Microsoft bans 'democracy' for China web users

[rich]

welcome to another example of corporate fascism. while bill gates
thinks he's saving the world his company didn't support pro-gay
legislation in their home state and now crap like this

rich

On 6/14/05, Monroe, Dave <monroe at mpm.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> 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=20050610&ID=4884671