Microsoft Bans 'Democracy' for China's Web Users

Doc Ruby writes "As reported, paradoxically, on MSN, '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.' MSN China says it must comply with local laws, but there is no Chinese law against the use of these words."

Comments

Where's Pastor Ken when you *need* him?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Remember Pastor Ken Hutcherson, and how he leaned on Bill about the whole gay issue? Where the hell is he now?
Surely, if he and his band of fundies can kick up that much of a fuss about homosexuality, they can certainly flex their muscles in the defense of human liberty and dignity.
C'mon, Ken...you've still got Bill's number...and here's a cause actually worth fighting for.

Re:Where's Pastor Ken when you *need* him?

[Doc Ruby]

The pastor leaned on MS to back down on defending its employees' human liberty and dignity, in the name of religion. Now the poster to whom you responded wants the pastor to earn back some respect by leaning on MS to actually defend human liberty and dignity. That's not very confusing. Unless you're hellbent on using religion, whether Christianity or Communism, against liberty and dignity.

Re:Where's Pastor Ken when you *need* him?

[Brandybuck]

The unfortunate truth is that neither fanatics nor capitalists care much about the concepts "human liberty" and "dignity".

This has nothing to do with IBM or Microsoft. Both are publicly traded corporations. They are not human beings with the ability to be moral. To expect the end result of a collection of managers and paper shufflers to be concern for human liberty and dignity stretches the imagination. If Congress cannot do it, even though they're supposed to, how the heck can an artificial corporate entity ever possibly hope to?

A private corporation might be able to, only because it has one or two actual leaders at the top. But public corporations do not. They might have figureheads like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but the inertia created by several layers of management prevent them from doing much more than giving speeches and approving of the quarterly report. And even if they did try to step in and take hands-on control, they're still employees able to be fired by the board of directors. And the board of directors can get replaced. The entire company can get sold. Ultimately no one is accountable at a public corporation.

Do you really expect every moral employee at Microsoft to quit their jobs over this? To you really expect every Microsoft stockholder to dump their shares over this? Do you know how many millions of shareholders there actually are? Have YOU checked that your pension or retirement fund doesn't have any Microsoft stock in it? And if it does, are you willing to dump all of it today?

In Communist China...

[XanC]

...there is no Chinese law against the use of the use of these words.

The more heinous laws may never be written down.

Re:In Communist China...

[CrazyDuke]

Most people think of censorship as the government putting it's foot down and outright banning words or topics. Actually direct government intervention is not necessary.

All the government has to do is:
-pass regulations penalizing media outlets
-refuse to inform the outlets when releasing news items
-ignore questions and refuse to call on certain reporters during press conferences, if not outright banning certain people
-use other media outlets to turn one into a scape goat
-sabotage reporting for that outlet with false evidence from "anonymous" sources
-start accusations that the reporting is reclessly endangering others and threaten to prosecute
-"accidently" shoot at and imprison field reporters
-consistantly confiscate all of above reporter's recordings and notes as "evidence"
-question the patriotism and loyalty
-etc

...of media that "doesn't play ball." Any capitalist corporation will bow under such pressure because their primary driver is not integrity and values, but profits. If you are in the business of reporting news, patially or exclusively, you don't make any money if you don't have news to report or if your consumers think it's all lies.

No law?

[guardiangod]

MSN China says it must comply with local laws, but there is no Chinese law against the use of the use of these words."

Law? You don't need law to enforce the will of the party in China.

PS. Before this is mark flamebait- I am a chinese.

Re:No law?

[node 3]

Law? You don't need law to enforce the will of the party in China.

It's like that in the US now, too.

RedHat

[Moderator]

As I recall, RedHat was criticized a few years ago for removing the Taiwanese flag from their distribution to appease potential customers in mainland China. Let's face it, China is a huge market to get into; if a company that refused to ship an MP3 library with their distribution can be seduced by the Chinese market's potential, what good is a little democracy or freedom going to do to prevent Microsoft from acting in the same manner? It's all about money.

Microsoft teh Google

[Mulletproof]

So, did the people flaming microsoft today also note that Google the Wonderchild Company basically did the exact same thing a few months ago? Somehow, i don't think you'll see half the outrage over THAT incident, if only because this one involves "M$"

Re:Have Linus and Stallman asked Red Flag develope

[1u3hr]

The story is naive.

No, I don't think so. It does point out the fact that MS is lying when it says it must censor to remain within the law, because there is no such law. If it said "policy" rather than law, it would be more honest. If it listed the forbidden words in its TOS, it would be in the open. Contrast Google, which when faced with legal orders to remove links to contentious sites brings up documentation of why they are doing it, and a link to another site which does have the information linked. Though Google has I think chickened out on its Google.cn version from even trying.

China has many journalists in prison on unspecified charges for breaking such non-laws. (Anything the govt doesn't want you to write about can be declared a "state secret", and you become a spy &/or traitor.) Unfortunately the US has lost all its moral authority to argue against that, and China knows it can do so with little fear of embarrassment, let alone real pressure.