Rebecca and Isaac Mao hold Skype’s feet to the fire for partnering with TOM Online in China. TOM censors Skype IM messages.

These are tough issues. I am not convinced that companies should entirely spurn China rather than give in to any measure of censorship. I’d feel differently if I thought a worldwide boycott by tech firms would actually make a difference to the Chinese totalitarian government. But from what little I know (basically what I’ve read by Rebecca, Isaac, and at the Skype site), TOM seems like an egregiously bad choice, and it would indeed be good to know what the banned list of words is. Some public outrage from Skype would probably make me feel better, although it wouldn’t actually do much. [Tags: china rebecca_mackinnon isaac_mao democracy skype]

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