There’s a story making the rounds about a Chinese blogger notorious for his criticism of the Chinese government, and the problems he’s facing getting his word out. His blog, hosted on MSN Spaces, was taken down recently. Here’s the whole scoop.
Now, Robert Scoble, blogging bridge between The World and Microsoft, quickly jumped on and complained to the people at MSN Spaces.
Well, one of them, a “product unit manager” at Spaces, replied with an entry on his blog about business relations with countries other than the US.
Apart from the obvious gems in there
We don’t want to rule out the middle finger in all markets, so we just do it in the ones where it’s beyond the pale. And, even in the markets that don’t approve of the middle finger, we give the poster a friendly warning about the image, as opposed to taking the site down immediately.
it also contains the following sentence:
We ban a set of “naughty” words from blog entry titles, so those who are maturity-challenged don’t use the F word all over the place, and show up in search results and the updated spaces list, spoiling the party for everyone.
Now, I’d really be interested how he’d define “maturity-challenged”. Sure, it’s really quite immature to use proper words of a language in ones own writing. As opposed to censoring “naughty words” in other people’s texts, which to me is what every responsible, mature person should strive to do at least once in their life.
And I guess only the mature dare to contract with regimes that regularly neglect human rights.
In the end I’m really glad I’ve got my own web space, with my own installation of Wordpress. Otherwise I’d probably get a little, friendly warning when writing that I think MSN Spaces is the fucking worst blogging service to have stomped onto that nice little playground of free expression. Until now I only thought the technical side sucks, but now it’s clear that ethically they’re about as nice as your run-of-the-mill sweatshop owner. Please say hi to Nike on the way!
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In regards to “naughty words”, we only suppress the ability to use words like the F word in blog titles. Not in the body of a blog entry. It’s not been a terribly popular feature, we know that. But, I just wanted to clarify what we actually do.
Feel free to contact me if you’d like to talk about this in more detail.
The real maturity issue is that Scoble lambasted his own company BEFORE checking out the situation so that he would be in a position to say something sensible and constructive.
Instead of which, what do we now have? The unseen hand of someone in MSFT PR effectively telling Scoble to shut the f**k up until he knows what he’s talking about and can do so from a position of safety for both him and his masters.
If that’s not true, then how does Robert explain the complete change of direction from a rant about an MSFT service in the US to a ‘lives are threatened, think big economic picture’ load of codswallop. All of which was perfectly predictable by anyone who does PR crisis management.
What absolutely staggered and on reflection infuriated me, is that Scoble attended the same conference as Rebecca MacKinnon, myself and 300+ bloggers where the situation around China and freedom of speech was aired in some depth. Several people explained how fanning the flames of ‘freedom’ US style was likely counter-productive.
In this case, the fiasco was a monumental cock-up of the first order which not only damages Scoble and MSFT but also places into question the viability of blogging from a corporate perspective.
In any other editorial position - and I use the term in the widest sense - there would be a climb down most likely followed by resignation. Instead, what do we have? Scoble merrily burbling on about CES and Bill G’s keynote. I guess in the ephemeral world of blogging, today’s FU is tomorrow’s geek dinner tale.
@mc: I guess it doesn’t really make that much of a difference whether you’re blocking a blog title or words in the text body. In the end part of what was written, which unfortunately the headline is a vital part of, cannot be displayed due to Spaces playing nanny for people who throw fits when confronted with taboo words.
@Dennis: Thanks for the input. I’m not terribly familiar with the world of PR, but I guess Scoble just doesn’t have the jester’s licence everyone thought he had.
Hopefully, this senseless censorship will encourage users to seek their own domains to do what they wish. Although this censorship is frowned upon by users & non-users alike, including myself, it is within the rights of MSN to do so, as it is their service being used.
That said, fuck censorship. Cheers.