Microsoft Bans 'Democracy' and 'Freedom' from MSN China

[ArtWilliams]

Microsoft's new MSN China portal has banned the words 'democracy' and 'freedom' from its website in a move to keep from offending the political censors that have been put on free speech in the country. The main portion of the site that the ban applies to appears to be the MSN Spaces blog portion, where users get a message saying "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech from this item."

Rest is here

Yeah, I know its their website but I very offended by what Bill & Company have done!

-- art

[Kinky]

anything to keep the money flowing in... if the chinese gov't isn't happy with microsoft they will block thier products and websites

[Robbo]

So nice of Bill to sell out our ideals for a few more bucks he does`nt need. I would have told China to go fuck themselves!

[Jim]

I guess, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.
China has to be a huge amount of money to give up by saying go fuck yourself.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Robbo

So nice of Bill to sell out our ideals for a few more bucks he does`nt need. I would have told China to go fuck themselves!

When do you really not need more money? Bill Gates has plenty...sure but, there is always more

[SirMoby]

Have you been paying attention to how we're funding our small econmic growth, the war and the interest payments on out debt? The entire safety and prosperity of this country now depends on China.

There are also employees that depend on Bill's money. What would you say to them when you fired them?

[Jim]

So tell me, hypothetically...
And of course this will never happen. But, The Chinese government tells you they will tell all the people in the country to buy a membership at your porn site as long as you never mention democracy or freedom.

Would you do it?

[Kinky]

Originally Posted by Jim

So tell me, hypothetically...
And of course this will never happen. But, The Chinese government tells you they will tell all the people in the country to buy a membership at your porn site as long as you never mention democracy or freedom.

Would you do it?

case closed

not to mention freedom and democracy don't seem to stand for the same things that they use to

[eman]

China is now the world's biggest manufacturer of socks. You don't mess with that sort of clout!

[spookyx]

Originally Posted by Jim

So tell me, hypothetically...
And of course this will never happen. But, The Chinese government tells you they will tell all the people in the country to buy a membership at your porn site as long as you never mention democracy or freedom.

Would you do it?

I hope he uses a sponsor that he signed up with my refer code

[Linkster]

Something left out of the original post - if you scroll down to the bottom of the original article -
"According to reports, the restriction has only been applied to the titles of blogs and not the content itself, so it is not yet a total ban."

Also - Google, Yahoo and MSN have been censoring news, web search results and directory listings for as long as I can remember - and not just in China - heck in France and Germany they dont get to see what the governments think is in-appropriate like sites about "revisionism" or white supremecy
Google has censored the results for the keyword "sex" in the english language results to provide PG rated results for the US for 2 years now - its funny cause if you change the language preference to traditional Chinese you get to see the real results for "sex"

Here's a real world example:
lets search for sex :
In the US, UK, Ca, Oz and plenty of European countries - these are the results you get:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search - note the lack of any porn sites in the top 20

Now do the same search using the Simplified Chinese language and look through the top 20 there
http://www.google.com/search?hl=zh-C...=Google+Search

Amazing how a country that we all call censored has more access to porn than surfers in the "free world"

[ClickBuster]

What they actually did is to proctect inviduals from the goverment. You may think that you know something, but you actually don't.

As you could expect Microsoft has one of the most completed tracking systems in the World. They count traffic big time!

Without banned words, the Chinese goverment could go into MSN's access logs and complete stats and request information about the people reading and publishing related materials, thus the gov can chase them, procecute them and in some cases even torture them to death.

Don't believe this shit - well that's how communism worked before and now. They chased the individual and controlled the media. In case that somebody published an articles concidered as anarchy or propaganda of some sort, the gov would go after the authors and the people interested in their articles, simple as that.

So, I give THUMBS UP to Mr Bill Gates, cuz he actually did something good - he provided a service and space for development and secured the people behind the screen.

Smart people will always find the way to information and will spread it over people, so no worries about that, as long as there's something to read.

-- Andrew

[eman]

Looks like Chinese Sex could be the next big niche.

Of course the trouble with having a Chinese is that half an hour later you want another one.

[Robbo]

Originally Posted by Jim

So tell me, hypothetically...
And of course this will never happen. But, The Chinese government tells you they will tell all the people in the country to buy a membership at your porn site as long as you never mention democracy or freedom.

Would you do it?

Hell yeah! I don`t compromise my integrity.

[Jim]

Robbo
You are a better man than me. I could not pass up that much money.

[Boogie]

Personally i have no problems with complying with other cultures, to an extent, on an open market.

If the chinese government says "block these words or dont do business here" I think its fairly simple concept.

We have all seen photos of our very own president holding hands and hugging and kissing the cheeks of Saudi royals. Would he do this for an american man?

If Bush can bend over for foreign fuckers I cant see why Bill cant.

[Robbo]

No one said Bill can`t. Just what it says about Bill.

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by Jim

Robbo
You are a better man than me. I could not pass up that much money.

That may or may not be true Jim but respecting another country's wishes has nothing to do with integrity and has nothing to do with being a better man or not.

[Robbo]

I would just feel too much like I`m helping them maintain the hold they have on thier people. And integrity as far as respect to ones own ideals. We all differ in that area.

Jim not better just different!

[terry]

I'd go for the money.. its all about the money!