Comments on: Microsoft Shuts Down a Blog in China http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/01/microsoft_shuts.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:31:00 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: Chris Farris http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/01/microsoft_shuts.html/comment-page-1#comment-61085 Chris Farris Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:40:46 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2006/01/microsoft-shuts-down-a-blog-in-china.html#comment-61085 "This action by Microsoft infringed upon my freedom of speech." So are we talking the freedom of speech as provided by the PRC constitution, or by the Republic of Microsoft. :) Seriously, digging a bit futher the article states: "The MSN Spaces sites are maintained on computer servers in the United States." Well, that is more disturbing. If I as an American citizen say something negative about the PRC, will my blog be taken offline too? What the article doesn't make clear is if the blog was deleted from a global MSN Spaces or a Chinese MSN Spaces. If they deleted the blog from a global service - that is really bad. However, if they deleted it from a Chinese service - that just happened to locate the servers physically in the US - while that is bad, it is SOP for doing business in repressive countries. Overall I think the long term connectivity companies like Yahoo, Google and Microsoft provide outweigh the short term harm that comes from assisting a government with censorship. “This action by Microsoft infringed upon my freedom of speech.”

So are we talking the freedom of speech as provided by the PRC constitution, or by the Republic of Microsoft. :)

Seriously, digging a bit futher the article states:

“The MSN Spaces sites are maintained on computer servers in the United States.”

Well, that is more disturbing. If I as an American citizen say something negative about the PRC, will my blog be taken offline too?

What the article doesn’t make clear is if the blog was deleted from a global MSN Spaces or a Chinese MSN Spaces. If they deleted the blog from a global service – that is really bad.

However, if they deleted it from a Chinese service – that just happened to locate the servers physically in the US – while that is bad, it is SOP for doing business in repressive countries. Overall I think the long term connectivity companies like Yahoo, Google and Microsoft provide outweigh the short term harm that comes from assisting a government with censorship.

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