Microsoft as China censor
p2pnet.net News:- The mainstream media are still rattling on about the world-shaking news that Napster II and Ericsson have done a deal.
But many seem to have lost interest in the fact that Microsoft is willingly and actively acting as a censor on behalf of Communist China.
Late last year Dynamic Internet Technology uncovered Google’s censorship of certain news sources inside China, and among them was New York’s The Epoch Times.
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Microsoft Helps China Filter Web Content
By Suman Srinivasan – The Epoch Times
Another international tech giant has shown its willingness to kowtow to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party and put profit and compliance ahead of conscience.
Over the weekend, tech watchers such as Slashdot picked up on an interesting new development on MSN Spaces on Microsoft`s China website.
When users entered words known to be taboo under the Communist rule – such as “democracy”, “freedom”, “Falun Gong”, “Taiwan” – they were promptly scolded harshly by the website.
Prohibited language, please delete, was the message that some users faced when they tried to enter words in the subject line.
MSN Spaces is an online community built by Microsoft that allows users to interact and chat with each other.
A MSN spokeswoman contacted by The Epoch Times told us, MSN abides by the laws, regulations and norms of each country in which it operates. In addition, the content posted on member spaces is the responsibility of individuals who are required to abide by MSN’s Code of Conduct.
However, the link to the Code of Conduct that was e-mailed to The Epoch Times, which spells out in detail what MSN Spaces users are not allowed to post, makes no mention about politically incorrect words or words that a particular country or government would find objectionable.
MSN Spaces quite possibly has a separate Code of Conduct for users in China. Microsoft representatives were not able to confirm this at the time this article went to press.
On Tuesday, the Associated Press quoted Adam Sohn, a global sales and marketing director for MSN, as saying that Microsoft and its Chinese business partner were working with authorities to omit certain language.
Microsoft is the third large international portal service provider to toe the line of the Communist Party, following Yahoo! and Google which have signed agreements with the China Internet Information Center, the government watchdog that polices website content in China.
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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
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See:-
Google’s censorship – 2M Chinese abandon CCP, p2pnet, June 6, 2005
June 17th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Goes to show you what Microsoft thinks of their customers. They want us to be good human resources and do nothing that would offend the Cartel-Government dual. I am currently using clusty for my search engine because I do not believe in censorship, and I quit using all Microsoft products and “services.”
From a privacy standpoint, Microsoft’s instant messaging service provides much information about your online habits such as when and how long you are online (When you sign onto msn instant messenger), the type of email you receive, where your email is sent from, your name, address, and any other information you provde to them. I wonder which affiliate, private parties, partners, and other businesses related to Microsoft have access to this information. I also wonder what their privacy policies are.
The only privacy policy I trust is one that says, “We throw away all information related to surfing or purchases over 2 months of age, and we do not disclose ANY information about those who use our website to anybody outside of our company (unless forced to do so by search warrant).” Any exceptions as to information sharing to outside parties should be looked at with great suspicion.
Using peer to peer to transmit website content is one way of getting around the censorship. Another way is freewan!