ criticized related actions (see ZDNet piece) in media interviews and moderates a discussion on the subject here. (Interesting aside – Scoble’s blog is hosted on open source platform WordPress, a demonstration of the significant amount of ‘independence’ Microsoft actually tolerates.) [...]
No BILL of Rights, hey?
This is life under dominion.
The merging Venn diagram of “communist” China and our Command-and-Control corporate structures feels inevitbale as they both are Statist enterprises to their very genetic core. This touches deep nerves running through all of us – as evident by these comment threads.
Our founding fathers were explicitly anti-corporate from the Boston Tea Party to laying out how corporations should never live longer than a human being and were actually meant to be dissolved like the figments they are lest heady power blur frail human vision. They’d just suffered under chubby King George and his no-bid chummy contracts to bleed the colonies {arguably economic slaves} pallid and the Framers and Founders were in no mood to allow this to happen again.
So, hey, Bill, MSofties, if I take over a country and buy enough copies of Longhorn you’ll help my henchman crack down? I suppose if most of you look the other way while a few of you get hands dirty it’s all OK once the stock-options ripen – right?
WRONG – You don’t have to comply with local laws if you refuse to do business with local strongmen… but it all depends on how close one keeps billfold-to-soul, I suppose.
Money is not the measure of all things and waving opportunities in front of me with tempting deals or job offers doesn’t buy my respect, nor silence.
No BILL of Rights, hey?
This is life under dominion.
The merging Venn diagram of “communist” China and our Command-and-Control corporate structures feels inevitbale as they both are Statist enterprises to their very genetic core. This touches deep nerves running through all of us – as evident by these comment threads.
Our founding fathers were explicitly anti-corporate from the Boston Tea Party to laying out how corporations should never live longer than a human being and were actually meant to be dissolved like the figments they are lest heady power blur frail human vision. They’d just suffered under chubby King George and his no-bid chummy contracts to bleed the colonies {arguably economic slaves} pallid and the Framers and Founders were in no mood to allow this to happen again.
So, hey, Bill, MSofties, if I take over a country and buy enough copies of Longhorn you’ll help my henchman crack down? I suppose if most of you look the other way while a few of you get hands dirty it’s all OK once the stock-options ripen – right?
WRONG – You don’t have to comply with local laws if you refuse to do business with local strongmen… but it all depends on how close one keeps billfold-to-soul, I suppose.
Money is not the measure of all things and waving opportunities in front of me with tempting deals or job offers doesn’t buy my respect, nor silence.
Bill, I agree companies exist to make money, what I am saddened by though is individuals who lack the courage to stand up and reign that drive in. Humans can do things other than make money, and when you find yourself curtailing other’s rights in an effort to make money yourself it is time for some reflection.
Bill, I agree companies exist to make money, what I am saddened by though is individuals who lack the courage to stand up and reign that drive in. Humans can do things other than make money, and when you find yourself curtailing other’s rights in an effort to make money yourself it is time for some reflection.
[...] Robert Scoble: Followup to Chinese thing, off to CES y MSN’er adds to China discussion. [...]
“But with China’s economic power, when China says “jump”, MS says “How High”.
So does every other company. That’s just the way it is.”
But we can change “the way it is”. If enough American consumers protest (boycott?), we can make these decisions too costly for Microsoft, Yahoo and even Google. Now, the easy way out for companies is to favor the Chinese Communist Party and other repressive regimes. But if people that are against censorship of ideas such as democracy and independence would adjust their buying decisions accordingly, the Chinese Communist Party would find fewer US companies willing to do everything they could to help in the repression.
“But with China’s economic power, when China says “jump”, MS says “How High”.
So does every other company. That’s just the way it is.”
But we can change “the way it is”. If enough American consumers protest (boycott?), we can make these decisions too costly for Microsoft, Yahoo and even Google. Now, the easy way out for companies is to favor the Chinese Communist Party and other repressive regimes. But if people that are against censorship of ideas such as democracy and independence would adjust their buying decisions accordingly, the Chinese Communist Party would find fewer US companies willing to do everything they could to help in the repression.
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