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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (237170)	6/14/2005 3:57:24 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572372

Microsoft under fire for censoring China blogs Tue Jun 14, 2005 03:16 PM ET By Reed Stevenson SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.'s new MSN China Internet venture is censoring words such as "freedom," "democracy" and "human rights" on its free online journals, Microsoft said on Tuesday, putting itself in the middle of a major Web controversy. The world's largest software maker said that its "MSN Spaces" service operated out of China, which allows users to set up their own blogs, or online journals, was acting in accordance with local laws. "MSN abides by the laws, regulations and norms of each country in which it operates," said Brooke Richardson, MSN lead product manager. The move comes as the Chinese government attempts to tighten control over the Internet. Last week, a media watchdog group said China would close unregistered China-based domestic web sites and blogs. About three-quarters of domestic Web sites had complied with the registration orders, the group, Reporters without Borders said, citing Chinese figures. Microsoft rivals such as Yahoo Inc., eBay Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and InterActiveCorp., which have made a string of acquisitions to expand their operations in China, have also been known to censor content in the country. Words and phrases banned in the subject line of entries for Microsoft's MSN Spaces on Tuesday also included "Taiwan independence" and "demonstration," which returned an error message saying "prohibited language, please remove." Not even former and current leaders' names such as "Mao Zedong" or "Hu Jintao" were allowed. Most of the phrases, however, were allowed in the body of the entries. Other blog sites lashed out at Microsoft. Online tech forum Slashdot had user comments calling the censorship a "really really awful thing" and accusing the software giant of trying to appease China's government in the interest of conducting business. Matt Rosoff, analyst at Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm in Kirkland, Washington, pointed out that any censorship by Microsoft's online service was relatively minor compared to the broader censorship by the Chinese government over all Internet activity. "If Microsoft wants to do business in China they have to obey the laws set by the Chinese government," Rosoff said, adding that "they've done the calculations and decided this was worth it." Microsoft's censorship was first reported by bloggers and news outlets in Asia after MSN Spaces was launched in China on May 26. So far, five million blogs have been created with the service, Microsoft said. The company has long seen China as a key growth market, but also as a headache because of widespread software piracy and copyright issues. China represents the world's second-largest Internet market with 94 million users at the end of 2004, a number expected to rise to 134 million by the end of this year, according to official data. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft launched MSN China last month by establishing a joint venture with government-operated Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd. (SAIL) to develop more communication, information and content tied to China.

To: tejek who wrote (237170)	6/15/2005 4:37:33 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572372

Re: Nonetheless, in the court of public opinion, most here think Jackson is guilty as charged. In fact, Jackson's CD sales in the US have plummeted in the past couple of years. However, they continue to do well in Europe and Japan. Why do you think that is? Well, I'm not so sure about MJ's CD sales in Europe/Japan... Anyway, I suppose most people buy the music/songs just because they like it --they like the beat, the rythm, the lyrics, regardless of the scandals befalling the singer/group. Besides, MJ has successfully managed to posture as a hapless victim, as a fragile and shy personality --which he surely is, to a point... Re: The accusor's mother [...] was trailer trash at its worst and legal pundits were predicting she lost the case for the prosecution as early as last month. She was successfully portrayed by the defense as the worst kind of opportunist. Well, that's an interesting point. I suspect the prosecution didn't dwell properly on it. Let's look at the sociological context of the whole affair: on one side, you've got a billionaire pedophile who's gone to such lengths as setting up a copycat Disneyland (Neverland) to lure children around and provide a front to his real, seamy purposes... Now, who do you find on the other side of the equation? Whom do you expect? Billionaire kids? Underage scions of wealthy families? For example, do you expect former movie-star-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to send HIS kids to Neverland? Heck, if Arnold's brats want to go to a theme park, he'll likely send them off to Disneyworld along with their nanny and a bodyguard --not to Michael's lair!! LOL.... So, my point is that the money/greed argument that was cunningly spun by MJ's defense is a spurious one. Of course, you'll only have middle- to lower-middle-class children coming to Neverland! Whether their parents send them over with the shameless intention to blackmail Michael Jackson afterwards is IRRELEVANT because even honest, "naive" parents who didn't expect MJ to be a pedophile and, accordingly, feel outraged by what happened to their kids can easily, cunningly, be bought off by MJ's deep pockets. It's not that difficult for MJ lawyers to fast-talk the parents that what happened was just a sorry, regrettable incident... that calls for some reparation, a financial one, that is... The lawyers know very well that they are not dealing with a billionaire family --how are you gonna bribe the mother or the father of a Kennedy, a Bush, or a Rockefeller? Contrariwise, it must be pretty hard for a middle-class couple to turn down a $300,000 check and keep mum. However, that's how the "trailer trash", as you put it, unwittingly frame themselves as greedy schemers who somehow pimped their own children.... Gus