Is Microsoft against freedom of speech?
I noticed over at Scoble’s blog that MSN has blocked access to the blog of a chinese guy. The details about this have been posted here. This is going to cause some issues for Microsoft.
As a company obviously Microsoft wants to do business in China. If they want to do business in China, that means that they have to play by the rules in China. So if the Chinese government says you can’t do certain things, you’re going to have to listen or risk losing opportunities in China. On the other hand, there are certain things we have come to expect, like freedom of speech, something I think (most of) Microsoft can also stand behind.
So if you’re Microsoft, what do you do?? I can imagine that it’s not an easy question for them. One other problem if they do conform to the will of the Chinese government and keep censoring information is that other governments might take the same approach to block access to certain information on the Internet. Like Scoble says:
I do believe in a slippery slope. If they come after you today, maybe they?ll come after me tomorrow. Gotta stop this kind of stuff while we?re still talking about you.
I’m sure Bush would love to be able to do this kind of stuff in the USA and block access to stuff like this. So would Blair in England.
Another thing is that Microsoft isn’t the only company who is dealing with these problems right now. Google had to adjust themselves to the rules in China as well a few times, and so will every other company who wants to do business there.
However my personal opinion is that when these rules go against your principles, against the things that you believe in, like freedom of speech, you should not follow them. If it means losing business (in that part of the world), then you just have to accept that. But for any corporation, who’s interested in making money, growth and satisfying shareholders, this is not such a simple problem.
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