Wired News is carrying an excellent article about Isaac Mao, the Chinese über-blogger, and his views on how Microsoft’s MSN Spaces is sucking up to the Chinese government. Yes, everyone knows that Microsoft is a criminal organization (remember the anti-trust violations?), but sometimes we need to be reminded just how evil they really are. (Google is evil, too, remember, for sleeping with the Chinese government in the same way.)
If you know any Chinese who are interested in starting a blog, please encourage them to stay away from MSN Spaces.
The unfortunate news of the story, however, is in the last few paragraphs. They detail that the real problem with the Internet in China is not the ISPs’ or Microsoft’s censorship, but the apathy of China’s most wired citizens. For further reading, the following is a good editorial by Sascha Matuszak:
7 replies on “Chinese Blogger Slams Microsoft”
doncha think someone is setting up a conspiracy against china? i remember hearing this story on global last week on how anyone in china couldnt use some words, like freedom or democracy. i dont know. maybe its just me
From the subject matter of the article, I wouldn’t say that there is a conspiracy building against China. But in general, the western media are very anti-China. In my own small way, despite writing about this news, I wish to have the rest of the world view China in a positive light. What we do know is that (1) there are no laws in China against using such words, even on the Internet, yet people are “removed” for criticizing the government, and (2) western businesses are kowtowing to the Chinese government and are providing technology that censors the Chinese people. Hence these so-called capitalist companies are undermining their democratic (or at least Enlightenment) values for the sake of profit, at the expense of the Chinese people. Ultimately, this is Imperialism and exploitation, not just hypocrisy.
ok, i think i gotcha there. i guess im not political enough to know (if theres such thing as being political enough). i DO know i need to know more of the issues
Darren,
I assume you have seen (or are aware of) Rebecca MacKinnon’s post on how China has blocked all Typepad blogs…
For more see http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2005/06/confirmed_all_t.html
Cheers,
Tom
No, I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks. This is in addition to all of blogspot.com.
Good thing you chose WordPress then!
Actually, this blog was powered by Blogger for the first two years, but I ran a script that would suck the entries off of its blogspot.com location and place them on a different server—one that was accessible from China. I did this purposely so my Chinese friends could read it.
I’m finding that WordPress is a much more powerful and convenient blogging tool than Blogger. And convenience means that I make entries more often. I am really happy with WordPress.