Microsoft takes down Chinese blogger

Microsoft’s MSN Spaces continues to censor its Chinese language blogs, and has become more aggressive and thorough at censorship since I first checked out MSN’s censorship system last summer.  On New Years Eve, MSN Spaces took down the popular blog written by Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti. Now all you get when you attempt to visit his blog at: http://spaces.msn.com/members/mranti/ is the error message pictured above. (You can see the Google cache of his blog up until Dec.22nd here.)

Note, his blog was TAKEN DOWN by MSN people. Not blocked by the Chinese government.

Anti is one of China’s edgiest journalistic bloggers, often pushing at the boundaries of what is acceptable. (See a recent profile of him here, and an interview with Anti here.) His old blog at the U.S.-hosted Blog-city is believed to have caused the Chinese authorities to block all Blog-city blogs. In the final days of December, Anti became a vocal supporter of journalists at the Beijing Daily News who walked off the job after the top editors were fired for their increasingly daring investigative coverage, including some recent reporting on the recent police shootings of village protestors in the Southern China.  (For all the gory details on the current press crackdown click here, here, here, and here.) Roland Soong at ESWN has preserved the original Chinese-language posts of Anti’s Call for a Beijing News Walk Out and his Call to Cancel Beijing News Subscriptions.

Roland also points to the likelihood that MSN’s takedown of Anti’s blog could be the result of dirty politics being played by at least one person at Bokee, China’s largest domestically-owned blog hosting company – and naturally, a business rival of MSN spaces. The ESWN blog has a translation of a column on Bokee’s website which basically denounces MSN for hosting Anti. An excerpt of the column:

Anti's moving over the MSN is a severely deplorable event in the development of Chinese blogging.  By moving his blog to MSN, he will influence a group of others to move their blogs to MSN.

Furthermore, we need to reflect: of all the BSP's that Anti has used, how come only MSN was not shut down?  Here, we must admire the cunning public relations methods of MSN.  We must also think that the Internet supervision departments are negligent about monitoring and controlling blogs, and that they have been lax with respect to MSN.  Our bottom line are being backed up step by step, and our market is being eroded step by step.

We issue the call: Rise up, and oppose the Microsoft monopoly of 2.0.

Etc, etc. Basically this author is calling on the authorities to put more pressure on MSN to censor more vigorously. Roland reacts at ESWN:

The Bokee columnist wrote that the government's Internet supervisory department should be paying attention to Anti's blog as well as MSN Spaces.  Well, they did.  Whether this is the true reason or not (and we will never know for sure), Bokee is going to go down in Internet history as calling in the Internet police to crack down on a blogger for exercising his constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and the police did just that, and the motivation of Bokee was commercial in nature (that is, they want to use the government's security apparatus to damage MSN Spaces as a competitor).  I know that this is one columnist's opinion, but Bokee had better make it very clear that they did not support that opinion AND also they do not support the disappearance of the Anti blog.

This is particularly interesting in light of the observations I made in November on my trip to China: that the Chinese blogging scene is very divided and factionalized, and that the commercial blog hosting companies see people like Anti as a threat to their business.

Now, back to Microsoft’s MSN and what they do, and how…

As it so happens, in mid-December I played around a bit with Chinese language blog-hosting tools to try and get a better idea of how they censor blogger content. I haven’t posted about it yet partially because family business and vacation got in the way, and partially because I wanted to do a few more tests. But given what happened to Anti I think I had better not wait.

Back over the summer I wrote a post titled Screenshots of Censorship about how MSN spaces was censoring the titles of its Chinese blogs, but not posts themselves. According to my testing in mid-late December, they now censoring much more intensely.   

On December 16th I created a blog and attempted to make various posts with politically sensitive words. When I attempted to post entries with titles like “Tibet Independence” or “Falun Gong” (a banned religious group), I got an error message saying: “This item includes forbidden language. Please delete forbidden language from this item.”

However I was successful in posting blog entries with non-controversial titles, but with politically sensitive words in the text body. For instance, a blog post titled “I love you” had “Tibet independence” in the text body, and a post titled “I am happy” had “Falun Gong” in the body, like so:

This was on Friday December 16th. By Monday the 19th, the whole blog had been taken down, just like Anti’s was on Dec.31st, with an error message: “This space is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”

Now, It is VERY important to note that the inaccessible blog was moved or removed at the server level and that the blog remains inaccessible from the United States as well as from China. This means that the action was taken NOT by Chinese authorities responsible for filtering and censoring the internet for Chinese viewers, but by MSN staff at the level of the MSN servers.

I did similar tests with five other Chinese blog-hosting services. They all work differently when it comes to censoring user content, but they all engage in some form of filtering or censorship of user content. Interestingly, I found that Bokee had no mechanism preventing me from posting anything in the titles or text bodies of the posts. But eventually, blogs with politically sensitive words in them (like “Falun Gong,” “Tiananmen massacre” and “Tibet independence”) were taken down in what appeared to be a human screening process, perhaps assisted by some kind of keyword search or alert system. Other blog hosting services use a combination of automated systems and human procedures similar to MSN’s, although MSN was definitely #1 when it came to full takedown response time. At least one of the services allows you to post anything, but replaces politically sensitive words with “****” when they appear. I have decided not to go into a detailed naming of names and specifics about who censors more strictly and who censors more loosely than whom, since that will only result in some people getting in trouble – or as the Bokee editorial against MSN shows, some blog-hosting companies trying to curry favor with the authorities may try to sic the goons on those who take a lighter-handed approach to, er, user content management…

Can we say, snakepit?  It’s actually not uncommon in China for people in one company to actively “tattle” on their rivals and get them into political trouble in order to gain a competitive business advantage. I saw it happen several times in the media and entertainment worlds when I was living and working in Beijing.  This is one reason the communist party will stick around longer than many outsiders think. Businesses get greedy and try to manipulate the authoritarian system to their advantage, rather than working together to make the whole thing more fair, accountable, and transparent. Microsoft clearly isn’t taking the high road either.

A slight postscript: John over at Sinosplice has posted an exchange with Roland of ESWN about why ESWN isn’t blocked, and they speculate as to why my blog has been blocked in China for the past several months. John says it is currently not being blocked, or at least not from his ISP (internet service provider). Just to clarify: as far as I know, this blog was inacessible in China because since June all Typepad blogs appeared to have been blocked. When I visited China in November, this blog and all other Typepad blogs I tried to access were blocked. If it is now unblocked, it is because all of Typepad must be unblocked on at least some Chinese ISP’s. I am not aware that my blog has been specifically targeted for filtering up to this point.

UPDATE (12:45pm EST Tuesday): Robert Scoble is angry about MSN's censorship. He is looking into it and has sent a message to his colleagues: "Guys over at MSN: sorry, I don’t agree with your being used as a state-run thug." 

He is also inviting Michael Anti to be a guest blogger on his blog.

UPDATE 2 (1:35pm EST Tuesday): Anti has re-started his old blog on Blog-city. It is hosted in the U.S., and it's unlikely that Blog-city administrators would respond to Chinese government appeals to take his blog down given that they do not have a Chinese business. But still, the Blog-city URL is blocked by Chinese ISP's so nobody inside China can see it without using a proxy server. (For more info on how to use proxy servers click here, and for information in Chinese click here.)

To get around the block in China, Anti will be emailing his posts to subscribers. He is also says he is going to resume his English blog at a new URL: Chinathinkbase.com.   His English blog has been providing some fascinating translations of recent writings by various Chinese intellectuals on social issues. It's an excellent example of "bridge-blogging" - introducing people in one language group to what's being said in another language by translating, summarizing, and blogging about it.  I look forward to seeing more great work from Anti in 2006, despite his troubles.

Comments

[Fons]

The story on typepad seem to be that the company has changed its IP-address and then by accident unblocked itself. Untill it is over, of course.

[Ken]

Hey now, go easy. Bill Gates is 1/3 of Time's Person of the Year. No way would a major news organization lionize a filthy communist enabler.

[computerjoe]

Bit strange. I always considered Microsoft as Nazis, not communists :P. LOL, just kidding!

[Tom3]

Bill Gates is a Commie Nazi.

Hmmm.

Here's an interesting question;

Does a Chinese blogger, living in China, have American First Amendment freedoms on servers in America?

I.e. are Consitutional Rights applicable based on where the server is? Or the author? Or the reader?

This is a curious thing because I don't believe, though IANAL, that Constitutional Rights are bound by citizenship or nationality as long as location involves US territory.

So.... Is MSN guilty of violating this blogger's First Amendment Constitutional Rights?

[PotatoStew]

"Is MSN guilty of violating this blogger's First Amendment Constitutional Rights?"

I'm no lawyer either, but I don't think so. MSN is a private company, and it's their software, so they can allow or not allow people to post whatever they see fit.

[SoQuickToJudge]

what makes people think Bill G knew anything about this before it happened? afterall, ms is a corp giant incapable of accomodating change and the unexpected. surely the layer upon layer of mgmt will take days to get this right. right?

[Sarah]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." And so forth.

MSN is a private corporation and incapable of violating anyone's Constitutional right to self-expression (it says "Congress shall not," not "American companies shall not") but it's still despicable and immoral for them to cater to a totalitarian government's demands for aid in subjugating a billion people. This goes to first principles, not legislation -- this is just wrong, and they deserve to be castigated for it.

[Markus In Sweden]

SHAME ON YOU BILL GATES.

Did Bill just put the first amendment in the trash can?

SHAME
SHAME
SHAME

[screwball]

Ok, I've been thinking about this kind of problem for a while. The solution is a bit odd, but probably doable.

Make a peer-to-peer serverless blog distribution program. Something like bittorrent but where the seed files could be emailed around and wouldn't have to reside on a server that could be blocked. Further, the seeding files could be updated by the original author (based by say a hash). Should it be done without any attempt at misdirection mapping the thing out would be hard but not impossible. However, should someone paranoid enough write the thing, it might be a little harder (especially if the program evolved on a regular basis).

If enough people would participate, it would be pretty much impossible for the Chinese government to go after them. Worse for the Party, the authors could actually be anonymous.

[Jon Garfunkel]

screwball-- a "peer-to-peer serverless blog distribution program" is email, which carries a good deal of Chinese samizdat publications.

Rebecca-- excellent, solid investigative research and writing. It is long past due for you to change your motto from "musings and occasional rants" to something more fitting.

A couple of points. I realize that Scoble is the big Blog Man on the Redmond Campus, but wouldn't it be grand if we could gauge the opinion of not just one Microsoftee but across the company at large? Shouldn't that be the next stage of online activism, where company employees can collectively discuss social impact issues without fear of reprisal?

Secondly, there is still the larger problem of "voicing unpopular views" which confronts advocates even in this free speech society. I am curious whether the there are writers of ironic subterfuge in Chinese. Are there Chinese bloggers/journalists who write things like: "Pity the freedom-loving Americans. They have so much speech they are chained to their computers all night trying to figure out fact from fiction. Here we only need to read Xinhua."

[Gordon]

Rebecca,

As you are probably already aware, Microsoft has been censoring many of it's supported platforms for quite some time now.

Take for instance the popular chat service it offers, MSN Messenger. I am not back in the US and my wife is still awaiting her immigration papers in China. So, we spend quite a bit of time chatting over various instant messenger services, such as MSN Messenger. I first became suspicious of our conversations being censored in late 2003 because during large amounts of the conversation would either be erased before she received them or the messages simply never made it to her at all. However, I was able to copy the text I had just typed and paste it into a chat window from another messenger and she was able to received it with no problem. If I tried repasting it back into MSN, it wouldn't go through the second time either.

Anyway, I was just wondering if you or any of your readers had noticed such censorship on MSN Messenger as well? It's happened to me numerous times. Especially after the SARS outbreak.

If you want to know more, feel free to ask.

Regards!

G.

[Robert Scoble]

Jon: I wish that were possible, but it's not. I wish I could talk openly about why, but that's not possible either.

We have Chinese employees and taking a harsh stance might endanger them and their livlihoods.

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

Hey Gordon, thanks for raising that point about messenger filtering. Would love to hear more details about what exactly got censored. Suggestion: next time you have a messenger conversation censored on MSN messenger, and manage to have it successfully on another system, why don't you take screenshots of what happened and then post them on your blog? Nothing like a little visual evidence to get people's attention.

[Matt]

This has happened to lots of other MSN Spaces blogs that I've seen. Could it be something temporary, as the message on the screen says? I've seen this happen many times before--on English-language blogs written from China, Canada and the US--and the content is usually innocuous. It makes me think that it's just a glitch. How long has the site been down?

[Jon Garfunkel]

Robert: thanks. I just suppose it would be the natural order of things that organizations will use emergent techniques for collecting opinion. You mean to tell me that there is no way for other Microsoft employees to "co-sign" your letter of inquiry?
Given your 6pm update, people must realize that plain ol' blogging isn't quite the cure-all for PR snafu's.

Rebecca: what about my plan B? I like to read Wei Jingsheng's The Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other writers-- is there a comparable blogger today who is able to write in a way that carefully treads the line?

[Bit]

Bitacle Blog Search Archive
http://www.bitacle.com/blogs/viewblog/ztgs-gaz0/61

[Yoshi]

Oh for god sake. Why haven't the scum sucking lawyer come out of the woodwork on this?

We have a clear case of the blog being nuked because of the writers opinions. AND ONLY AGAINST THE CHINEESE The servers are in the USA owned by an American company.

This must be the kind of discrimination suit that no American jury would let stand.

Note to Ambulance chasers: Stop chasing hot coffee and go after this one. MSN has deep pockets... that usually bring you give out in swarms!

[Salvor]

I listened to your presentation at Les Blogs 2.O and have since then became very interested in citizen journalism. I like to draw your attention to censorship in our western world - inside Myspace, one of the most popular social networks for teenagers. Last week before Christmas Myspace.com censored all mentioning of Youtube.com and all linking to youtube videoclips. See more information on my blog here:

http://samkoma.net/videoblog/?p=17

Myspace also shut down my myspace account for a while, I assume it was because I was critical of the censorship and the blogoshere was starting up heated discussion about this. My account was later reopened. Myspace seem to be eager to destroy all traces of this censorship and evidence that it ever took place. This is very interesting example of how powerful and invisible censorship in our western world can be and how important it is for activism not to be dependent upon the media channels you are targeting. It is not enough to have access to blog, you also have to be able to reach through the mechanism that connects the blog voices. Just image a world where technorati and del.icio.us and digg.com and google are owned by the enemy - your changes of getting message through is very weak.

[Oichi Ru]

Bah humbug I say !
The blogger deliberately opened an account with Microsoft to get exactly this "MICROSOFT IS CENSORING! !" reaction from the bleeding heart blogosphere.

I am sure some bleeding heart/kind soul/outraged blogocitizen/ping back whore will offer this blogger free hosting.

And I bet you all the tea in China that the blogger will not take up the offer. Why ?

[Chrono Cr@cker]

Brilliant post, absolutely brilliant. This is going to cause quite an uproar in the Blogosphere!

~ CC

[whatever]

A lot here have been said about doing business in China must follow the Chinese rules or practices. This certainly has its merit, however this is only the half truth. Why most American companies will not and can not bribe their ways out in China as their Chinese competitors normally do? Because there is something called ‘Foreign Corrupt Practices Act(FCPA)’. The dire financial & reputational consequences of breaching such a US law prevent most Americans from doing under-the-table tricks which are ubiquitous in China. Do American business suffer? I assume so. Why not a lot of people cry for this?

So the question is really at what price the Amercians, especailly the American government, will hold their moral high ground. Comparing with the billions of dollors the Americans (or at least half of the Americans) are willingly to shed to promote democracy in Middle-east, I do believe the financial consequences of Microsoft or Google or whoever who do not comply with Chinese blackmails will be just peanuts.

Certainly, from any single corporation’s point of view, especially for those with big stake in China, loss of revenue there is an immediate pain. This is why I think the American government should step in, establishing something similar to the FCPA, forbiding US companies from assisting foreign governments to curb any democratic initiatives.

Call me a dreamer at your will. As a Chinese who himself shed blood in Tiananmen square in 1989, I know how difficult it is for normal people to stand up and fight within. Anti is a courageous young man, he should be supported at any costs.

PS: Talking about Chinese laws, it is in China’s constitution that people have freedom of speech, freedom of forming parties etc. The only notable lack of freedom from a legal point of view is that Chinese are not allowed to strike, which suits American MNCs handsomely. ANTI is a famous political dissident, however he only performs within Chinese legal frame. If he has ever broken any law, how come is he still at large?

[Badabing]

I am not a particular Microsoft fan and I respect freedom of speech. But for once, I think all the Microsoft and Bill Gates bashers have gone overboard this time. Why should someone be entitled to exercise his freedom of speech at the expense of a public company? Considering the potential repercussion from the Chinese government, Microsoft is doing the right thing for its shareholders of which Bill Gates happens to be the largest one. It would be a morally honorable thing to do if Microsoft keeps this particular blog online. But it should not be subject to all these criticism because it did otherwise to protect its owners’ interest.

[sun bin]

hmm. i think my mirrow blog in MSN might have been censored a few times. as it had been 'unavailable' for from a few minutes to about 10 hours in the past.

i am not sure what is better
1. censored in china (msn)
2. whole site blocked (blogger)

but as a business, msn should at least let anti access the data and move it elsewhere, and give hime some warning.

[omih]

Great post and very very interesting. I have mentioned before that we point the finger at the likes of China over censorship but forget about the more subtle forms being used in the West. Here's an incident that covers both areas and it's a case of "First they came for the...and I did nothing". Nothing happens over this and net censorship will become more widespread.

Here in Vietnam, all things blog related are rather haphazard. Blocked on some servers and not others - my general impression is that its actually the net providers rather than the Government who are doing the censorship.

I think it may be a case of pleasing their master and blocking just to make sure.

The MSN situation deserves to make massive news in the West. If it doesn't then the the subtle censorship I mentioned earlier is already taking place.

Surely, as someone earlier suggested "Gates works with Commies" is too intriguing a news story to go unnoticed. Isn't it?