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June 16, 2005

Fr**dom of sp**ch

Rebecca tried to create a Chinese language MSN Spaces blog with the title "I love freedom of speech, human rights, and democracy" in Chinese and got the error message "You must enter a title for your space. The title must not contain prohibited language, such as profanity. Please type a different title."

She's got screenshots, and links to Bennet Haselton's Freedom Hack Instructions.

(I blogged about Microsoft's enabling of Chinese censorship here.) [Technorati tags: GlobalVoices china blogs microsoft]

Posted by D. Weinberger at June 16, 2005 11:25 PM


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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Fr**dom of sp**ch:

» Paese che vai, censura che trovi from Blogs4biz
Lo sbarco in Cina di Microsoft e del suo servizio di blog hosting MSN Spaces è stato oggetto di molte critiche: gli osservatori non hanno infatti gradito che Redmond abbia accettato le imposizioni di Pechino rispetto alla censura di alcune 'empie' paro... [Read More]

Tracked on June 17, 2005 06:09 AM

» Chinese Censorship from Seat 1A
Rebecca McKinnon does a great job of illustrating -- using screen shots -- Chinese censorship of the web via Microsoft's MSN Spaces. I was having a conversation about this just the other night. My view: Economic prosperity won't placate the [Read More]

Tracked on June 17, 2005 03:25 PM

» Chinese Censorship from Seat 1A
Rebecca McKinnon does a great job of illustrating -- using screen shots -- Chinese censorship of the web via Microsoft's MSN Spaces. I was having a conversation about this just the other night. My view: Economic prosperity won't placate the [Read More]

Tracked on June 17, 2005 04:03 PM

Comments

A letter-based/kinda phonic language like English gives much more fr**d*m to evade cnsrshp. And that's a good thing, although I don't always think so when my spam filter passes on email regarding my "pen 1s."

Posted by: Betsy Devine | June 17, 2005 08:41 AM


The Chinese should learn from the Bush Administration. Reframe freedom of speech, human rights, and democracy so that they are euphemisms for Secret Service chill, the Patriot Act and non-transparent election processes, and few will be the wiser. The bad press can be easily handled by a bad press.

And bloggers on the internetworks? (or internets, take your pick) They merely make the job of the Secret Service easier by self-identifying.

Posted by: Mark Federman | June 17, 2005 10:21 AM


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