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Saturday, October 08, 2005

Over One Billion Censored... I Mean "Served"...


I was wondering if Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo and their compadres could spread some of their money around over here in the United States. It seems that it only takes $10 or $15 million dollars of donated money to local schools and some free software to get “in” with the Chinese government. I’m sure that something similar could be worked out over here.

It’s hard to understand how American companies can go overseas and be gleeful about restricting human rights. Helping communists keep their citizens repressed and oppressed… well, I guess that’s a lofty goal and a noble pursuit in and of itself.

I’m a firm believer in capitalism. It just seems that freedom should somehow be intertwined with it? Something like, you can’t capitalize on a situation unless the people you are profiting from at least have some basic freedoms. Or something like that.

I know that the prospect of having 1 billion subscribers is just too much to overlook. And we can’t deny the opportunities that are afforded these companies in China to develop spyware, filtering software, and other forms of internet censorship. It’s just too good to be true. You know, the U.S. government and businesses could probably use some of this stuff too.

The People’s Republic of China… a software developer’s dream. Wow… just think about it. An entire country, with millions upon millions of people, at your disposal for the development and testing of censorship software... It’s like having your laboratory provided to you for free! Just think of all the repressive governments around the globe that will be beating your door down to buy your communistic software. I would say they have got themselves a great niche` market going on over there in China.

In all actuality, this will be a great opportunity for Microsoft in particular. They need a lot of help in developing patches for their products. In fact, with all of the people who are probably trying to crack the Chinese firewalls and censorship programs, Microsoft might develop a software program that actually has fewer vulnerabilities than ever before.

later…



Articles of interest:

World Wide (Web) Takeover

The U.N. Plan to Take Over the Internet

Tunisian Web Journalist Jailed"

China 1, Internet Freedom 0

Rights Group Slams Google, Yahoo! Self-Censorship In China

Microsoft's Compliance with Censorship Raises Alarms


Blogger:

ICE:Internet Censorship Explorer

2 Comments:

Blogger Tomas Björklund said...

China isn't communistic other than by name. Instead it has a very ruthless capitalism. It is a dictatorship though, and that's where the lack of freedom comes from.

Communism might not be good, but it is not to blame here. Free market is just not the same as free speech.

October 10, 2005 9:34 AM  
Blogger Jim said...

TJ,

Thanks for spreading the word about this important issue. I've started a blog to boycott Yahoo! If you'd like to take part you can visit us at www.booyahoo.blogspot.com

Thanks! :)

October 10, 2005 9:46 AM  

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