Posted on 01/06/2006 8:28:27 PM PST by wagglebee
Microsoft Corp. has shut down the Internet journal of a Chinese blogger that discussed politically sensitive issues including a recent strike at a Beijing newspaper.
The action came amid criticism by free-speech activists of foreign technology companies that help the communist government enforce censorship or silence dissent in order to be allowed into China's market.
Microsoft's China-based Web log-hosting service shut down the blog at the Chinese government's request, said Brooke Richardson, group product manager with Microsoft's MSN online division at the company headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
Though Beijing has supported Internet use for education and business, it fiercely polices content. Filters block objectionable foreign Web sites and regulations ban subversive and pornographic content and require service providers to enforce censorship rules.
"When we operate in markets around the world we have to ensure that our service complies with global laws as well as local laws and norms," Richardson said.
Richardson said the blog was shut down on Dec. 30 or 31 but wouldn't give any other details about the reason.
But the blog, written under the pen name An Ti by Zhao Jing, who works for the Beijing bureau of The New York Times as a research assistant, touched on sensitive topics such as China's relations with Taiwan. Last week, he used the blog to crusade on behalf of a Beijing newspaper.
Reporters at the Beijing News, a daily known for its aggressive reporting, staged an informal one-day strike after their chief editor was removed from his post. The editor's removal and the strike attracted comments on Chinese online bulletin boards, which censors then erased.
Online bulletin boards and Web logs have given millions of Chinese an opportunity to express opinions in a public setting in a system where all media are government-controlled.
But service providers are required to monitor Web logs and bulletin boards, erase banned content and report offenders.
Foreign companies have adopted Chinese standards, saying they must obey local laws.
Microsoft's Web log service bars use of terms such as "democracy" and "human rights." On the China-based portal of search engine Google, a search for material the Dalai Lama, Taiwan and other sensitive topics returns a message saying "site cannot be found."
Last year, Web portal Yahoo! was the target of criticism when it was disclosed that the company provided information that was used to convict a Chinese reporter on charges of revealing state secrets.
Reporter Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison based on an e- mail that he had sent abroad with details of a memo read out at his newspaper about media controls.
In September, a Chinese journalist was sentenced to seven years in prison on subversion charges after writing articles that appeared on Web sites abroad that are blocked in China.
China also is in the midst of a crackdown on online smut. The police ministry said last month that it had shut down 598 Web sites with sexually explicit content and arrested 25 people.
David Wolf, a Beijing-based technology consultant, said that while Microsoft might be hurt abroad by controversy over its actions in China, Chinese Internet services routinely exercise similar censorship.
"They simply do it as a matter of course," said Wolf, managing director of Wolf Group Asia. "When you're looking around China, there is nothing that Microsoft and Yahoo have to do that is any different from what Chinese companies already are doing."
Microsoft's Web log service bars use of terms such as "democracy" and "human rights." On the China-based portal of search engine Google, a search for material the Dalai Lama, Taiwan and other sensitive topics returns a message saying "site cannot be found."
So these leftists do the bidding of the Chicoms, but organizations like the New York Slimes refuse White House requests not to run stories that will harm our national security -- it's nice to see where their priorities are.
Ping.
Microsoft = CNN.
Actually it's NBC, but same difference.
wagglebee, although I agree with your admonition of the squelching of free speech, you need to put the blame where it belongs. Microsoft is operating within the legal parameters of the Chinese government and has no recourse but to follow their policy. It is the Chinese government that is censoring the site, not MS. In the case of the New York Times, they exist in a much different world than does the site you are referring to. The New York Times has the right to print what it sees fit because our constitution protects it. Requests from the White House are just that, requests. Again, I don't agree with what the NYT prints, and therefore do not patronize the publication.
Please wagglebee, direct your ire towards the proper entities because your focus is misguided.
The Red Chinese are obviously a bunch of cowards who think so little of their own putrid dictatorship that they don't even have the guts or the ability to stand up to criticism and win by simple persuasion. Their fear of dissent shows nothing but weakness. Their stifling of individual rights shows nothing but evil.
I just became a big Google supporter.
You have absolutely gotta be kidding me. The Chinese, although a very intellectual culture has no genetic superiority over any other race on this earth. Also, the idea that their form of government is limiting this superior intelligence is equally absurd. I truly hope you were being sarcastic with that post.
As far as the NYT goes, it is entirely possible that they used illegally obtained classified documents and not only disregarded a WH request, they also broke the law.
Yeah, Google, one of the most liberal organizations on the planet.
On the China-based portal of search engine Google, a search for material the Dalai Lama, Taiwan and other sensitive topics returns a message saying "site cannot be found."
Or, it could be the server just crashed, or got screwed up by a hacker attack or virus. ;')
I know this is off point, but does anyone know if Drudge has any financial interest in Breitbart.com. He seems to link a lot of stories to them.
In which case it's simply due to Microsoft's incompetence.
For a recent summary, see Rushton, J. P., & Jensen, A. R. (2005). Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 235-294. Available online at http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushton_pubs.htm.
Also the Arthur R. Jensen, The g factor - the science of mental ability, Praeger, 1998 (ISBN 0-275-96103-6). These are books and articles by serious researches, peer reviewed. Maybe they are kidding - I was not.
We are in total agreement that the freedom of speech, religion, and belief are inherent rights of all mankind. Yet, until the governmental system in China changes, either by internal pressures or external forces, U.S. Companies must comply. I believe that the forces of a free"er" market capitalism in China may eventually lead to the internal pressures needed to create a desire for a change in the government. This happened in the Soviet Union to some extent. Of course there was obviously more support for such change within the Soviet government than there is in the Chinese government.
In regards to your acqusations against the NYTs, I am not aware of them using illegally obtained classified documents. If this is the case, then the DOJ must investigate and prosecute and and all offenders.
I agree that Chinese as a race have an elevated cognitive ability in some things, but not all. If this were the case, than they should be the leading nation on earth. They should have been the first nation to have reached the Moon, Mars, and beyond. They should have the laundry list of accomplishments that are owned by The Greatest Nation in history. They don't because their cognitive superiority is ineffective in a vacuum of homogenous culture, the Japanese are another example of this.
The reason the U.S. is vastly superior to every other nation on earth is the fact that we have effectively and efficiently had the ability to draw from the best of every culture on earth to create the prosperity we have today.
For a while they WERE the leading nation on Earth. But then they run smack into their own civilizational limitations [Son of Heaven type of stuff - let us call it "Middle Kingdom complex"], while the West just at that time was ridding itself of [some of] the similar limitations of our own. The Chinese were launching ocean-going fleets of several hundred ships about 100 years before Columbus with his three caravellas.
Now, quit stereotyping! `;^)o
The technological superiority you speak of was limited and short lived. Also, external pressures did more to stymie the growth of Chinese culture that internal ones did. During the early empire, the culture was somewhat splintered, similar to the situation in Japan but with far fewer factions. Later the invasion of the Mongolians definitely stunted cultural and technological advances in China for centuries to follow. It very well could be that in the future the Chinese may find a way out of the cultural and social fog they are currently experiencing and become as prosperous as our great nation is. But I think this is going to be very far in the future.
Well, and great corporate US citizen Microsoft helps to keep that moment even farther in the future. Let us tip our collective hats to Bill Gates.
Microsoft should be ashamed of itself.
They are in business to make money not to promote free speech.
"Microsoft is operating within the legal parameters of the Chinese government and has no recourse but to follow their policy." -phoenix0468
This is a novel viewpoint. I guess the sanctions against South Africa during the apartheid era were just wrong...
This is an excellent point. US corporations in the 1980s became very unified in their refusal to engage in business in South Africa, they did this after it became obvious that the American public abhorred apartheid. However, if we look more closely at this, it was the Hollywood left and music industry who led the way (there was an "I'm not going to play Sun City" song and video in 1985).
But the celebrity left feels no such animosity towards the Chicoms as evidenced by the fact that the Tienneman Square massacre of 1989 quickly faded from the public spotlight. These people fawn all over despots like Castro because they love communism. We are a capitalist society and I cannot fault any company trying to make money, but the hypocrisy with which the American left pressures business in some areas but not others is disgusting.
This is a novel viewpoint. I guess the sanctions against South Africa during the apartheid era were just wrong...
Excellent point!
You mean over John Kerry and Ted Kennedy?
What have those two done to furthur technology and capitalism in the world. Bill Gates is a stellar corporate citizen and and outstanding philanthropist. If you judge people by those attributes than Carnige was Gates role model of morality.
No one is apologizing for any US corporation. There are no apologies necessary. Microsoft has done nothing wrong, they only followed the law that was imposed on them. The Chinese government is the entity responsible for shutting down the web site, not Microsoft. If you were able to understand this you would realize where the actual blame lies.
I agree. It's the Chinese people that are going to have to change things there. There are only limited things that people outside that country can do.
What is it with some of you apologizing for American corporations selling out principles in place of profits?
Hmm, didn't realizing I was apologizing for anyone. Do you really think the Chinese people will be better off if the government shuts down the Chinese branch of MSN? Does losing an inexpensive way to communicate ideas, even if there are restrictions on that communication really help those people?
Their Internet services do have restriction that we do not consider acceptable here in the US. However they are still better off with those restrictions that the Chinese government tries to enforce than with losing that means of communication.
I bet you would have made a heck of a TEA IMPORTER in 1770's Boston.......
In the 1770s the British government made it so that the East India company didn't have to pay any taxes that other importers and merchants were paying.
It was those importers that were harmed most by the actions of the British government, and it was those businessmen that started the revolution in motion.
But I guess they were wrong to do so because they were just evil capitalists trying to earn a living.
So tell me how is Microsoft sacrificing principles for profits? The fight in Boston was mainly over unequal taxation. Should Microsoft refuse to pay our confiscatory taxes in this country where those that earn more through hard work shoulder the majority of the burden? Are they sacrificing principles in order to stay in business by paying those taxes?
How about a more pertinent question. How does it serve the interests of the Chinese people if Microsoft refuses to obey the Chinese government and gets shut down and all their customers lose their service or the government confiscates Microsoft's business and takes over? Doe the action you suggest they take have any reasonable chance of producing a desirable result?
Can't wait to see Buzzy explain that one away.
Oh...he's SO curiously absent, isn't he? *LOL*
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