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Microsoft Changes Blog Censoring Policies
Lam1969 writes "Microsoft attorney Brad Smith says that the company has a new policy to deal with a foreign government's request that alleges posted material violates its laws. The policy was apparently developed after Microsoft's own employees complained after a Chinese blogger hosted by Microsoft was censored. From the article 'Smith said Microsoft will only remove blogs when given proper legal notice, and even then, will only block access to that material within the country where it is deemed unlawful. The site will still be viewable from outside the country, he said.'"
They've actually done as close to the Right Thing(tm) as they can (yeah, so I can be radical) - even tho it costs them more work (=money). I'd have to have to administer this one, tho ;-)
Way to go MS!
--LWM
You know that statement is true when even Microsoft goes out of their way to keep speech protected and free. Way to be, Microsoft.
I'm happy to see Microsoft take this step. People need to be reminded that the Chinese citizens supposedly have their free speech protected by their constitution. If China wants to violate their own constitution, make sure that the blame falls sqaurely on their shoulders for all the world to see, rather than allowing companies to step in front and absorb the blame for them.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Don't you recognize irony when you see it? Hellfire, not only was this irony, but it was explicitely declared as such (and a beautiful example of subtle irony it is).
What do you need, <IRONY> and </IRONY> tags?
Every once in awhile there are situations where you and your enemy find each other on the same side. This would be one of them.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Just give Google 10 more years...
Do no evil. The concept of evil changes with time, sometimes quite rapidly.
FTFB: But, the behavior of my company in this instance is not right.
Either Scoble is very important to MS, or MS tolerates that from their employees. Beleive it or not, I've been at companies that would NOT have tolerated that kind of outspokeness from one of their employees. Or, Scoble, is now looking for a job.
Supposedly Bill Gates poked some fun at Google over their China ethics dilemma ... maybe this will be the start of something good.
How's that going to effect all pedophilia blogs comming from the US? Does that mean that MS will now host blogs that promote pedophilia in the contries where it has not been outlawed?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I'm pretty tired of China (who else wants to be censored so badly?) making the price of commercial admission "do our censoring for us." They have the data pipes coming into their country's borders. They should take it upon themselves to filter their own damned data. Filter everything going out and coming in. Then they will know it's contained and controlled just the way they want it.
Sounds like they want to have their noodles and eat'm too.
...exactly what the difference is.
Microsoft took a blog down. They got flamed about it. They changed their policies so they'd only "take blogs down" for the country that requested it. The blog in question would still have been censored if the current policy was in effect. Result: Microsoft is applying special filters for China.
Which is exactly what Google is doing.
How is this good when Microsoft does it, and evil when Google does it?
I mean, people aren't going "well, Microsoft's expected to be evil, so this is par for the course", people are actually arguing that this is "not evil". It's less evil than blocking sites/searches that the Chinese government requested everywhere, perhaps, but Google wasn't doing that and nobody ever suggested that they might... and Microsoft was.
"China won't see it, ..."
"China won't officially see it,..."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Personally I think its a bit short sighted to just say 'I hate MS.' Its like saying that the US gov't is evil. Yes, there are parts of it that are, but do you really think that the Dept. of Parks (or whatever the official name is) is evil? Probably not.
.net is a great platform to build applications in, but VB6 really sucks. Their licensing policy is crappy (although most commercial software is in the same boat), but they don't seem to be smashing people with patents.
MS is just too big to paint the entire company one color;
MS has its good aspects as well as its bad; lean on the bad ones to see if you can't get them to turn around, but its not necessary to try and bash them at every turn.