Development Seed Blog

Reporters Without Borders came out with its annual world press freedom evaluation
this week and not surprisingly China was one of the country's with the most restricted press. Regarding Internet freedom, it topped the list of jailed "cyber-dissidents" with 62 currently prison. Microsoft is adding to the problem.

Last week Microsoft shut down a Chinese blog because the author had written about “politically sensitive” information, specifically a strike at a state-run newspaper. Microsoft is standing by its decision saying “when we operate in markets around the world, we have to ensure that our service complies with global laws as well as local laws and norms.” In other words they’re protecting their market at the expense of something the democratic world considers a basic human right. 

China needs to have modern internet services that foreign companies can provide, but these shouldn't come with extra help for governments to check in on what their citizens are saying. Microsofts' Chinese blog service restricts the use words like "democracy" and "human rights." 

Microsoft is being too compliant with the Chinese goverment. If China wants to monitor what their bloggers are saying, there's not much Microsoft can do about it. But they shouldn't make it easier for them to do so.