La Shawn Barber
01.03.06
Shame on you, Bill Gates!

Update (12/5): New stuff!

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What does the head-geek-in-charge think he’s doing? Censoring Chinese bloggers just like communist China does? What goes on here?

Microsoft’s MSN Spaces is censoring bloggers. American blogger Rebecca MacKinnon has the scoop:

Bill Gates On December 16th I created a blog and attempted to make various posts with politically sensitive words. When I attempted to post entries with titles like “Tibet Independence” or “Falun Gong” (a banned religious group), I got an error message saying: “This item includes forbidden language. Please delete forbidden language from this item.”

However I was successful in posting blog entries with non-controversial titles, but with politically sensitive words in the text body. For instance, a blog post titled “I love you” had “Tibet independence” in the text body, and a post titled “I am happy” had “Falun Gong” in the body, like so…

Bill, your innovative work with the personal computer was revolutionary and made possible by living in a country that allows a free market system and free expression of ideas. Pay attention to what’s going on in your company and stop the censorship now!

Related:

Everyone here knows the Scobleizer, right? Oh…just us business bloggers? OK. He works for Microsoft and adds his views to the discussion.

Posted by La Shawn @ 12:16 pm Permalink
Filed under: Censorship    


25 Comments

  1. Wow! Now if Tom Cruise can drag Bill Gates into the L. Ron Hubbard land of “other reality” we can watch Microsoft swallow itself whole.

    Comment by Heliotrope — 01.03.06 @ 12:48 pm

  2. He makes way too much money off of China to do anything about it.

    Comment by mj — 01.03.06 @ 1:01 pm

  3. Bill, your innovative work with the personal computer was revolutionary…

    … in the area of creative manipulation (alternating with defiance) of the legal system, but certainly not in technological innovation.

    Comment by Tim (Random Observations) — 01.03.06 @ 1:39 pm

  4. I hear Google is coming out with its own operating system…

    I am against this kind of censorship. I’d move my blog if I were her.

    Comment by RepJ — 01.03.06 @ 3:12 pm

  5. This is old news. And Microsoft is hardly the only offender in this camp. It has been reported in the past that Google has worked with the Chinese to stop certain items from showing up in searches when the searches originate in China. It has also been reported that Cisco sells routers and other equipment to help the Chinese government find these people.

    With regard to Bill Gates, “innovative” is not a word I’d attach to him. He is or has been very ambitious. But innovative is not something I’d credit him or his company.

    Comment by Grumpy — 01.03.06 @ 3:46 pm

  6. Thanks for invaluable input, “Grump.” :?

    Comment by La Shawn — 01.03.06 @ 3:50 pm

  7. slashdot and digg has plenty of stories archived about American companies helping the Chinese govt censor the Internet. The list is long and shameful.

    Comment by Clayton Bigsby — 01.03.06 @ 3:54 pm

  8. Meanwhile, back in Redmond . . .

    What does the head-geek-in-charge think he’s doing? Censoring Chinese bloggers just like communist China does? What goes on here? So asks La Shawn Barber. Both La Shawn and Glenn Reynolds link to Rebecca MacKinnon, who’s got the damning goods on…

    Trackback by Classical Values — 01.03.06 @ 5:13 pm

  9. A brief but enlighting article on censorship, China and the almighty dollar.

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051220-5809.html

    Comment by Clayton Bigsby — 01.03.06 @ 6:52 pm

  10. Mao Tse Gates?

    So I wonder what the man representing one-third of of the Times Persons of the Year has to say about political censorship of MSN Spaces blogs? As quoted by LaShawn Barber, Glenn Reynolds, Evan Coyne Maloney, and the Scobelizer, Rebecca MacKinnon expl…

    Trackback by cb.blog — 01.03.06 @ 7:08 pm

  11. Bill Gates censors bloggers on behalf of state?

    Bill Gates being a state-appointed censor does sound bizarre. But La Shawn and other bloggers are covering what appears to be clear evidence that Microsoft is co-operating with the Chinese government to muzzle bloggers.

    Trackback by Adrian Warnock — 01.03.06 @ 7:20 pm

  12. Microsoft Removes Chinese Blog

    Rebecca MacKinnon writes:
    Microsoft’s MSN Spaces continues to censor its Chinese language blogs, and has become more aggressive and thorough at censorship since I first checked out MSN’s censorship system last summer. On New Years Eve, MSN Space…

    Trackback by The New Journalism — 01.03.06 @ 8:31 pm

  13. Microsoft has to satisfy the China customer.

    I wonder if it was just to be taken off of Chinese access areas and there was a “mistake” made.

    Comment by DarkStar — 01.03.06 @ 10:19 pm

  14. Microsoft accused of censoring blogs in China

    Rebecca MacKinnon has a long posting on Microsoft’s censorship of blogs in China. Amongst a number of accusations, she claims that recent actions prove that Microsoft itself - and not the Chinese government - is censoring Chinese blogs. If she’s righ…

    Trackback by CSR Asia - Corporate Social Responsibility in Asia — 01.03.06 @ 10:37 pm

  15. Bill Gates innovative? Nah! Master manipulator of the justice system? Yes! Really rich-as in the amount of personal income he is reported to have could easily re-build the City of New Orleans? Yes. Revolutionary? Nah! That one person could amass such an amount of money is evolutionary.

    Comment by henry gandolph — 01.04.06 @ 2:08 am

  16. As Gates and his wife as well as Bono were on the Time cover, wonder what Bono has to say about this…

    Comment by dave — 01.04.06 @ 6:43 am

  17. La Shawn

    I hate to poop on Rebecca’s scoop, but I wrote about Gates’ scandalous dealings with the Chinese last August…

    http://www.theipinionsjournal.com/2005/08/for-some-doing-business-in-china-means.html

    Comment by anthony — 01.04.06 @ 6:46 am

  18. Grumpy is dead on. Bill Gates capitalized marvelously on the work of others, turning those ideas into a hugely successful enterprise. He earned his money and gets high marks for dogged determination. But innovative? Give me a break. I’ve suffered under the many versions of MS technological failure for years. Billy’s products are pathetic. Whenever possible I’m off into the Unix or Mac worlds, places where things actually work right most of the time.

    Off the subject a bit, but perhaps relevant tangentially, I recall someone saying that Bill Gates has fewer friends than Saddam Hussein. Nice legacy for Billy, being a purveyor of lousy products and being a world-class jerk at the same time.

    Comment by RedBeard — 01.04.06 @ 7:21 am

  19. Diggers Realm Super Silly Searches, Statistics and Superstars For Oct-Dec 2005

    There was a lapse in my coverage from Oct-Nov here at Super Silly, so I’ll be covering the 3 month period here. Diggers Realm Stats And Growth For The Months Of October To December This shows the increases and decreases…

    Trackback by Diggers Realm — 01.04.06 @ 10:44 am

  20. I don’t know if anyone’s told you this lately, but you’re really boring. - Admin

    Comment by ricland — 01.04.06 @ 10:56 am

  21. Internet Censorship in China

    Bloggers all over the world are up in arms over Microsoft’s alleged censorship of a popular Chinese language blog on their free and widely used MSN spaces website builder. Some blogs in China get blocked for mentioning certain highly specific keywords…

    Trackback by METANOIAC! a weblog from China — 01.04.06 @ 2:00 pm

  22. What this proves, again, is that it’s “all about the benjamins” for Gates. He’s in it to expand his empire and global reach. If it means cooperating witht he Chinese govt. in the manipulation and terrorizing of its own people, well, they’re not his people, right? His generosity and worries about human suffering only extend as far as it doesn’t affect his bottom line.

    And RedBeard, spot on about Microsoft products.

    Comment by Chris Roberts — 01.04.06 @ 5:35 pm

  23. 访问墙外的安替Access to Anti

    安替Anti, Jing Zhao’s blog was "unavailable" by m$ or someone else. It  But, in an…

    Trackback by 遐思闲论 Remme's Remark — 01.04.06 @ 9:26 pm

  24. I’ve read Rebecca’s work ever since the North Korean train wreck/explosion incident. She’s what the media should strive to be like. Her intention seems to be to get the facts and report them. Anyone like Bill or his company censoring her stuff is something I can only judge as WRONG.

    BTW, I’ve not used GOOGLE anymore ever since it was pointed out to me that if you type in “failure” and then hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button you’ll get the President Bush’s biography on the Whitehouse.gov’s website. It’s been over a year and I just tried it again and it went somewhere else. But until I hear an apology from Google, I’ll just PASS on using them.

    Comment by Baklava — 01.05.06 @ 9:47 pm

  25. Bill Gates what he trying to pull sounds kind of rotten to me

    Comment by BIRDZILLA — 01.06.06 @ 9:49 pm





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