Microsoft block the words "democracy" and "freedom" on its new internet portal in China.
galway |
rights, freedoms and repression |
other press 
Tuesday June 28, 2005 21:41
by Dunlo T
Puke!, Puke! : Microsoft's "principle" of respecting local laws.
In the Economist : Politics This Week, a summary of the world's main events, 11th-17th June, it is stated that Microsoft agreed to block the words "democracy" and "freedom" on its new internet portal in China. The company claimed that it was acting in accordance with its principle of respecting local laws. In this pilgrim's opinion this is really and truely disgusting, on a par with the western firms who have provided the technology for sealing off the Chinese web from the free internet?.
Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4Microsoft is a big fat corporation so why should anyone be surprised that IT will happily trample over international human rights so that it can continue to maximise profits!
Under corporate law "maximising profits" is IT's legal requirement and raison d'etre - make no mistake that is what a corporation is. Even though the corporation is made up of people who have/are mothers, sons, daughters, fathers, uncles, nieces etc there are no social or environmental obligations
"profit before people" or more accurately " profit before anything" is the only mantra
- a denial of human nature? of rights of existance? are we all just barcodes of consumption in the eyes of the massive corporations that rule the world now?
we have a right to consume and to become more indebt but no right to anything else.
I myself use Linux and openoffice.org and dont pay a penny to this over weight and under moralised entity MIcrosoft so to some extent my consience is clear
lets stop using the .doc format and powerpoint (power confusion)
.txt and .rtf formats are much more fun and have less blood and suffering associated
Ah, shure if they're usin' Hotmail they won't have time to bother with concepts such as "Democracy" and "Freedom". They will be too busy trying to cope with all the spam, whether it is for Viagra or "male enhancement" etc.
"Hotmail" is a disaster zone.
Stop trying to enforce your Western ways on a proud and independent nation.
hmm..surely the prevalence of freedom fighting struggles in the eastern world shows that the desire to freedom is not purely 'western'. but..state communism can never be said to be freedom, nor does it lead to independence (by which i mean any chance of individual autonomy).
Certainly, China is not now communist, it would take a better brain than mine to understand the complexity of the situation. But, the ferocious appeals to multinationals, training the elite youth for corporate skills, making every effort to portray China as a desirable location for foreign investment etc. etc. indicates that the Chinese state does not wish to be 'independent', it wishes to subject itself to world trade. Is that a 'proud and independent nation'?
To condemn the State's restrictions upon individual communicative freedom (and corporation's complicity in this) is not necessarily an imposition of 'Western values', it is an attack upon all efforts to violate the integrity and freedom of the individual, a violation which exists throughout the world, be it through capitalism, 'communism', patriarchy, racism, hetero-normativity or any other form of hierarchy.
We can condemn this violation of freedom as individuals, whatever hierarchy we suffer from. The desire for freedom is as universal as oppression.
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