Microsoft bans 'democracy' for China web users

[Monroe, Dave]

Microsoft bans 'democracy' for China web users
Financial Times
All Financial Times News

Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal has banned the words "democracy" and
"freedom" from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending
Beijing's political censors.

Users of the joint-venture portal, formally launched last month, have been
blocked from using a range of potentially sensitive words to label personal
websites they create using its free online blog service, MSN Spaces.

Attempts to input words in Chinese such as "democracy" prompted an error
message from the site: "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete
the forbidden speech from this item." Other phrases banned included the
Chinese for "demonstration", "democratic movement" and "Taiwan
independence".

It was possible to enter such words within blogs created using MSN Spaces,
but the move to block them from the more visible section of the site
highlights the willingness of some foreign internet companies to tailor
their services to avoid upseting China's Communist government.

Beijing has long sought to limit political debate on the internet and is in
the throes of a campaign to force anybody who operates a website to register
with the central government.

MSN this year became the first big international internet service to win a
licence to offer value-added telecoms services in China, a coup that was
possible in part because of its decision to team up in a joint venture with
Shanghai Alliance Investment (Sail). Sail is an investment arm of the
Shanghai city government. Microsoft has also been careful to ensure that
news and other content offered through the Chinese MSN portal are provided
by local partners who can work within the informal and shifting boundaries
set by China's unseen army of internet censors.

The MSN Spaces service, however, is directly operated by the joint venture,
Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology, in which Microsoft holds a
50 per cent stake.

MSN on Friday declined to comment directly on the ban on sensitive words,
but its China joint venture said users of MSN Spaces were required to accept
the service's code of conduct. "MSN abides by the laws and regulations of
each country in which it operates," the joint venture said. The MSN Spaces
code of conduct forbids the posting of content that "violates any local and
national laws".

But while China's ruling Communist Party deals harshly with political
dissenters, there is no Chinese law that bars the mere use of words such as
democracy.

Copyright 2005 Financial Times

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=2
0050610&ID=4884671
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