IP Democracy: MSN: Voluntary Shill for Chinese Government?

China is not known for free speech, and the Chinese government routinely polices its citizens’ use of the Internet to nip any dissention in the bud. But now it has an ally — Microsoft, which voluntary (i.e. without even being asked by the Chinese government) shut down a blog of a potential government critic. This controversy has been brewing in the blogosphere for days, and now has landed in the New York Times.

MSN appallingly shut down Zhao Jing, a blogger who also goes by the online pen name, An Ti or Michael Anti. Mr. Zhao also happens to work as a research assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times. The controversy started on January 3 when Rebecca Mackinnon posted a lengthy item in her blog about MSN yanking Zhao’s blog because he was alleged to be supportive of journalists who were on strike following the firing of independent-minded editors at the Beijing Daily News.

What’s unusual is that the government didn’t ask MSN to take down the blog — MSN did that of its own accord, presumably out of fear that the Chinese government might end up blocking all of MSN’s blogs.

What does Zhao think of Microsoft’s action? Here’s a quote from the NYT article:

Mr. Zhao said in an interview Thursday that Microsoft chose to delete his blog on Dec. 30 with no warning. “I didn’t even say I supported the strike,” he said. “This action by Microsoft infringed upon my freedom of speech. They even deleted my blog and gave me no chance to back up my files without any warning.”

How does Microsoft explain itself? According to the Times’ piece:

“This is a complex and difficult issue,” said Brooke Richardson, a group product manager for MSN in Seattle. “We think it’s better to be there with our services than not be there.”

As insipid as this response may seem — morality is always a “complex and difficult issue” — Microsoft does have a tiny point. Zhao’s old blog at U.S.-based BlogCity is said to be responsible for the Chinese government blocking all BlogCity blogs. Still, you’d think that Microsoft might express a twinge of shame at being such an obsequious boot-licker to a tyrannical regime, no matter what the business consequences.

Or as Microsoft employee Robert Scoble put it

OK, this one is depressing to me. It’s one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm [a routine practice by virtually all ISPs in China]. It’s another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger’s work. Yes, I know the consequences. Yes, there are thousands of jobs at stake. Billions of dollars. But, the behavior of my company in this instance is not right….Guys over at MSN: sorry, I don’t agree with your being used as a state-run thug.

Scoble has invited Zhao to start posting on his blog. But there may be no need for it. Zhao has restarted his old blog at BlogCity.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on January 6, 2006 3:52 PM to IP Democracy