back to article Yahoo!, Microsoft ink web pact with Chinese government

Microsoft and Yahoo! have signed a pact with the Chinese government that "encourages" the big name web players to record the identities of bloggers and censor content. So says Reporters Without Borders, an organization that fights for journalistic rights across the globe. The French advocacy group reports that at least 20 …

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  1. Greg Nelson

    FUD

    >Which makes you wonder why the company has agreed to sign the pact.

    It reads as though both sides got as much as they could given each others restrains. The Chinese government gets to widely proclaim that the real names of forum users are recorded and MS and others get to claim they won't comply with the requirement as it's only a guideline.

    The BBC show HARDtalk recently interviewed the last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten. My understanding of his view of the present Chinese government's predicament is that of a double bind. The Chinese government must continue to foster freedoms necessary to economic reform while maintaining power as a undemocratic government. Damned if they don't and damned if they do, the Chinese government's agenda of fostering economic reform before delivering on new freedoms seems to have put it in an untenable position that in anachronistic, Freudian terms would suggest a likely neurotic meltdown into a full blown psychotic episode. Past Reg articles have quoted Chinese government sources as speaking of the necessity of Harmony and Purity, Double Plus Good for a totalitarian regime wanting to move the goal posts laid up in heaven whenever things don't look good for their power base.

    The American scientist, E.O. Wilson wrote a piece in the late 90's wherein he looked at China as the litmus test for world progress. China's population and environmental problems are such that, in Mr. Wilson's view, as it then was, it makes China the best test case for the world's present woes. It's not looking too good. Philosophically and politically, those who tout ideas of Harmony and Purity are in the camp of totalitarians unlikely to let go of power unless they've got covert control. The Japanese developed the political theory of the closeted emperor. The closeted emperor was one who stepped down from the throne only to pull the strings from behind closed doors. Somehow the totalitarian, Chinese government has to develop a mechanism that allows it to seemingly step aside in favour of democratic reform while keeping power. In the face of Harmony and Purity there's Terry Pratchett's idea that free people don't all pull together, rather, they pull in all directions at once. Pratchett's idea and those of Karl Popper's in 'The Open Society and It's Enemies' suggests we'll see much disharmony and pollution coming out of China. OTOH China, like the western democracies in America and Britain seem to be testing the idea that just enough economic prosperity will lull people into a stupor that allows for the loss of all but nominal freedoms. May you live long and prosper in interesting times?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Greg Nelson

    Don't forget that Chris Patton is an imbecile.

  3. barryred

    Exclamation! marks!

    Isn't your title missing some Exclamation marks?

    I thought we had a vote on this one!

  4. calagan

    useless

    I don't see much use for this pact: unless there's a credit card involved, there no way to prevent people from inputting bogus personal information when blogging. Moreover, most Chinese don't have Internet access at home and rely on cybercafes to be able to blog, which makes it even less traceable.

    Having spent a few years in China, I have to say I find disapointing that chinese kids don't seize the various opportunities offered by the Internet in terms of expression: in fact those crowded cybercafes are nearly exclusively used by those WOW-like online games addicts.

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