Skype and China censorship

I am a big fan of Skype in general, and I use it heavily. But the way Skype chooses to treat its Chinese users will ultimately impact the extent to which I as a user can trust Skype anywhere, in general.

I'm disturbed that Skype in China has adopted the internet censorship practices of its local Chinese partner, TOM, without examining whether there is a more ethical and honest way to handle Chinese government demands to censor chat clients than the one currently employed by local Chinese companies.

On his blog, Skype's Jaanus Kase tries to explain his company's decision a bit further:

Skype has a joint venture with TOM Online. As part of that venture, we provide a co-branded version of Skype called TOM-Skype, which is the version of Skype that is available in mainland China.

As part of the joint venture, TOM provides guidance to Skype about how to co-operate with local laws and regulations in China. In every country we operate in, we always work with local authorities to follow local laws and best practice.

TOM operates a text filter in TOM-Skype. The filter operates solely on text chats. The filter has a list of words which will not be displayed in Skype chats.

"Best practice?"  Come on. I posted a comment on his blog as follows:

Hello! I have some more questions:
- Do you notify the users of the fact that their chats will be filtered? Or that they have been filtered and why?
- Can you or will you publicize the list of filtered words?
- Can you please specify the exact laws and regulations which are being followed in regard to each word or phrase? In other words in each case what Chinese law or regulation is being broken by each word's use?
- Is there an appeals process for users to challenge the legal necessity of filtering certain words that they feel should not be filtered?

I believe that multinational internet communications businesses are not being transparent or honest enough with Chinese users. This is not just about freedom of speech and human rights, it's about the way you treat your user and whether you are squandering your user trust in China. User trust is ultimately your greatest competitive advantage in China; any technical competitive edge will not be maintainable over the long run against your Chinese competitors. Filtering in a non-transparent, unaccountable manner squanders your user trust. I believe it is possible to engage and do business in the Chinese market without lying to your users or treating them like children. It will take some effort and spine to do the right thing but your users will appreciate it and reward you with trust and loyalty. It is not just morally the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do for your business.

Jaanus has not yet responded.  If you have questions to add that you'd like him to answer, please head on over and ask them.

Comments

[Boris Anthony]

according to this explanation, the text filter is built into the TOM-Skype client, which resides on the user's machine. this means it should be discoverable and circumventable. which is beside the point of course, but of possible technical interest.

Anybody up for some TOM-Skype client hacking to extract the list?

[Twok]

China cannot be a superpower when the inhibit freedoms of expression. The top levels of economic growth depend on innovation and entrepreneurship, and China will hit a brick wall unless it frees things up.

[DeliLma]

Someone long ago, perhaps one of the technical leaders of Internet development, said that the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it. I think that's true in general. People are clever and word gets around, especially when large groups of people are trying hard to accomplish some forbidden task. So you can't use the word "democracy" but you can play tricks to get around it. backward->ycarcomed

[Nathan]

Apparently, the old "if it bleeds, it leads" trope has morphed into "if it's got China and can be interpreted as some form of censorship, it leads."
I use Skype voice-chat every day to talk to someone in China. We have talked about everything under the sun and nary a hint of censorship.

Perhaps the difference is between text chat and voice chat?
[shrug]
I'd say talk to Chinese people and see what they think, first.

[Laika's Last Woof]

Maybe l33tsp33k can actually do some good for once.

R3m3mb3r +!@/\/m@n skw@r3. d3m0kracy n0w!

If they filter that I can come up with some more ways to spell "Tianmen Square". Maybe Mandarin doesn't lend itself to 733+sp33k -- so just use 3ng1!5h then.

[mrsizer]

Laika, FINALLY a good use for that annoying stuff!

On the original topic: I think it was a very polite, very well written note.

_IF_ this is a case of "China" == "bad" publicity, the response is easy enough. If it's a real problem the note proposes solutions.

Well done!

[TWAndrews]

I am a big fan of Skype in general, and I use it heavily. But the way Skype chooses to treat its Chinese users will ultimately impact the extent to which I as a user can trust Skype anywhere, in general.

It's easy to throw out a quick phrase saying "I'm disturbed", but ultimately, if you continue to use Skype heavily, your disapproval has no impact.

[Kaiser]

There's really no need to use the Tom client when you can download plain old Skype -- in simplified Chinese -- directly from the site. It's clear enough how to download it even for non-English speakers.

[Laika's Last Woof]

>Laika, FINALLY a good use for that annoying stuff!

Did you know that bypassing software filters was the original purpose of l33tsp34k?

BBS admins were trying to filter out pirated software and pornography and the hackers were trying to outsmart the filters. Leetspeak began with "warez" and "pr0n" and quickly expanded.

Now it's |]-/\/\0kr4-z herself that seeks to pass the filter. G0|]5p33|} her on her way.

[Mick]

I live in China now, and I've to say that often chinese authorities are absolutely a bounch od idiots: in this case they learnt how to use a chat, so they ask to ban some words... but there practically NO WAY to ban a voice communication over ip, unless you want to block entirely. If a chinese really want to talk about forbidden stuff it often means he knows what's going about censorship, which means he knows how to bypass the stuff (even a idiot can install Tor-Vidalia and use it as sock, running any blocked software from any computer).

Believe me, the most stupid monkey can organize a secret militia in this country using the software available, over internet. The problems are not about free communication, but free speech. First it means that people talk too much, second that i cannot run a website recruiting people for my cause. Beside this, especially in big cities, we are not controlled as it seems from outside this country, just people are too busy in getting rich than to some human rights: they don't care (for now).