internet - Boycot MSN spaces on its way

Rebecca points in Global Voices at an entry by Isaac, calling to boycot MSN spaces after it decided to censor its Chinese edition.

Update: More calls for a boycot.

internet - Guestblogging at the wage indicator

During a conference in Amsterdam and Bussum. Not really a China angle, so will not crosspost here.

internet - How to avoid Microsoft's censorship

A bit disappointed it still took days to develop a system to go around the Microsoft censorship. Global voices picked it up.
Just interviewed by the BBC on the same issue. Should be online by Tuesday.

internet - Beating up a taxi driver


Whether we talk about big scale riots or the 'simple' beating up of a taxi driver, the internet is noting more and more of those incidents, taking them to a larger audience. (Apologies, picked this up from another blog but forgot to write down which one;)

internet - "We censor only a bit", Microsoft

The recent row on MSN's Spaces censoring its Chinese service for offensive words like 'demomocracy' is triggering off more reactions from the Microsoft community. One of the team members of this division, Dare Obasanjo, says they only block banned words in the url and titles of the entries. While that might not calm down the sentiments, it is useful to know for the users.
Scobleizer, who triggered off the current discussion is now sad about the who thing. He should not be.

law - A discussion with state security

ESWN publishes a nice account of an interrogation of a citizen of Wuhan by officials of the Shandong state security.

The national security bureau people were quite polite. The Wuhan people did not take part. The Shandong people held good attitudes, and they were professional.

That complies with accounts I have recently heard from others who had talks with state security. They actually complained that Chinese citizens would sue nowadays everybody, if they thought they were treated badly, including state security, making them rather careful in avoiding possible suits;
The detained citizen gave the account and ESWN summerizes the techniques:

They just kept asking the same questions again and again. It is as if they had written down the list of questions that they wanted to ask, and then they jumped back and forth and asked similarly phrased questions for the purpose of looking for inconsistencies to invalidate your truthfulness. It was very exhausting!
They would also switch out your concepts -- for example, when I said "If someday the ban on political parties is lifted, we can form political parties", the interrogator changed it to "You want to establish a political party!" As another example, when I said "Democracy can only be possible when the people unite," the interrogator changed it to, "You want to establish an organization to bring people together."
And they also make leading statements. For example, they say "Talk to us how about you
and XX are establishing a political party." There was nothing about establishing any political party before this, but they act as if this supposition were true and want you to describe how you intend to proceed.

What we are still missing is state security maintaining their own weblogs, but that seems a matter of time;

internet - Late fallout of the 'crackdown' on weblogs

I was interviewed earlier today by 'Asia Media' and noted that the US media had not yet discovered that the perceived 'crackdown' on weblogs in China is much more limited than was suggested before. Also at the American Media Center is missing the latest assesments and sticks to the earlier story, that proved to be a rather simplified interpretation of reality.
Weblogs hosted outside China and those hosted at weblog services that have registered themselves do not have to do so themselves and that would cover most of the over one million weblogs in China. The problem has now shifted to those hosting services, who have to apply a filtering system, cause a wholly different discussion.

internet - Reports on the Shenyou-incident

A farmer taped the violent attack on farmers last week in the Hebei village of Shenyou, 100 km away from Beijing. (Found through China Digital Times; distributed by the Washington Post) Another proof of the power of the internet. Both the party secretary and the mayor of the city have been fired, say other sources. During the riot 10 people were killed and a hundred were injured.

censorship - China's imperfect internet filters

What do you think is wrong with my review of Hu Jintao's achievements since he took over the helm from Jiang Zemin? The piece did not pass the internal censorship we apply at Chinabiz. The piece is by and large rather positive about those achievements, but - said our censor - it containted too many banned words. It is just another proof how contraproductive the internet filters are. The story was killed, at least on the email service of Chinabiz. What is published on the website is harder to filter.

Books on internet filters

internet - Microsoft takes heat on censorship

As predicted yesterday, the decision of Microsoft to censor its Chinese weblog service and Scobleizer's defense raised much discussion. Here Danwei gives an overview and this is Rebecca MacKinnon's take. Rebecca attacks Scoble's view that 'Chinese' support the censorship, so why should he as an American push the Chinese in another direction. Rezbecca:

In my experience, most Chinese, like all other human beings I've ever met, would very much like to have freedom of speech. This goes for students, professors, workers, farmers, retirees, religious practitioners, and even many government officials. Many said so to me in on-the-record interviews. Many more told me so privately, in trusted confidence over beers (or something stronger) among
friends.

Both overdo it in both directions, according to mine observations. Most of the Chinese do not hold strong position on issues like free speech and free media, unless they are pushed in one or the other direction. Then Rebecca gets closer to Scobleizer's opinion:

What they don't want is to lose their jobs and educational opportunities by pushing too hard at the restrictions their government has placed on their ability to speak. They work within the bounds of the possible, and since people in China can say a lot more now than they were allowed to say 20 years ago, most take the long-term view.

We talk at least about two different issues. As a person, country or corporation you have values that would overrule in some cases even legal restrictions. I mentioned yesterday the death penalty as an example, but I'm sure that Microsoft does not want to cross certain lines. They decided (and Scobleizer agreed) that exercising censorship in Chinese is in line with their corporate values. That is good to know.
How to change a country would be a decision of the citizens of that country, even if they have a hard time with their government. I do no believe you can bomb, virtually of literally, countries into democracy. As a foreigner you have to know your place; you can help people if you think they deserve your support, but preaching your own gospel in another country is not my choice.

Update: Prize for the most subtle headline goes to the Financial Express in India: Microsoft appeases China Net Nazi way.

Books on Microsoft

Ethical business dilemmas – the WTO column

(later also at Chinabiz)
One of the problems in discussing ethical dilemmas for companies is that in most cases they try to avoid making it into a public discussion. In those cases the people who are hired to speak on behalf of the companies involved, they most often lose the abilities that have brought them their job in the first place: they stop talking.
While business dilemmas occur everywhere, it is not surprising that over the past few years internet companies entering China have been hit by a fair share of publicity about how they would behave in a country where free speech and free media are not part of its cultural heritage. Further, anything related to the internet is almost automatically part of the public sphere. So, when Google censors its Chinese news aggregator to align with the Chinese regulations, they are accused of complying with the murky Chinese internet laws for its own purpose of making money on the Chinese market. The fact that they tried to weasel out of the issue by saying Chinese internet users could not get access to banned website anyway, did not make their position much better. Yahoo has been in a similar position. Both companies avoided a public confrontation with their audiences, who cried foul about the way those companies complied with the Chinese censorship.

Microsoft got itself this week in a similar position. China is – again – registering websites and weblogs. The registration has a limited scope. Lager hosting services, like the successful ‘Spaces’ by Microsoft, have to register, but then the thousands of weblogs hosted at those services do not have to. That comes at a price and Microsoft was accused of banning words to avoid problems with the internet censor in China.
What then happened was new for me, and it might be a sign of changing times. Microsoft has hired a weblogger, a staff member that keeps his online diary on developments in the company that operates rather different from a traditional PR-operation. First, Scobleizer, as he is called, writes under his own name without officially representing the company. Sometime, he even goes aggressively against the corporate policies set out by his CEO. Discussions that would have remained internally in many other larger corporations are taken to the public domain. Because Scobleizer is fast, very well informed and allows others to give their take on the issue, the exchanges quickly become fascinating.
So, in this case on censorship in China Scobleizer publicly sided with this company. When you work or want to work in a country you have to stick to their rules and regulations, even if you do not like it, Scobleizer wrote to the disgust of those representing the politically correctness on the internet.
I only partly agree with him. Even though both in part of the US and China the death penalty is legally accepted, I would still resist being part in selling equipment for their death chambers. There is just a limit to how far I would comply with what might be legal in any country. I’m not sure whether complying with the internet censorship would belong in that category, but many in the rest of the world will certainly think so.
The fact that there is a discussion going on about this business dilemma is interesting enough. Obvious, many companies have decided that their business, and sometimes even their future, lies in China. While both individuals and companies might have different ways of drawing a line, for everybody there will be a bottom line. Bringing the discussion into the open is a plus and Microsoft should be applauded for doing it. In that way, they are a sign that things are changing, yet again, for all players involved in global business.

Fons Tuinstra

internet - Scobleizer sides with Microsoft decision to censor China service

Microsoft's superblogger Scobleizer sides in a remarkable comment on his personal weblog with his company's decision to censor its Chinese weblogging services called 'Spaces' against the usual stance in favor of free speech (and thus sides with Microsoft's business interests in China;

I've been to China (as an employee of Winnov about seven years ago). I met with Government officials there. I met with students. I met with professors. They explained their anti-free-speech stance to me and I understand it. I don't agree with it, and I will be happy to explain to anyone the benefits of giving your citizens the right to speak freely, but it's not my place to make their laws. It
certainly is not my right to force their hand with business power.

It is a honest and interesting twist from the mostly so politically correct commentors from the US and I see a big discussion developing here. I must say that this for US standards rather unique viewpoint took me a bit by surprise too. While I in general agree that this world functions best because many of us do stick to the law of the country they are in, there are certainly exceptions to this rule. Just having a 'rule' is not good enough, it should also not go against some very fundamental principles. In that way, I will always be against the death penalty, no matter how legal that might be in a country.
One censorship I would partly agree with Scobleizer: it is up to the citizens of a country to change those rules, if they wish to do so, not for foreigners - although I would not hide my own viewpoints in favor of free speech. What makes the issue complicated is the unclear character of those regulations in China, making it very unclear when you could be in hot water.
Books on censorship

internet - As long as you avoid the word 'democracy'

Gebecca MacKinnon continues her China weblog watch at global voices and notes that Microsoft allows the Chinese users of their weblog provider Spaces to get online without any registration, provided they do not use this word 'democracy'.

But then, MSN is already in the censorship game even in the U.S., as Boing Boing discovered soon after the service’s launch.

More links to other articles here also, but not always that well informed.