Posted on 01/04/2006 3:48:48 PM PST by twntaipan
Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday confirmed that it took down the blog of outspoken Chinese journalist Zhao Jing, saying that it was complying with China's laws.
Blogger Rebecca MacKinnon, a former CNN Beijing bureau chief now a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, first reported that Jing's blog was taken down New Years Eve by Microsoft's blog-hosting service MSN Spaces. The blog has been replaced with the message, "This space is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."
Zhao, aka Michael Anti, is among a number of Chinese bloggers that have grown in popularity in the Communist nation where the general media is government controlled.
China last year started tightening its control over Internet services, but has yet to launch a major crackdown on bloggers. Experts believe the government is still struggling with media control without stymieing the country's emerging Internet businesses. China is the second largest Internet market, and is growing quickly.
Microsoft said in a statement that the decision to unplug Zhao was inline with its practice of "ensuring that products and services comply with global and local laws, norms, and industry practices."
"Most countries have laws and practices that require companies providing online services to make the Internet safe for local users," the company said. "Occasionally, as in China, local laws and practices require consideration of unique elements.”
Microsoft is not the first U.S. tech company to help the Chinese government in controlling the media. Yahoo in September gave information about journalist Shi Tao's personal email account to Beijing, which later jailed him for 10 years on charges of divulging state secrets.
It's also not unusual for U.S. search engines, such as Google, Microsoft MSN, and Yahoo, to censor their Chinese-language search results at the request of the government.
Private property so Microsoft can do what it likes.
I smell a lawsuit in this. Wouldn't imposing different rules for Chinese blogs be... discriminatory? The only law US-based services need pay attention to is US law, period.
But if there is significant blowback from democracy and freedom lovers, M$ has no one but themselves to blame.
Bump for future reference the next time I'm in a thread with one of the "Linux is a Chicom plot to destroy America" guys.
ping
no guts Billy Gates
Yeah I guess he should courageously sacrifice SHAREHOLDERS harned earned money to make a point.
Microsoft is in business to make money, NOT to promote democracy.
AMEN !
> Microsoft is in business to make money, NOT to promote democracy.
Microsoft is hosted by our country. They owe allegiance to our principals.
I presume you are a libertarian.
Sun hopes that Java technology will help China's software industry reach its full potential which leading analyst firms predict could see it rival the current regional software giant, India, by 2006. Sun Microsystems is playing a central role in helping to accelerate China's software industry development by delivering tools and support that will empower Java developers including recent support for the simplified Chinese language in both the NetBeans 3.5.1 release and in its Sun ONE Studio 5, Standard Edition product.
For many years now,
Sun has made a major push
to work with China.
Yet the left-wing fringe
attacks Microsoft when they
do usual things . . .
It's unfortunate
so many Freepers accept
Microsoft bashing.
Those who sell out the US will wish they hadn't. Paybacks are a Bitch.
-----------------------------------
Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no?
But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me?
Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's.
And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's.
Luke 20:22-25
-----------------------------------
Hey. China has laws.
We have laws. It's NOT against
our laws to obey
laws in other lands.
Heck. Even Jesus allowed
obeying the law.
This isn't going to be fight with words, its going to be a fight with guns and bombs.
The Chinese are monsters and we are going to have to fight them sooner or later. Those who helped the Chinese are going to end up very dead one way or another.
PS: What does Caesar have to do with companies that are traitors in the US?
"It's also not unusual for U.S. search engines, such as Google, Microsoft MSN, and Yahoo, to censor their Chinese-language search results at the request of the government."
Big business (liberal) companies? Check. Big government in China? Check. Will liberals complain about microsoft's stiffling of free speach in China? No. They are hypocrites.
"However, you would fund that wopuld run counter to US foreign policy, which since the days of Nixon has believed that free trade is more important than promoting democracy in China."
China and the US has a free trade agreement? Not that I ever heard or read.
Trade? Yes. Free trade? Nope.
The Chinese government subsidizes part of it's industry, and when businesses over there then dump their products at below market costs, that has crossed the threshold from free trade to just trade. Big difference.
"Those who helped the Chinese are going to end up very dead one way or another."
The idea is to help the Chinese transition away from communism. Or be a different kind of "Chinese" in other words.
If they can't be engaged, then what? Just declare war on them?
Yet the pull of the liberal idea continues to be very strong as economic power devolves and the economy becomes more open to the outside world. There are currently over 20,000 Chinese students studying in the U.S. and other Western countries, almost all of them the children of the Chinese elite. It is hard to believe that when they return home to run the country they will be content for China to be the only country in Asia unaffected by the larger democratizing trend. The student demonstrations in Beijing that broke out first in December 1986 and recurred recently on the occasion of Hu Yao-bang's death were only the beginning of what will inevitably be mounting pressure for change in the political system as well.What is important about China from the standpoint of world history is not the present state of the reform or even its future prospects. The central issue is the fact that the People's Republic of China can no longer act as a beacon for illiberal forces around the world, whether they be guerrillas in some Asian jungle or middle class students in Paris. Maoism, rather than being the pattern for Asia's future, became an anachronism, and it was the mainland Chinese who in fact were decisively influenced by the prosperity and dynamism of their overseas co-ethnics - the ironic ultimate victory of Taiwan. [Francis Fukuyama, The End of History]
And of course events have proved to be the opposite: China's influence has grown, with major successes in Iran, Latin America, and Africa. Tienanmen showed that the CCP was still willing to crush internal opposition, and no sentence of Fukuyama's may be more wrong than this one: This is certainly not what happened to China after it began its reform process. Chinese competitiveness and expansionism on the world scene have virtually disappeared: Beijing no longer sponsors Maoist insurgencies or tries to cultivate influence in distant African countries as it did in the 1960s. [ibid] But that is exactly what has happened: Chinese competitiveness and expansionism have never been stronger, funded by our trade with them --- and now a wealthy China is even doing what we regarded as impossible: successfully censoring the Internet, actively aided by our largest corporations.
We should cease trade with China. We are only making this disgusting totalitarian state stronger, not weakening it, by making it wealthy.
Prepare, Provoke and then Pray.
Clinton, who gave nuclear secrets to China, is the one who wanted to make China wealthy with the current trade problems. Those must have been some hefty campaign contributions to sell out that much.
Remember, China is one of those countries pushing for UN oversight of the Internet. They want a say in what can be blocked worldwide.
It seems to me that Micro$oft, Yahoo and Google are well along the path of giving them this ability already!
 |
You're a LUNATIC. Chinese civilization is older than ours. There will not be war, not with China. More likely, our business dealings will bring us so close that we become keiretsu -- to Japan's chagrin. |
MS will keep pedophiliac sites, hiding behind the guise of "free speech" and "we are not responsible...". But they pull a site by a freedom rights advocate because it might hurt business.
Anybody doing business with China is nuts.
No one get to bring those profits out of China.
They steal the techonolgy and then kick you out of the country.
I have had offers to go to China and have turned them down.
Those who think that the guys from Harvard and Yale are going to
be in charge are wrong. Money isn't everything and once it is gone
what will you have. Your country will be gone.
Tell the guy in front of the tanks what kind of country China is.
Tell the guy in front of the tanks what kind of country China is
  |
All countries must deal with angry, young dissidents. They do not define the country at large. Is the US defined by the Kent State dead, or all the Waco dead? Then why define China by their tribulations? |
I hope you have another country to go to when the fighting starts because the US is going to be very dangerous place for you.
> Microsoft is in business to make money, NOT to promote democracy.
True enough, but they owe allegiance to this country, to the extent that they operate here. Very simple. Except to libertarians.
> transnational corporation.
Then let the trans-nation defend MS's US interests if/when we are ever invaded.
MS owes allegiance to this country, to the extent that they operate here. A point that is obvious to anybody except a multinationalist dumba$$ libertarian.
True, we're not perfect. And the "Four Dead in Ohio", 35 years ago, has never been, and never will be forgotten. Waco, the subject of much publicity.
But the thousands who died at Tienamen Square are all but non-existant in China, outside of Hong Kong, where the government dares not smash heads. And there is no "safety" issue as Microsoft alleges. I wish I lived in Bellingham (sp?) Washington, because I'd be freeping MS's frigging headquarters every frigging day.
What have you done in the name of freedom lately? I was out until 3 a.m. last week with an led scrolling sign protesting the use of the schweigenhalten near my hometown.
There ought to be an uproar over Microsoft's censorship instead of "What room do we have to talk?" You must be very, very, young, what with your Lindsey Lohan idolatry and all.
Why are you here?
I'm here to tell you
not to listen to Tom Cruise!
Prozac is your friend!
Once you moderate
serotonin re-uptake,
you'll be right as rain!
BS, a private company owes allegiance to no one but its stockholders. Of course I imagine you'll provide this requirement supporting your stance that a private company owes allegiance to a certain government?
Bill gates doesn't care about guts... He cares about the billions he can make off of the chinese market. Thats all.
Really
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. --John Adams 1821
But hell why start listening to sage advice now right?
Cool! I can respond in kind! Your godess Lindsey Lohan just left the hospital
so there should be a bed open.
> BS, a private company owes allegiance to no one but its stockholders
Their ability to operate in this nation depends on the blood of our soldiers and the integrity of our system.
Everybody who operates on the soil of this country owes allegiance to it. I suppose you dispute that.
> BS, a private company owes allegiance to no one but its stockholders.
I think I see where you are coming from. The current US government is not legitimate, right? They are just occupying the states by force, aren't they?
Would you personally say the Pledge of Allegiance?
It's legitimate. However for over 10 years in this nation's history, they did occupy free states by force. If we are to return to a Constitutional Republic, an important part of that is to remember the union is voluntary.
Would you personally say the Pledge of Allegiance?
Haven't said it in years. For some reason, I don't remember reading anything from the Framers establishing a pledge to a piece of cloth. I do however remember reading how a Socialist did though
Of course I imagine you'll be able to point out this 'allegiance' that private companies are supposed to hold in the Constitution? I'll wait while you look....
> Of course I imagine you'll be able to point out this 'allegiance' that private companies are supposed to hold in the Constitution? I'll wait while you look....
Constitution or no, just using good sense, for my part I don't want to pay for military protection of latte-drinking hindus, islamists, yuppies, socialists and other jackasses at MS and other places that have no allegiance to our Union. And I damn sure don't want my son risking his life for them. Get it?
Damn straight!! Can't let the Constitution get in the way of what we 'want'. I do so love partisans. And again I'll ask where in the Constitution I'm required, or anyone else is required for that matter, to state 'allegiance' to any union.
Get it?
Oh I get it alright. You don't want the Constitution to get in the way of your requirement of this pledge that the Framers wouldn't have required.
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