KeJia Sista
Jul 13th, 2005, 08:34 PM
As China Censors the Internet, Money Talks
By Mark Magnier and Joseph Menn Times Staff Writers
http://news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20050617/ts_latimes/aschinacensorstheinternet
moneytalks
BEIJING ó 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 ó or Web logs ó 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 disadvantage 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.
Human rights groups, including Reporters Without Borders, say
Microsoft is sacrificing free speech principles in its headlong
quest for profits and that the company should follow a higher
standard.
"No one should break the law, but at the same time we all believe in
universal values," said Julien Pain, head of the organization's
Internet monitoring group. "If China required underage children to
work, would you do it? Free speech is not an American value or a
French value. It's a human value."
China has in recent months tightened its grip on the Internet and
other media, as well as on scholars and others seen deviating from
the Communist Party line. The nation's 150,000 journalists were
recently instructed to attend a one-week ideology course, according
to media reports. And last month, the government announced new rules
requiring that all websites in China be registered.
The current debate raises questions about whether multinational
companies have a duty to help promote political freedoms in a world
where their power and global standing rival many governments'.
Previous debates over corporate conduct have focused on
environmental issues, fair wages and working conditions.
If international companies do not act roughly the same in various
markets, they leave themselves exposed to charges of hypocrisy, said
David Vidal, research director on global corporate citizenship at
the Conference Board, a nonprofit group that advises management.
"It's obvious that the biggest test case of this will be China," he
said.
Microsoft, along with many of its rivals, has made no secret of its
keen interest in China's nearly 100 million Internet users ó a
market second only to the United States' ó and a software industry
that has grown 380% since 2000, according to government statistics.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer
repeatedly visited China in recent years, helping to strengthen the
company's relationship with top leaders in a country where
connections are often vital in securing deals. Microsoft's partner
in the MSN China venture, Shanghai Alliance, is run by a son of
former Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
As part of its marketing campaign, Microsoft has donated software to
state-run China Telecom and China's State Economic and Trade
Commission. It has pledged $10 million to be invested in or donated
to China's primary education system. And it has offered to provide
free Windows operating systems to government officials in Beijing
for three years in exchange for its becoming an exclusive software
provider.
Microsoft's new blogging service, MSN Spaces, has attracted 5
million users in China, the company said. The service was launched
in China on the MSN China portal on May 26. Computer users frequent
the portal for e-mail, shopping, games and online English classes.
Microsoft has agreed to restrict words on the site by using
guidelines outlined by China's Communist Party. Many terms banned in
the subject lines of postings on Spaces are not surprising: "Dalai
Lama"; "Tibet"; " Falun Gong," a religious group outlawed by
Beijing; and "June 4th," the way Chinese refer to the 1989 Tiananmen
Square crackdown on protesters demanding political freedoms.
But some aspects of the filtering appear to be arbitrary. Even
as "demonstration" and "violent chaos" are blocked, "riot"
and "violent uprising" are not. "Separatism" is forbidden,
but "independence" is fine. And some terms are allowed in the body
of a message, but not in subject lines.
In addition to Microsoft and Yahoo, Amazon, EBay and a host of other
Western high-tech companies are piling into China, lured by the
nation's 1.3 billion consumers and rapid economic growth. Along the
way, many have agreed to or are considering similar censorship
arrangements with the government.
"All Internet companies that deal with China voluntarily sign
agreements that their Web manager will censor any content on their
website," said Anne-Marie Brady, a China media expert at New
Zealand's University of Canterbury. "China is so hot, companies just
can't keep away. In China, money talks."
Zittrain's April study on censorship in China concluded that Chinese
laws are so vague that many companies feel obliged to act
conservatively, fearing that they may be barred from doing business
or their employees arrested. Internet content providers, a category
that includes MSN China and Yahoo, are required by law to monitor
postings and remove any illegal or inappropriate content.
Yahoo's senior international counsel, Mary Wirth, said Yahoo is only
following the rules when it drops links to pages containing
objectionable material. "We do not go at all beyond what Chinese law
requires," she said.
Although bloggers from Singapore to Britain have condemned
Microsoft's decision to restrict words in its blogs, the issue has
received far less attention inside China. A search of Chinese-
language chat sites this week found few entries on the subject,
probably because discussions were shut down by the nation's
estimated 30,000 cyber police or because filtering is so widespread
that Chinese found nothing unusual in Microsoft's decision.
Television network employee Yang Jie, 29, said he enjoys the idea of
having a small piece of virtual territory where he can plant
whatever he wants, "so long as it doesn't touch on subjects overly
sensitive to the ruling Communist Party."
Yang uses his blog to write about movies, books and sports, but
generally steers clear of politics.
He isn't particularly bothered by China's filtering policy, he said,
except occasionally when he wants to write on issues such as the
1937-38 Nanjing massacre by Japanese forces, which could fan
passions, and is forced to use code words or indirect references.
When it comes to Microsoft, however, Yang believes that the company
is doing the right thing.
"It's natural for companies to adjust their practices in foreign
countries to get profits," he said. "As they say in politics, there
are no permanent friends, just permanent interests."
Ke Jia
By Mark Magnier and Joseph Menn Times Staff Writers
http://news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20050617/ts_latimes/aschinacensorstheinternet
moneytalks
BEIJING ó 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 ó or Web logs ó 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 disadvantage 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.
Human rights groups, including Reporters Without Borders, say
Microsoft is sacrificing free speech principles in its headlong
quest for profits and that the company should follow a higher
standard.
"No one should break the law, but at the same time we all believe in
universal values," said Julien Pain, head of the organization's
Internet monitoring group. "If China required underage children to
work, would you do it? Free speech is not an American value or a
French value. It's a human value."
China has in recent months tightened its grip on the Internet and
other media, as well as on scholars and others seen deviating from
the Communist Party line. The nation's 150,000 journalists were
recently instructed to attend a one-week ideology course, according
to media reports. And last month, the government announced new rules
requiring that all websites in China be registered.
The current debate raises questions about whether multinational
companies have a duty to help promote political freedoms in a world
where their power and global standing rival many governments'.
Previous debates over corporate conduct have focused on
environmental issues, fair wages and working conditions.
If international companies do not act roughly the same in various
markets, they leave themselves exposed to charges of hypocrisy, said
David Vidal, research director on global corporate citizenship at
the Conference Board, a nonprofit group that advises management.
"It's obvious that the biggest test case of this will be China," he
said.
Microsoft, along with many of its rivals, has made no secret of its
keen interest in China's nearly 100 million Internet users ó a
market second only to the United States' ó and a software industry
that has grown 380% since 2000, according to government statistics.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer
repeatedly visited China in recent years, helping to strengthen the
company's relationship with top leaders in a country where
connections are often vital in securing deals. Microsoft's partner
in the MSN China venture, Shanghai Alliance, is run by a son of
former Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
As part of its marketing campaign, Microsoft has donated software to
state-run China Telecom and China's State Economic and Trade
Commission. It has pledged $10 million to be invested in or donated
to China's primary education system. And it has offered to provide
free Windows operating systems to government officials in Beijing
for three years in exchange for its becoming an exclusive software
provider.
Microsoft's new blogging service, MSN Spaces, has attracted 5
million users in China, the company said. The service was launched
in China on the MSN China portal on May 26. Computer users frequent
the portal for e-mail, shopping, games and online English classes.
Microsoft has agreed to restrict words on the site by using
guidelines outlined by China's Communist Party. Many terms banned in
the subject lines of postings on Spaces are not surprising: "Dalai
Lama"; "Tibet"; " Falun Gong," a religious group outlawed by
Beijing; and "June 4th," the way Chinese refer to the 1989 Tiananmen
Square crackdown on protesters demanding political freedoms.
But some aspects of the filtering appear to be arbitrary. Even
as "demonstration" and "violent chaos" are blocked, "riot"
and "violent uprising" are not. "Separatism" is forbidden,
but "independence" is fine. And some terms are allowed in the body
of a message, but not in subject lines.
In addition to Microsoft and Yahoo, Amazon, EBay and a host of other
Western high-tech companies are piling into China, lured by the
nation's 1.3 billion consumers and rapid economic growth. Along the
way, many have agreed to or are considering similar censorship
arrangements with the government.
"All Internet companies that deal with China voluntarily sign
agreements that their Web manager will censor any content on their
website," said Anne-Marie Brady, a China media expert at New
Zealand's University of Canterbury. "China is so hot, companies just
can't keep away. In China, money talks."
Zittrain's April study on censorship in China concluded that Chinese
laws are so vague that many companies feel obliged to act
conservatively, fearing that they may be barred from doing business
or their employees arrested. Internet content providers, a category
that includes MSN China and Yahoo, are required by law to monitor
postings and remove any illegal or inappropriate content.
Yahoo's senior international counsel, Mary Wirth, said Yahoo is only
following the rules when it drops links to pages containing
objectionable material. "We do not go at all beyond what Chinese law
requires," she said.
Although bloggers from Singapore to Britain have condemned
Microsoft's decision to restrict words in its blogs, the issue has
received far less attention inside China. A search of Chinese-
language chat sites this week found few entries on the subject,
probably because discussions were shut down by the nation's
estimated 30,000 cyber police or because filtering is so widespread
that Chinese found nothing unusual in Microsoft's decision.
Television network employee Yang Jie, 29, said he enjoys the idea of
having a small piece of virtual territory where he can plant
whatever he wants, "so long as it doesn't touch on subjects overly
sensitive to the ruling Communist Party."
Yang uses his blog to write about movies, books and sports, but
generally steers clear of politics.
He isn't particularly bothered by China's filtering policy, he said,
except occasionally when he wants to write on issues such as the
1937-38 Nanjing massacre by Japanese forces, which could fan
passions, and is forced to use code words or indirect references.
When it comes to Microsoft, however, Yang believes that the company
is doing the right thing.
"It's natural for companies to adjust their practices in foreign
countries to get profits," he said. "As they say in politics, there
are no permanent friends, just permanent interests."
Ke Jia