Tuesday, June 14, 2005

All in the name of Big Business

Microsoft helping to censor Chinese blogs

I guess corporate profits are more important than freedom.

Chinese bloggers who use Microsoft's new Chinese-language Web portal will have to watch what they say.

There are reports that users of the MSN Spaces service face restrictions on certain words, such as "freedom", "democracy" and "human rights."

Agence France-Presse said bloggers who attempted to use those words were said to generate a message saying the language was prohibited.

"This message contains a banned expression, please delete this expression," the pop-up warning reads.

MSN marketing director Adam Sohn confirmed that Microsoft was working with the Chinese government to censor language, but did not give examples.

[...]
(snark)But, but, but ... it's a BIG market (/snark)

IA

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