Wired: Microsoft is cooperating with China’s government to censor the company’s newly launched Chinese-language web portal, a spokesman for the tech giant said.
The policy affects blogs created through the MSN Spaces service, said Adam Sohn, a global sales and marketing director at MSN.
Microsoft and its government-funded Chinese business partner work with authorities to omit certain forbidden language, Sohn said, declining to provide specific examples.
“I don’t have access to the list at this point so I can’t really comment specifically on what’s there,” he told The Associated Press.
On Monday, Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, said bloggers were not allowed to post terms to MSN Spaces such as “democracy,” “human rights” and “Taiwan independence.” Attempts to enter those words were said to generate a message saying the language was prohibited.
I wonder what Steve Jobs would do. WWSJD? (Kinda like Jesus…)
AND, presuming he and Apple would decide against such cooperation with China in the name of free speech, or democracy, or SOMETHING, I see great opportunity for Apple to use this as yet another difference between the two companies in their next campaign.