MSN’er adds to China discussion

That’s interesting, but this isn’t really about “in China”, but about Chinese-language content in the US.
Rebecca MacKinnon wrote,
“the blog remains inaccessible from the United States as well as from China.”

Dave Winer is named A Bastard of the Blogs! Will Scoble be next? http://www.thosebastards.com

“Local regulations and laws”? Not very clear where this refers to. One of the problems is that there are no regulations and laws on censorship but all depends on what local officials, and now also MSN Space employees, like or dislike.

This is all about being “in China”. It doesn’t matter where it is hosted or where it is accessible from. It’s about any company doing business in China. You must comply with local regulations.

What was the nature/content of the blog of the Chinese guy (who was censored) ? Does anyone know?
Or is everyone just rushing to support coz thats how its done?

“Or is everyone just rushing to support coz thats how its done?”

What do you mean by this? If supporting someone’s ability to get their thoughts and ideas heard (no matter whether we like those ideas or not) is “how it’s done”, then I’m all for it. I don’t need to know the contents of this guy’s blog to decide that it shouldn’t be censored.

“In China, there is a unique issue for our entire industry: there are certain aspects of family-planning in China that are regulated by the government, namely forced abortion and forced sterilizations. We’ve made a choice to run a family-planning service in China, and to do that, we need to adhere to local regulations and laws.”

anonymous, if the PRC gets to block Chinese-language content in the USA from Rebecca MacKinnon in the USA, does that mean that Fidel Castro can get MSN to take down US-based Spanish-language content?

Please go back and read the MacKinnon piece again. The scary thing here isn’t that MSFT is enforcing PRC law inside the country where it has to, but that it’s making a US operation function as if it were in PRC jurisdiction.

anonymous, if the PRC gets to block Chinese-language content in the USA from Rebecca MacKinnon in the USA, does that mean that Fidel Castro can get MSN to take down US-based Spanish-language content?

Please go back and read the MacKinnon piece again. The scary thing here isn’t that MSFT is enforcing PRC law inside the country where it has to, but that it’s making a US operation function as if it were in PRC jurisdiction.

Michael Connolly is exactly right in this situation. Since Microsoft opted to do business in China, it is obligated to meet the legal guidelines of the country. To think otherwise is to engage in the worst ethnocentricity imaginable, and we’re not that perfect a nation that we can blithly say that everyone else is perforce wrong. Ptui on that.

Taylor, you are pathetically ignorant.

Connolly, you’re just lying.

Your China sub is required to follow Chinese laws.

I have seen no evidence that the MSN Spaces operation that shut down Michael Anti is a China sub.

Fact is, you’re censoring content in the US to protect your access to the China market. Admit it.

Dave, since Microsoft opted to do business in Saudi Arabia, it is obligated to make all women employees in the USA give up their parking passes. To think otherwise is to engage in the worst ethnocentricity imaginable.

This isn’t about MSFT obeying Chinese law within Chinese jurisdiction. It’s about MSFT treating Chinese-language content in the USA as if it were under Chinese jurisdiction.

“we need to adhere to local regulations and laws” that statement makes me wonder what Microsoft’s position would have been had they been doing business in Germany in the 1930s.

It simply comes down to the fact that Microsoft is placing money (“Money doesn’t talk; it swears” — Bob Dylan) above human rights.

So, then, Microsoft, I’d expect this is consistent behavior, you’ve done it before, you’re likely to do it on behalf of other countries, and given the Patriot Act and NSA spying on US citizens, you’re doing it within the US on US citizens?

I’m baffled and repulsed.

I find it interesting that a company that stonewalled the US and state governments for years, saying that it was technically infeasible to remove a web browser from its OS distribution, seems to find no way to prevent blogs from being removed from MSN Spaces.

Scoble,
It’s a good start but there are some good questions above as well. Is it servers in China that have the web pages pulled, customers that sign up from china, or all Chineese language blogs that are subject to this kind of restriction.
The differences between the three scenarios are significant.

Servers in China – I understand and it makes sense
Subscribers from China – Kinda shaky but I can also understand – to some extent.
Chineese language blogs – That I would have serious problems with.

I could see justification for not serving US Based Chineese blogs to Chineese addresses as a condition of business – but not the outright removal of the blog.

Oh the money issue is the only reason MS cares. If China wasn’t China, and was instead, say, Papua New Guinea, they’d tell the government to pound sand.

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.

Someone should set up a new MSN space and act as a proxy for the guy (i.e. have him send a blog record to someone outside China which publishes it on the blog).

As far as I can read from the terms, you then wouldn’t be acting in violation of the terms which state that your not allowed to publish information that violate local or national laws in _your_ area.

(As long as you indicate it’s not written by yourself)

“Or is everyone just rushing to support coz thats how its done?”

Bob: “What do you mean by this? If supporting someone’s ability to get their thoughts and ideas heard (no matter whether we like those ideas or not) is “how it’s done”, then I’m all for it. I don’t need to know the contents of this guy’s blog to decide that it shouldn’t be censored. ”

I wanted to know the cause for MSN’s censorship. Aren’t we speculating a lot of things. I’d like to see facts before…
The reason I asked for the content, was to better understand the reason for MSN’s censorship.

Allowing his blogs to read in the US would still be a violation of the law (if it isn’t they’ll make it into one).
Did MSN deny the censorship?
Does their contract specify that they won’t censor?

Or is everyone just rushing to support coz thats how its done?

Leah, as far as I understand it it was servers run over in China by our Chinese employees. The American guys I know over in MSN Spaces didn’t even know about this decision (including the folks who run the team). I still haven’t heard the details. They promise to get back to me on that, though.

Leah, as far as I understand it it was servers run over in China by our Chinese employees. The American guys I know over in MSN Spaces didn’t even know about this decision (including the folks who run the team). I still haven’t heard the details. They promise to get back to me on that, though.

“Leah, as far as I understand it it was servers run over in China by our Chinese employees.”

Ah… so why not just help him set up an MSN Spaces account based on a US server?

Then you wouldn’t need to follow Chinese law and censor him, right?

Hasn’t this happened with any other company?