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Microsoft Changes Blog Censoring Policies

Posted by Zonk on from the less-restrictions-more-talking dept.

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.'"

33 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. by oh_bugger · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh the irony

    --
    Go home and shave your giant head of smell with your bad self
    1. Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. by MutantHamster · · Score: 2, Funny

      You must be trying to view the page in China.

      --
      My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
  2. Ha! by lilmouse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:Ha! by Premo_Maggot · · Score: 2

      Agreed, go MS! :)

      --
      Good karma sticks to me like velcro on a piece of plexiglass.
      Move along, citizen.
  3. "Information wants to be free" by Douglas+Simmons · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You know that statement is true when even Microsoft goes out of their way to keep speech protected and free. Way to be, Microsoft.

  4. Oh yeah? Well...... by NiteShaed · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well this is obviously part of their evil plan to, er, um.....wait.....If Google was put in this position they'd do a way better, oh, no, not that either.....dammit, what should the official Slashdot we-hate-Microsoft position be here? Damned inconsiderate of them to do something not-obviously-evil and leave us high and dry like this.

    --
    Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
    1. Re:Oh yeah? Well...... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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
    2. Re:Oh yeah? Well...... by tsa · · Score: 2, Funny

      They make mistakes, just like anyone else :-)

      --

      -- Cheers!

    3. Re:Oh yeah? Well...... by plague3106 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      MS is just too big to paint the entire company one color; .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 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.

    4. Re:Oh yeah? Well...... by dustmite · · Score: 2

      Sigh ... public manipulation 101.

      They're only making it look like they're doing the right thing - relative to what they were doing for a short time. But hang on, they're still censoring. This is just a press release saying "we'll censor slightly less stringently than we used to". But they're still censoring at least as much as everyone else is - they're now doing exactly what everyone was saying "Google is evil" for just a week or two ago. And yet everyone falls for it and goes "wow look Microsoft is doing the right thing".

      How it works is by first lowering expectations then pitching higher than the level of expectations: Microsoft is taking three steps:

      neutral -> heavy censorship compliance -> "normal" censorship compliance.

      We're seeing step 2 now, which looks like a positive move relative to the previous one. But if they had directly done this:

      neutral -> "normal" censorship compliance

      that's a "bad" move the media would be shouting "evil", and MS would have had no room to maneouvre.

      If Google's PR department was as smart they would have done something similar, i.e. deliberately start with stricter filtering, then announce that they are going to "do the right thing" and allow a little more freedom (then adjusting things to what they actually are now anyway).

      The timing of this move is pretty smart, and almost certainly deliberate --- i.e. just after Google got beaten up badly in the media for filtering results in China.

  5. Microsoft: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do LESS evil!

    1. Re:Microsoft: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Microsoft: Try to do no evil.

      Google: Do no evil.*

      *not available in China

  6. Excellent Step by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Excellent Step by jgc7 · · Score: 2, Informative
      If China wants to violate their own constitution...

      I'd bet the censored material was a clear violation of article 51 of the constitution.

      --
      70% of statistics are made up.
  7. The mods here have NO sense of humor. by mmell · · Score: 2, Insightful
    For the record, the TLP is not off-topic.

    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?

    1. Re:The mods here have NO sense of humor. by 1u3hr · · Score: 2, Insightful
      a beautiful example of subtle irony it is).

      Be happy, now it's +5 funny. Personally, I'd have modded it "redundant", as this exact post is made every time somethng related to censorship is posted. Maybe a couple of years ago it was "subtle and beautiful", now it's on the same level as "Hot grits", "Imagine a Beowulf cluster", etc. Humour requires at least a touch of novelty.

  8. Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just give Google 10 more years...

    Do no evil. The concept of evil changes with time, sometimes quite rapidly.

  9. In other news... by PFI_Optix · · Score: 3, Funny

    Slashdot.org membership suffered a sharp decline when 192 readers' heads mysteriously exploded.

    --
    120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
  10. Say what you will about MS... by IAAP · · Score: 4, Insightful
    but the fact that their employees feel safe enough to criticise them says something.

    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.

    1. Re:Say what you will about MS... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      being a current MS employee, generally speaking MS is extremely open to critism internally, staff are encouraged to have there say. I would feel very comfortable raising objections internally with the knowledge that the worst that would happen would be that my opinin was rejected. I previously worked at another unamed large IT company and one of the reasons I left was when voicing my opinion about one of our products internally I was told that such critism was unacceptable in open forum (even though it was internal).

  11. /nudges Google by everphilski · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Supposedly Bill Gates poked some fun at Google over their China ethics dilemma ... maybe this will be the start of something good.

  12. Ha2! by lilmouse · · Score: 2, Funny

    Curse you, MS, for getting good Geek press coverage! Your plans for world domination by making free speech easier so you can pump more advertising into China will fail miserably!

    --LWM

  13. "sexual" content by superwiz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.
  14. this is really bad for china... by Elminst · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is actually really bad for places like china...
    Now someone can post a blog/whatever with potential bad info about things happening in china, and no one in china can see it. BUT, the rest of the world will see it in all its glory, uncensored. Great for the revolutionaries, good for the rest of the world, bad for china, et al.
    It's like the head in the sand. China won't see it, and thus denies it exists. But the rest of the world will see it just fine.
    If this holds, expect to see even more posts about chinese atrocities from internal subversives, because now they won't be hidden from the outside world.

    --
    No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
  15. Actually... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Funny

    1. Post your chinese blog in Microsoft's pages
    2. Search using google (with mispelled words) to find your blog.
    3. Read!! :D

    Isn't it nice when everyone's working together? :)

  16. Let the governments censor their own crap! by erroneus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  17. Can someone explain... by argent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...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.

    1. Re:Can someone explain... by Asmor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's a pretty damn big difference, actually.

      It's the difference between a "utopian" society that's only that way because all dissidents are silenced, and a "utopian" society that is recognized by others to be the oppressive regime it is, even if the people there don't.

  18. Meanwhile, back at the ranch... by DaveRexel · · Score: 2, Informative

    The other face of the janus announces :

    "MSFT: Our DRM licensing is there to eliminate hobbyists and little guys"

    http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/30/msft_our_drm_ licensi.html

    --
    # ~: no sigs today
  19. Minor but important correction by geekoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "China won't see it, ..."

    "China won't officially see it,..."

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  20. Google/Russian Culture Version of Evil by hansreiser · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Please remember that one of the founders of Google is Russian, and in Russian culture censorship is just not evil. Censorship is what you do if you have the power to do it. Nothing more.

    So, when Google says don't be evil, they mean it sincerely. They just don't mean what us Americans mean.

    Also, keep in mind that the US government is doing nothing, repeat, nothing, to prevent foreign governments from pressuring US based companies into censorship. If you want there to be no censorship by China, then pass a law stating that any company that censors material based on the request of a foreign government which is not also censorable under US law may not do business in the US.

    If you aren't willing to pass such a law, which will have a price, then don't complain about Google.

    Please consider the enormous strategic importance of the Chinese market for Google. China is growing FAST. Also consider that Google most likely does not consider themselves to be irreplaceable for China, and that there is really not a lot they can do (unless the US Government pushes back against China in this culture war). Then consider one last time that in Russian culture this is just not evil.

    This is a job for the US Government, not Google or Microsoft. Oh dear. Sigh.:-/

    1. Re:Google/Russian Culture Version of Evil by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Please remember that one of the founders of Google is Russian, and in Russian culture censorship is just not evil. Censorship is what you do if you have the power to do it. Nothing more.
      As a Russian, I would like to officially state here that you, sir, are an idiot. At best what you describe could be called "Soviet culture", or, even more precisely, "totalitarian culture" - except there's no such thing. Censorship and tolalitarianism by the very nature of the latter always go hand in hand, be it in the USSR, China, North Korea, or Iraq.
  21. Re:Unfortunately by ClearlyPennsylvania · · Score: 2, Interesting
    for those of you who think you would choose to be moral and not support censorship, I would love to see how fast you turn on those convictions if someone pulled up with a dumptruck of money.
    Stop for a second and really, really think about it. Forget all the money associated with any particular decision. Then, ask yourself, is Google doing something immoral? It's a very tricky question. Here's how I feel about it: A.1 Google does not have the leverage in China to change China's free speech policy. A.2 Regardless of Google's decision, Chinese people would not have the ability to access prohibit content (China has its own filters set up) A.3 The Chinese people, at worst, can access the same content they could before. At best, they can access more. A.4 Therefore, the net effect to the Chinese people is neutral or positive. B Seriously, reliably searching content on the internet is not the biggest of their problems. This is just not that big of a deal C.1 Suppose the US created a law that made google filter out child porn - this would not be unexpected C.2 Now, suppose some Canadian search company tried to set up shop in the US. Would we not expect them to abide by the US laws? Basically, Google did not have a choice about whether or not to deliver unfiltered content to the Chinese people. Overall, I think this created a better situation for the Chinese people, and isn't that what's important? The only question here is this: should you stick to your ideals even if it creates a worse situation for everyone involved? Some may say yes, I say no.