Props to Darren Barefoot and Shelley Powers at Burningbird for finding the real problem with the criticisms of Microsoft with regard to their policy of censoring certain words on the Chinese verion of MSN Spaces.
Ethan, we condemn Microsoft for making a monetary decision, but we’re not willing to examine our own buying habits, and what these help promote.
Yet Microsoft’s actions cause less harm than buying an iPod from Apple, when one doesn’t know exactly what are the circumstances under which it is built.
We have a lot of ties to the existing state of affairs with China. Wal-Mart wouldn’t exist without the state of affairs in China. If we feel right to condemn one such tie, while still maintaining the others, doesn’t this make our self-rightousness a little suspect?
I sincerely wish that there was no censorship of these words in China. Or that our manufacturers wouldn’t need to be sending censoring software and hardware to that country.
I also wish that women weren’t treated as property in Saudi Arabia, but I still buy gas…
Indeed
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