NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Microsoft's Ballmer to China: Forget Google -- If You Want Censorship, Come to Bing!
Microsoft's Ballmer to China: Forget Google
-- If You Want Censorship, Come to Bing!
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000672.html
Greetings. It didn't take very long for Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer
to make crystal clear the philosophical differences between his firm
and Google.
In a fascinating speech to an outstanding bastion of upstanding
business practices that I'm sure we all know and and love -- a Houston
gathering of oil company executives -- Ballmer made it clear that if
you're a repressive government with a terrible and rapidly decaying
human rights record, Microsoft has a censorship deal for you!
( http://bit.ly/4Swq3X [Forbes] )
On the same day that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented a
powerful speech ( http://bit.ly/7RnoaE [Sun Times] ) supporting
Internet freedom that by implication strongly backed Google's recently
announced change in China policy ( http://bit.ly/51Xqd6
[Lauren's Blog]) and its refusal to continue censoring Google Search
results in China, Ballmer was offering to censor Bing in any manner
that Beijing requests. Just send him legal notice, and the offending
results are Kaput -- Gone -- Vamonos!
Perhaps even more disturbing than Ballmer's "Come to Bing for
Censorship!" promotion was his bizarre attempt to equate the rapidly
declining human rights and civil rights environment in China with U.S.
bans on pornography involving children, and the French ban on Nazi
imagery. His presentation of these latter two examples as being
morally equivalent to the kind of pervasive censorship, repression,
and punishment that is increasingly taking place in China today is
nothing short of ludicrous. It's more than a little frightening if he
really doesn't see the differences that make China's censorship regime
ever more nightmarish for those freedom-seeking citizens unwilling to
toe the government's party line.
Ballmer has frequently demonstrated a number of rather clownish
traits, but his offer of continuing practical support for China's
pervasive information repression isn't funny -- it's boorish,
shameful, and reprehensible. And those are just the "family-friendly"
terms that come to mind.
For several years -- basically since soon after the start of the
censored google.cn project -- Googlers at various levels within the
company have expressed their discomfort to me regarding the
arrangement, and their hope that the availability of Google Search
even in censored form would perhaps help lead to an opening up of
China with a blossoming of information, communications, and civil
rights freedoms for its population.
It's now apparent that this didn't happen, and China took advantage of
the situation to not only increase repression within its only country,
but also to strike out at the rest of the world. Google's evolving
new China policy is a logical and admirable response to this reality.
On the other hand, Steve Ballmer appears to be comfortably ensconced
within a fantasy world -- where human rights matter not at all if they
get in the way of business, and where attempting to expand Bing seems
to take priority over all else.
Ballmer's attitude is a disgrace to Bing, Microsoft, and of course to
himself as well.
Very sad, indeed.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein