Kudos to Micro$oft for protecting their business model in China by deleting a controversial Chinese blogger’s site on MSN Spaces. Wouldn’t want to put all those gazillions of dollars in the Chinese market at risk by torquing off the Beijing government, eh, Bill?
Now, It is VERY important to note that the inaccessible blog was moved or removed at the server level and that the blog remains inaccessible from the United States as well as from China. This means that the action was taken NOT by Chinese authorities responsible for filtering and censoring the internet for Chinese viewers, but by MSN staff at the level of the MSN servers.
Get it? It’s not just a matter of standing back while the Chinese government blocks sites, or of giving back sanitized search engine requests to folks searching from China, or even of censoring certain content within sites (for political or other reasons), but of actually pulling down a site that offended the PRC government (or at least left M$ politically vulnerable to pointed digs and criticism from its Chinese competitors).
Doing business overseas is tough, but caving in to the least common denominator of state censorship isn’t the answer, whether it’s puritanical DAs in Mississippi or autocratic censors in Beijing.
Feh. Another reason to trust one’s content to as few third parties as possible. And to keep backups on one’s own machine.
I think you meant; “Another reason to trust your content to as few third parties as possible and…”
Precisely why I own a domain and pay for hosting. It seems like a small price. And my database is regularly backed up.
Yes, I did (corrected). And, yes, it is. 🙂
Micro$oft has confirmed that, yes, they did do it, and did do it to make the Chinese happy.
Microsoft said in a statement that the decision to unplug Zhao was inline with its practice of “ensuring that products and services comply with global and local laws, norms, and industry practices.”
“Most countries have laws and practices that require companies providing online services to make the Internet safe for local users,” the company said. “Occasionally, as in China, local laws and practices require consideration of unique elements.â€
So Micro$oft is willing to prevent a Chinese citizen from speaking out in an American venue if doing so would upset the Chinese government.
Makes me wonder when they’d decide to do the same for non-Chinese who would do so.