Microsoft admits to censoring Information
It appears that Microsoft has admitted to censoring the blog of a Chinese blogger in response to pressure from the Chinese government.
Some people call it spineless attitude; I call it protecting your interests. As I said in a previous post on this issue, corporations are only interested in making money, growth and satisfying shareholders. Ethics and principles are not their biggest priority or concern. The last thing Microsoft wants is to put their opportunities in China in danger and risk having Yahoo and Google taking over the market there. There’s a lot of opportunity in China, and Microsoft, Yahoo and Google all want to be a part of it.
Ofcourse your products and services should comply to global and local laws! But what about your own beliefs? What about ethics? What about what’s right? Will you just go ahead and comply to anything just to be able to sell?
I am very disappointed in Microsoft because of this, but to be honest I have to say that if I had expected anything else, that would have been very naive of me. Microsoft is just a corporation and will behave like one in the negative sense when they have to. And if it means that they have to just watch and maybe even take part as questionable things happen, they will do it to protect their interests. It’s the same thing with governments. For years the US government had helped Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein because it made sense to do so to benefit from it, even while they knew that Saddam for example was a maniac. When it made sense after a few years to make Bin Laden and Saddam the enemy, they also did so in order to benefit from it and protect their interests.
Even Google with their “Don’t be evil” slogan look like a bunch of hypocrites now trying to bend reality, our perception and possibly warp space time to be able to do business in China and still look innocent and ethical in the process. Ofcourse they are, and will keep, failing big time.
Perhaps the solution to this problem can be so simple as bringing in our beloved Steve-O to throw a few chairs at Chinese government officials, but I doubt that even that would have much impact.
The world is just broken.
This entry was posted
on Friday, January 6th, 2006 at 8:28 pm by Karel Donk
and is filed under 
January 25th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
[...] These days Google’s PR is working overtime trying to explain their way out of hypocrisy. When I wrote before about Microsoft, I already mentioned how they are increasingly getting it more difficult to keep their image of innocence. I don’t think they’ll be able to maintain their “Don’t be evil” slogan much longer. In fact, they probably already have their marketing department trying to come up with new slogans. [...]
January 28th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
[...] Let’s consider a real world example now. I am a strong supporter and fan of Microsoft as a company. I’ve always liked Microsoft. I love their technology, and use and prefer their technology to build software. I recommend them to friends and generally support them in various ways. Then I find out that Microsoft is using its powers to do something bad. For example, they use their technology and power to help the Chinese government restrict freedom of speech in China. I am against this. So right now, I find myself in the sad situation of becoming or being seen as a hypocrite. On the one hand I am against the Chinese government restricting freedom of speech, but on the other hand I am a supporter of the very same company that is helping to restrict freedom of speech. By supporting Microsoft, even in the most indirect way, I am helping them to restrict freedom of speech in China. By using their technology, by using Windows on my PC, by recommending them etc. I am giving them the power, supporting them financially and in many other ways to do what I am against. And the sad part is that I now realize and know this. And this makes me a hypocrite. [...]
September 13th, 2006 at 10:39 am
[...] Apart from the big privacy risks, these organizations can also control what gets published on their news websites and blogging websites and what doesn’t. I wrote before about Microsoft admitting that they censor information, and perhaps you can still remember Google censoring information on it’s blogging network. Even Yahoo has done these things already in the past. It even seemed at one time that Google was even blacking out certain information from it’s cache of webpages. [...]