While our military and government fight to install and preserve democracy in corrupt and troubled countries worldwide, one of our own giant multinational corporations has given in, practically hands in the air, to the softest of undemocratic demands: censorship of blogs in China.
From Adbumb:
The AP has reported that [Microsoft] has come to an agreement with the Chinese government to censor specific words and phrases via their blogging tool, MSN Spaces (Microsoft holds a 50% stake in Shanghai MSN Network Communications Technology, which launched the tool in China last month.)
Terms that are now verboten if you’re a blogger in China? Such nasties as “democracy”, “freedom” and “human rights” are banned, as are a few high-falutin’ political terms like “communism”, “socialism” and “capitalism”. Stick those in a subject line or get caught blogging with them by one of China’s more than 30,000 Internet cops and you’re in for a bruising.”
You might be thinking, “Oh well, sucks for the Chinese. Glad I don't live there.” But remember, not only is this an American company freely endorsing censorship (pun intended), this is an American company freely endorsing censorship (pun intended again) of INDIVIDUALS' PERSONAL SPACE ON THE INTERNET.
As the article indicates, Microsoft isn't the only company to cave in to capit**ism at the expense of fr**dom. And as more and more large companies set precedents like this, don't be surprised when others jump on the bandwagon and point to them for justification.
F**kin' aye man, just one of those things that makes me a little concerned for the future of the Internet.