I am going to get to my point but it is going to take a paragraph or two. I have talked about my BBS before, and you may be thinking how does that relate to Microsoft and Censorship. Well for a number of years people could connect to the site via a custom software client. That client not only allowed you to access the BBS but it allowed you to surf the Internet. It was designed for the early Internet days when people were still dialing into the BBS and tunneling into the net. The client had an IP component and those that dialed into ISP could access the BBS with the tool via an IP connection. The cool thing was that tool allowed people to use my site as proxy service. It was not advertised but somehow this info made it into China.
I started noticing a very high number of Chinese people creating accounts, and connecting to the BBS, then spending their alloted free time on the system surfing websites the Chinese government had blocked, they never used the BBS but instead used the BBS as a gateway to US news sites and message boards.
I was cool with it at first, I figured hey they can access stuff that is blocked by their government, and It was my way to put 2 middle fingers up, and point them toward the communist government saying screw you.
Well it started to get out of control, my system had 400 available nodes and they filled them all. I was on a unlimited bandwidth pipe but my regular users were starting to suffer, and I had to reduce the number of nodes, that I allowed people to use this quasi proxy service. Finally the Chinese figured it out and blocked our domain. Party over!
That was 1996-7 before people started abusing proxy services, and doing malicious things. When you do not have freedom of the press or freedom of speech in a country, then individuals, are going to seek avenues to say things openly and without repression the world needs to hear, then we as people of free nations, can bring pressure through or governments or via personal actions to make these governments open up.
Even then I kept and eye on the log files to make sure somebody was not doing anything that would cause my front door to be kicked in. I felt I was being a responsible citizen defending free speech etc. I have never discussed this before because at the time I felt it was the right thing and it was a personal victory. I did not communicate with those using the system and they never once communicated with me. But they did so by theie web surfing actions I could tell by the log files what sites they were visiting. (cnn.com, abc.com, nbc.com)
So I have been watching the debate with Microsoft since their Chinese censorship issue raised it’s ugly head. I’ll be honest I am pissed! If a guy like me, in a very small way help people get information and allow freedom of speech when it is represeed in their own countries then a big company like Microsoft damn well better also.
Microsoft not only has a responsibility to it’s share holders but being this companies headquarter is in these United States of America were we believe in free speech, they have a MORAL and ETHICAL responsibility to tell the Chinese government, “NO”! we will not sensor words that your citizens try to write on our websites.
I am very disappointed in Bill Gates and all the rest of the Board Members at Microsoft. You should be ashamed of yourselves, and I hope that you don’t sleep well at night knowing that you are enabling a foreign government to suppress the will of the people. This makes me Sick, can I be anymore graphic! [Dan Gillmor]
Robert Scoble any censorship anywhere be it in the title body or anywhere is WRONG!
I’m not sure that I can be so “sick” at MS for this one. Yes, it would be nice if they didn’t have to censor their MSN-China portal, but since that portal is, in effect, doing business IN China, not in the US, it has to abide by Chinese law, not US Law. You said yourself that when you were allowing those Chinese citizens to use your service at a proxy that you were careful to make sure they weren’t doing anything that would cause your door to be kicked down, well if you were actually located in China and were doing that, it would have been. Since MSN-China is an actual business in China, not censoring those keywords would lead to the portal not existing any longer, period.
Seems to me their only choices other than censoring was to not create an local MSN for China at all. While you could make the argument certainly that maybe that is what they should have done, claiming they should somehow do business in China but break the local law in the process is a non-starter. You wouldn’t have done that, I wouldn’t have done that, no one should be expected to do that.
So if you want them to boycott China, say so. But I wouldn;t expect them to break laws in the countries they’re doing business in just because they’re based in America anymore than I would want companies based in other countries to base their service on their laws as opposed to US ones when they’re doing business with me.