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We should have absolutely no part in censoring political voices.
MSN folks- you're spineless cowards. When it comes to morals, you have none. You should be banished to China.
Your first caveat, your use of the words "depressing" and "sorry," your polite approach of Christopher Payne... All good things.
It's a change from the "They should be fired!" tone of voice (and that's a Good Thing).
Regards.
Marc Snyder
Besides, just go fix the situation instead of blogging about it.
If blog providers really want to stick it to MSN and Google, they would advertise their blog hosting as censorship free. I would pay a few dollars a month to have a blog w/o censorship.
In this case, though, I don't think that defence is strong enough. (I want to make that clear - just playing Devil's advocate somewhat.)
This appears to bevested interests in terms of Microsoft !!! Why ????
So, who will Microsoft side with? The Chinese government or the swarming bloggers? At this time, I'm betting on the Chinese government. Bloggers whining isn't enough. If the mainstream media makes this individual case into international news (a la Terri Shiavo, Elian Gonzalez, etc.) and if because of that politicians get involved, I can see Microsoft fighting the Chinese government.
And I don't consider restoring this one guy's blog fighting the Chinese government either. That wouldn't stop their rampant censorship. As Rebecca said, this was Microsoft that did this. I'm betting it was somebody with a title like Censorship Specialist II that pulled the blog of his own free will, not a direct order from the government, but I could be wrong.
you should absolutely hate Chinese laws for allowing this...BUT if you were running a business in that country: what would you do?
the utopian view would be to shut down MSN Spaces there over free-speech issues...or shut down all your services over such a issue...BUT then you'd be ignoring almost a billion customers...
I'd try to find a middle ground...i.e. ask them to filter such things themselves and not put it on the service provider (like Microsoft)...
1. At Les Blogs 2.0 I listened to Rebecca and others talk in considerable detail about the complexities and difficulties in fathoming the Chinese authorities attitudes towards censorship. It made me realise there are no quick fixes and that comment about such things 'we' regard as abuse needs handling with extreme care. And in that I would defer to Rebecca any day of the week. She's been there, she knows the terrain.
2. Given the issues Rebecca details and the political sensitivities in play, would it not have been better to find out from MSN what they have to say before blowing your foghorn Robert?
3. The focus now is not on the wider issue at hand but looks like deteriorating into yet another f**k MSFT fest - I'm sure that's not Robert had in mind at all. It takes away from the central arguments.
4. I'd love nothing more than to see everyone having the kind of voice Robert espouses. But there are times when diplomacy matters and where remaining tight lipped - if only to establish the facts - is more appropriate than what seems to me at least, to be something of a knee jerk reaction on Robert's part.
5. Just how would giving Zhao Jing space on Robert's site make any difference? If anything, I can imagine it ticking off Chinese officials even more than Zhao's current activities.
Having said that, if MSN is acting as some sort of unofficial censor then the circumstances of those activities are worthy of scrutiny. But only when MSN has had the opportunity to put its case forward.
1.) Given that you work at Microsoft and know folks on the Spaces team, isn't the intelligent thing to do to get the facts straight first before faning the flames of speculation and making inflammatory comments (e.g. "state run thug")?
2.) Christopher Payne runs MSN Search, he is nowhere in the management hierarchy for MSN Spaces.
This post seriously makes you come off as a jack ass.
Plus, my comments are open, and my trackbacks are open.
It may yet turn out that I'm wrong. In that case I'll have egg on my face. I was willing to take that risk. So, what are the facts that I should have waited for?
What good is a holiday site if it doesn't reflect the gosh darn holiday season! LOL!!!
Pweez?
Thanks,
Aaron
My blog seems to be censored in China - or at least friends report they can't get to it from mainland China (no probs in Hong Kong). Somehow I don't see myself as any threat, although I do blog on China occasionally (I've got a startup there).
You pretty much got to play by the country's laws to play in the country - any country. When you consider laws you consider unethical, you've got a dilemma.
Based on the evidence available right now, I strongly agree with you Robert!
By the way: congrats on standing up and defending Chinese blogger. Please note that Yahoo has given IP address and access data of a guy in China and because of Yahoo, he was jailed by Chinese government! And guess what, Russell bastard Beattie (employee of Yahoo) has not commented on it at all! You comment on similar issue. I admire your courage.
I'm hoping MS still has an idea of the bigger picture here.
remember ?? I Fail At Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness posting that was a rant about yourself which made you sound like a jackass.. IMHO !! yeah happy new year too Dare :)-
http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.asp...
How about spam?
See, the problem with this issue is there are local laws that we need to comply with. It's just that the local laws there aren't ones we understand or agree with.
Right now, our people are giving in because it's inconvenient to raise a fuss.
Here's what i think: the individuals in China who run these entities have the resources and the desire to make money under any set of rules. Why not inconvenience them for a change. I think they'll discover that they want the money more than they want to erode someone else's freedom on behalf of the authorities. They've been exploiting our greed, let's exploit there's.
Thanks for spreading the word, Robert.
---* Bill
1) I vaguely remember having to accept the msn.spaces "MSN Website Terms of Use and Notices", so legally, MSN had all the rights to do what they did.
2) When it comes to Business in/with China politics are ALWAYS involved. It would be just [bold]naive[un-bold] to believe people would be allowed "free speech" or using the internet in ways the Chinese Government does not allow.
3) So as noble it is to be "against" the policies of MSN in this case, it is ignorant not to see that western/global companies always choose "profit" and "business" over "moral" and "ethics".
We all know it, and - working for them or paying them - we quietly accept them to be the way they are. That certainly does not mean it is right.
Do you really doubt where Microsoft stands now?
I'd tend to agree here that if you don't want to be censored, you need to host your own blog on your own server. Just my .02
(if this is what has happened, and if this is how it is and if this is the whole story then) I can understand why Microsoft did what they did, and I would probably do the same in their situation. It is not their job to impose a different set of rules on a country. Sure, I know they didn't, its a free world and a US server, but at the end of the day, a Chinese guy started doing something which the Chinese authorities didn't like, and they asked MSFT to do something for them. There's a lot at stake here commercially (obviously) - an awful lot. But I also don't think MSFT should be using its weight to "impose" democracy and free speech - after all, it isn't what everyone wants (be that a good thing or not). Yes, it smells. But really, they were stuck between a rock and a hard place, and decided to choose a bit of bad low-level publicity versus potentially high-level publicity, law suits, even their software being banned in the country concerned.
To allow the morals of the most-strict to judge what content can be seen by groups whose basic moral values are different is actually a form of moral ABSOLUTISM. It's more akin to a pr0n site's ISP kicking them off the net, because somewhere out there is an anti-pr0n user. It's implicitly saying that there is a moral absolute, and it is the UNION of everything every influential group in the world thinks is bad.
Moral relativism instead suggests that it is China's responsibility to block off content that is unappealing to it. Microsoft shouldn't, because it may be appealing to someone else, and it would be wrong to deny that 'someone else' access to it purely because China finds it unpleasant.
I'm going to make a SWAG that the blog was removed for activity (statements?) that would be criminal in the users home country. I believe that the criminality of data should only be considered in the context of the hosting country, and then requires a government action to remove, but that is understandably a utopian view (from my Usenet years), undistorted by the need to make money in environments where politics and business are so irrevocably intertwingled.
-- Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!
Cynical? Hey, I know PR.
He already got burnt in another China mishap, not about to make same mistake twice. Least it learns. But you need mainstream media and political wailing to make this stick. Glad to have helped out. ;)
The right for you not to be tortured/killed in cold blood is absolute. Also, do not confuse what is legal with what is moral. Hiding behind legalisms is for moral cowards with no spine.
Regarding this case: MS did the commercially-correct morally-wrong thing. Yahoo/Google bow to China too. Should organisations be amoral? Complex world with lots of grey...
Bull, that was *still* enabling censorship, the tool of these butchers. You're almost there with this post, well done, now how about taking it all the way and stating that MS should not perform ANY censorship on behalf of totalitarian states?
Bloggers need to stop crying censorship when they agree to a TOS in advance.
The fact that Anti ran back to his previous third party host tells me this guy isn't looking at this very intelligently.
You guys get worked up over things once in a while, but never think through what your actions could cause too, but point at google, or yahoo or microsoft about something they did.
Personally, I think if there is really a need for freedom of speech in china, the chinese can fight for it, it is no my place to tell them what rights they need. I am sure a 1.2 billion people can figure out what they want...
I fully support your dissent to your own company. Don't feel afraid to raise your voice about this.
Ah! A real expert! If I had a nickel for everyone who's been in China for a few months and understands everything....
---
Microsoft should not be aiding the Chinese government in this matter. I have hope but little confidence that scobleizer will be able to change MS policy.
"On December 16th I created a blog and attempted to make various posts with politically sensitive words. When I attempted to post entries with titles like “Tibet Independence” or “Falun Gong” (a banned religious group), I got an error message saying: “This item includes forbidden language. Please delete forbidden language from this item
...
This was on Friday December 16th. By Monday the 19th, the whole blog had been taken down, just like Anti’s was on Dec.31st, with an error message: “This space is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”
For the apologists above, no, you don't need to be a criminal (Falun Gong isn't criminal, just banned). You just need to use words that MSN spaces has banned!
"the blog remains inaccessible from the United States as well as from China. This means that the action was taken NOT by Chinese authorities responsible for filtering and censoring the internet for Chinese viewers, but by MSN staff at the level of the MSN servers."
For those in favour of the censorship/talking about Terms of Service - I didn't notice you supporting Sony with their outrageous terms of service.
@Scoble: Takes courage (for a change) to have posted what you did, I think you'll find people will respect you for that, whatever the facts turn out to be.
What is a solution to this? The only one that I see is that the Chinese people themselves tear down this evil system. Are you suggesting that non-governmental organizations like Microsoft and Google become catalysts for mass political change? The sad fact is that this isn't what businesses do. Maybe corporate expectations are changing, due to our decaying planet, but I doubt this will change soon enough.
This of course would be an excellent time for Apple to sponsor an underground democracy movement in China through proxied blogging. Hell, if you can fool the people into thinking that you actually give a shit about something more than turning a fast buck, then you have a chance of winning.
I like to draw your attention to censorship in our western world - inside Myspace, one of the most popular social networks for teenagers. Last week before Christmas Myspace.com censored all mentioning of Youtube.com and all linking to youtube videoclips. See more information on my blog here:
http://samkoma.net/videoblog/?p=17
Myspace also shut down my myspace account for a while, I assume it was because I was critical of the censorship and the blogoshere was starting up heated discussion about this. My account was later reopened. Myspace seem to be eager to destroy all traces of this censorship and evidence that it ever took place. This is very interesting example of how powerful and invisible censorship in our western world can be and how important it is for activism not to be dependent upon the media channels you are targeting.
The issue, S. Jorbs, is not so much Microsoft following the CCP's rules. It is about Microsoft, an American company, on American soil, deleting blogs read all around the world because they have content that annoys the Chinese Communist Party. What will our world be like if American corporations, in their feverish pursuit of those 1.2 billion Chinese consumers, abandon all ethics and stoop to deeds hitherto unthinkable by an American company?
A lot here have been said about doing business in China must follow the Chinese rules or practices. This certainly has its merit, however this is only the half truth. Why most American companies will not and can not bribe their ways out in China as their Chinese competitors normally do? Because there is something called 'Foreign Corrupt Practices Act(FCPA)'. The dire financial & reputational consequences of breaching such a US law prevent most Americans from doing under-the-table tricks which are ubiquitous in China. Do American business suffer? I assume so. Why not a lot of people cry for this?
So the question is really at what price the Amercians, especailly the American government, will hold their moral high ground. Comparing with the billions of dollors the Americans (or at least half of the Americans) are willingly to shed to promote democracy in Middle-east, I do believe the financial consequences of Microsoft or Google or whoever who do not comply with Chinese blackmails will be just peanuts.
Certainly, from any single corporation's point of view, especially for those with big stake in China, loss of revenue there is an immediate pain. This is why I think the American government should step in, establishing something similar to the FCPA, forbiding US companies from assisting foreign governments to curb any democratic initiatives.
Call me a dreamer at your will. As a Chinese who himself shed blood in Tiananmen square in 1989, I know how difficult it is for normal people to stand up and fight within. Anti is a courageous young man, he should be supported at any costs.
PS1: Talking about Chinese laws, it is in China's constitution that people have freedom of speech, freedom of forming parties etc. The only notable lack of freedom from a legal point of view is that Chinese are not allowed to strike, which suits American MNCs handsomely.
PS2: I live in southern Germany, 2 miles from Swiss border, maybe not too far from your mom's hometown :-)
It's not as if the blogger in question is low profile and it's not as if this is the first time someone deliberately blogged controversial items in a rhetorical fashion.
I'm more disappointed in Microsoft for being gullible enough to be used as a political tool.
95% of bloggers live in the free world and yet they fail to understand that their selected webtool of free speech is neither free nor theirs. Some bloggers are aware of the above and and play the game, and the people, accordingly.
Apropos of what you said above, my own grandparents ran for their fucking lives from Nazi Germany. My grandmother's sister and her family didn't make it.
I understand that according to the FBI, the greatest category of illegal immigrants to the USA is not Mexicans but Chinese. Did anyone stop to think about why people in that country would pay gangs of criminals called "snakeheads" to seal them into shipping containers with no windows, no toilets and no ventilation for a voyage across the Pacific which they might not even survive?
As for confronting your employer, Mr. Scoble, I know that's easier said than done. Most people would not even do what you've done here.
I sincerely hope you continue to say things like this, and make sure your company knows what it should not be doing, who it should not be complying with just to keep profit rolling in.
China is only going to open itself to a free internet if it needs to. If Microsoft and other biggies comply instead of holding fast to values of freedom, there will be no need, and nothing will happen.
The Oppression For Profit folks at Yahoo! and Google should be taking notes.
Robert will of course, end up apologizing for the thugs comment, (which was completely out of line), and make another empty promise to be better about checking facts before posting.
Really, I think if it wasn't part of their jobs to do so, I'll guess that a lot of MS people would hesitate to talk to Robert, since he doesn't care who he damages on his way to be first.
Are sharks immoral because they kill in cold blood? No, they are amoral with regard to the moral context that I use. If you are a shark, you have a much different set of moral values.
Likewise, were the members of the Donner Party immoral? Is it moral relativism to suggest that they did what was necessary to survive? Is it any less necessary for the Chinese gov't to behave in a certain way to preserve itself? If they do not know any other way to survive but to continue along the same path they've been on for a generation, is it surprising that they would behave this way?
There are cultures that have no problems with selling children into prostitution for the family to survive. It's easy for me to call them immoral, but I'm not the one staring at the possibility of the rest of my family starving to death in an impoverished nation and no opportunities to "pull myself up by my own bootstraps."
Drawing morally lines in the sand is fun, but to suggest that there are culturally independent demarcations is a bit naive, don't you think?
Get real!
Supporting a regime that thrives on propaganda, brutality, and violence to anyone who voices dissent is a serious black mark on your employers' record.
While many blogs are simply an online diary that gives us the opportunity to whine about the ex husbands or how tiring our Xmas shopping was (mine included), it upsets me that people have had their very lives jeopardized simply for putting their thoughts online.
For shame, Bill!
when you get a chance you need to read this:
http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_2020_project.html
and you also want to glance at this:
http://weblog.jrc.cec.eu.int/comments/wallstrom...
and I guess you've followed this:
http://weblogs.asp.net/edaniel/archive/2006/01/...
It's not easy, it's complex - what's easy is what the business needs to do - what is complex is making the decision to do what is in the interest of business over other issues - where does the capitalist's conscience lie? I recently read USA gave more aid to Uzbekistan than the entire African continent (http://www.voidstar.com/node.php?id=2640)- I guess it's a good job Bill's doing his bit for HIV in Africa.
(Word of caution: Newbie promoting self-blog)
The Anti-Microsoft War
"Chinese Journalist Shi Tao dared to mention the 15th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
He will now be rotting in a Chinese prison for the next TEN YEARS because Yahoo! "enthusiastically" assisted Chinese Secret Police thugs to find the journalist's identity"
"During an address to the Alibaba China Internet Summit, Yahoo's Chief Jerry Yang admitted that his company assists the Chinese Secret Police, but excused the behaviour by saying, "I don't like the outcome of what happened with this thing, we get a lot of these orders, but we have to comply with the law and that's what we need to do."
"Lost Budgie's Aunt Reby reminds Mr. Yang that he sounds an awful lot like some other people in Germany and France who, in another time, made similar statements about having to comply with the law - no matter what the consequences."
OF COURSE, we have to remember that the Communist Chinese are very resourceful...
From 101 Uses For An Executed Chinese...
The most important task of any government that isn't even pretending to be an open society is control of the information environment.
Yahoo and Microsoft are so desperate -- for bona fide bottom line purposes -- for their cut of the huge Chinese market that they play by China's rules.
China hasn't asked these tech giants to sell them tanks and machine guns to use to suppress free speech violently as they did in Tienamen Square.
No ... they're insisting that Yahoo and Microsoft help them with the electtronic information infrastructure -- they're asking Microsft and Yahoo for the digital tools to suppress free speech. And Microsoft and Yahoo are cooperating. Yahoo's cooperation -- supplying e-mail origin data to the police -- has put a Chinese human rights activist in prison. Microsoft so far is just helping the Chinese government gag its people.
These are American companies, whatever that means. But the big question is: As American supercompany tech evolves over the next decade, how will giants like Microsoft and Yahoo resist US government pressures to control and censor the public's information environment? Doesn't the US government -- NSA, FBI, Homeland Security -- have a powerful argument with "You did it for China. Why won't you do it for your own country?"
In other words, market pressure on the tech infrastructure giants is pressure to play ball with every country's organs of state security. We've just seen the Chinese vanguard first. China is barely embarrassed about its totalitarian police-state nature.
But how will Microsoft, Yahoo and the other US tech and telecommunications giants behave when the US government asks them to Play Ball in ways not strictly required by existing laws? With Microsoft and Yahoo's help, I think we're seeing the last days of free Internet speech in the USA. Citizens' and customers' rights can't compete with the need to succeed and grow in the marketplace.
If MSN, Yahoo, and others had bribed the Chinese gov't with cash, material gifts, etc. to win or retain business, they could and probably would be prosecuted in the U.S.A. under this Act. But apparently the U.S. Justice Department is taking the position that staying in the good graces of Chinese officials for the welfare of their business by 'bribing' them with censorship, violations of client confidentiality and other repugnant behaviors is not a violation of the Act.
I wonder if U.S. courts would view it the same way, and I wonder if it's possible for private individuals to sue under the F.C.P.A.?
Would love to hear what reaction you get from the powers-that-be.
PS--I'd like to invite you to sign the Business Ethics Pledge at http://www.principledprofit.com/25000influencer... -- I'd be honored to have you aboard.
I'm not surprised by the Microsoft's behavior. "Microsoft makes money" - is there any other ethical policy? Robert is right: Today Microsoft's opportunism costs a single and independent opinion inside a regime - tomorrow may be it will cost the independency of any minority. Staff of Microsoft: YOU are Microsoft's voice and not some top managers who have forgotten the basic principle "protect those who have no political protection".
Though the situation raises some serious ethical concerns, it is not upto Microsoft, Yahoo or one single corporation to interfere in the politics of the region. Maybe US government should ponder over this issue and talk to the Chinese govt.
I personally think, corporations should stick to what they do the best, i.e. business and leave political affairs to politicians. When companies start taking ethical matters into their hands and start breaking national laws, it might prove to be disastrous.
Way to goooo!!!!! You had the courage to stand up and be HEARD and now Microsoft has changed its policy. I know Microsoft wants to do business in China and they are trying to balance their interests with the government, but in this case, MSN was being a pawn of oppression. Clearly. You were right and you stood on sound moral ground. Being IN China can help in making changes over time, but at some point a company must honor ITS values and those of caring about people. Microsoft has done the right thing...thanks to YOU and your friends there. MAJOR!!!!
to gain favors, now it is kissing China,s ass in
order to gain favors there since the EU does
not favor Microsoft's ass kissing. That is the sole
reason of why Ms operates as it does.
Supporting Freedom of Speech on the Internet
by Bill Gates
CEO Microsoft
From the Internet
“...The Internet's potential is enormous, and the stakes are high. The Internet can raise the quality of political debate, the quality of education, the quality of life. It is precious and important, and we must not take it for granted...
...The free exchange of ideas on a global basis is something that is important for the U.S. politically and economically. Let's not undermine the world-wide trend toward free expression by setting a bad example when it comes to free speech on a computer network.
http://www.hevanet.com/kort/GATES1.HTM
Fast forward to:
January, 27 2006
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, took the rare step of standing up for arch-rival Google today as he argued that state censorship was no reason for technology companies not to do business in China.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19...
It's reasons like this that make me glad I use Linux. http://fedora.redhat.com/
Money talks, bs walks.
http://mannan.zabvision.edu.pk
Mannan
From the Bill Clinton era
http://www.hevanet.com/kort/GATES1.HTM
Supporting Freedom of Speech on the Internet
by Bill Gates
CEO Microsoft
from the Internet
The Internet is the first medium that allows anyone with reasonably inexpensive equipment to publish to a wide audience. It is the first medium that distributes information globally at almost no marginal cost.
The Internet's potential is enormous, and the stakes are high. The Internet can raise the quality of political debate, the quality of education, the quality of life. It is precious and important, and we must not take it for granted...
...The free exchange of ideas on a global basis is something that is important for the U.S. politically and economically. Let's not undermine the world-wide trend toward free expression by setting a bad example when it comes to free speech on a computer network.
Then forward to January 27, 2006:
Billionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates took the rare step of standing up for arch-rival Google today as he argued that state censorship was no reason for technology companies not to do business in China.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19...
It seems my post was removed because maybe it was the fact that I left a link to my favorite penguin?
Whatever the reason, it seems that Billy made an about face.
If in fact my post has not been removed, then I apologize. If it has been intentionally removed, then that's Irony!
I think you meant:
"But, the bevaious of the company that employees me in this instance is not right."
Your writing style is teh suck!1
Of course, a normal person wouldn't have made this mistake, very Freudian, you have issues.
For what it is worth a big issue in american and international politics is to figure out how to put more well spoken people in the center, and how to talk to each other once more. I think blogging helps. :D
Also the next generation of Chinese kids should be very interesting when they find more of their voice. They have had a middle class for awhile now and they were discussing things surreptiously through old poetry and issues that sound very unpolitical, such as the "one dog policy," in Beijing. I don't know when it will come to a head but it has become a very capitalist place and the dog is a symbol of the old upper and middle classes.
For the most part I have the understanding that the Chinese Government is trying to stem the spread of ideas but that they have already given up part of their control of desired skilled citizens, who have outside knowledge and are finding ways of getting around the censorship, without letting anyone on the outside know. This preserves the status quo but possibly allowing it to form a new center for a new era. This could be an interpretation of Bill Gates switch in stance over Google, I don't know enough but he has thrown his hat into the development field these days.
Its difficult to get good information out of China as it is a closed country, and I've heard both positive things and extremely scary things. Its changing fast. I agree attention needs to be paid to the issue of censorship though, it is a huge concern.
Similarly, if I were MSN, might I not take the view that to boycott China is to be censored by China?
(Declaration: I'm a Linux user and no fan of Microsoft.)
Support Mr.Anti,
and disappointed at Microsoft.
If we stop footing MSN's bills, they will change their ways or have to get real jobs like real people and live within their means instead of making more than $10,000 a minute
FBI
WHERE IS BILL SIMPSON AKA LUKYK9
What did you do with him!!!!!!!!