Obeying Chinese Government, MSN Censors Bloggers

January 7th, 2006 1:28 AM

Lefty media critics often assert that because large corporations control much of the media, that makes the press more likely to be biased toward economic conservatism. It's a laughable belief since study after study done by MRC and others show the media favor higher taxes and more regulation of business. The truth is that most large companies don't much care about politics. They can and do switch hit regularly.

The latest nail in the coffin in the myth of media economic conservatism comes from China where it appears that Microsoft's MSN Spaces program has implemented a system that automatically stops bloggers from posting entries with prohibited words like Tibet, Falun Gong, etc. Similar steps have been implemented by other Chinese blog hosting providers. Rebecca MacKinnon has an extensive posting on the matter replete with screenshots and other information.