As China Censors the Internet, Money Talks

[Dotty]

When I read this story, two questions occurred to me:
1. Does this affect non-political web communication in China on things related to sex, including the use of search engines to find things like this site?
2. Who on the face of the English speaking world has used the formal spelling of the word "whore" in this century? Ho, hoe, hooker, working girl yes, but "whore?" Are they censoring blogs on 19th century novels?

As China Censors the Internet, Money Talks

BEIJING — Chinese bloggers using a new Microsoft service to post messages titled "democracy," "capitalism," "liberty" or "human rights" are greeted with a bright yellow warning.

"This message includes forbidden language," it scolds. "Please delete the prohibited expression."

The restrictions were agreed upon by Microsoft and its Chinese partner, the government-linked Shanghai Alliance Investment. The limits have sparked a debate here and in the online world about how free speech could be threatened when the world's most powerful software company forges an alliance with the largest Communist country.

Multinational companies from cigarette makers to baby formula companies routinely change their advertising and other corporate behavior to adapt to local laws. Experts say that Internet companies such as Microsoft are often the focus of controversy because their products are linked to free speech issues, and many rules governing blogs — or Web logs — and other electronic speech are evolving.

"There's a spectrum here," said Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and an author of a recent study on internet censorship in China. "It's one thing to provide a regime with steel, another to provide bullets, and another to serve as the executioner."

Executives with the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant argue that they are only following local laws and any disadvaneforum.xxxe is outweighed by benefits users get from the company's services.

"Even with the filters, we're helping millions of people communicate, share stories, share photographs and build relationships," said Adam Sohn, Microsoft's global sales and marketing director. "For us, that is the key point here."

Microsoft adds that filtering objectionable words is nothing new. In the United States, the company blocks use of several words in titles, including "whore" and "pornography."

Yahoo and Google, two other large Internet firms, have also imposed limits on search results in France and Germany, where Nazi propaganda and memorabilia are banned.

In China, however, censorship is far more extensive. Computer users often find that filters on servers and search engines, including Yahoo's, prevent them from accessing pages, posting blogs or receiving e-mails on topics deemed sensitive by the Communist Party. Repeated violations can elicit a visit by police, leading in extreme cases to imprisonment on charges of threatening national security.



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