Alfred님의 프로필Alfred Thompson the Cybe...사진블로그리스트기타  |  도구 도움말 |
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1월 5일 Do you believe in censorship?There is a famous story that goes something like this: An elderly philosopher asks a young woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. She says “yes.” The philosopher asks if she would sleep with him for a hundred dollars. She replies “of course not! What sort of a woman do you thing I am?” The philosopher’s reply “we have already established that. Now we are haggling over price.” This is applicable to censorship. Take a look at these questions.
If you said yes to any of those questions you are supporting censorship plain and simple. The issue is not really one that is binary. There are levels of gray in the discussion. Different people are going to draw the line at different places. And in fact depending on the situation they are going to draw it differently on different cases and events. Are people who draw the line differently than you automatically mean, cruel and evil? I don’t think so. Coming back to the issue in my last post, the blogger in China, would I have made a different call? I’d like to think so but I don’t really know. Some people would have you believe the issue is cut and dried but is it? Really? It sounds like they don’t have any more information about what really happened than I do. And of course they have nothing to lose by saying they would have done it differently. What wonderful courage to play with the lives and livelihoods of others at no risk to themselves. And they get to take a popular stand with their readers at the same time. Yeah, risky. Courageous. I do think that Microsoft should make more details available. I think that would put more pressure on who ever forced them to do what they did to explain themselves. But they probably will not because that would take some courage and put people at risk. Not American people though – more likely Chinese people. Americans could more easily get jobs after standing up to the Chinese government than Chinese people could. Still I'd like to see them find a way. Openness and more information is the best answer when there is a lack of good information. Someone (other than me) has to make some tough decision around all this. They have more information and more to think about than I do. There are times when I think we should all stop doing business with China until they become a democracy. And then I think about how well that has worked with Cuba. On the other hand trade with the Soviet blog seems to have contributed to the fall of Communism there. If all the American companies get forced out of China who will be left? Well all the countries in Europe for starters. I’m not so impressed with their record on standing up to tyrants. Look at how much France was willing to send to Iraq to support Saddam! And look at how much censorship those governments enforce around their own histories and political activity. In the long run I think it is better if American companies are there. Occasionally a blogger is forced to move hosting services and that is wrong and it is a shame on us all. But is it enough to paint a company as an evil servant of tyranny and a threat to human rights? Give me a break.
BTW just as a reminder that while I am a Microsoft employee I am not speaking as a representative of the company. I have nothing to do with how anyone other than myself is managed and I am not part of the MSN Spaces part of the company. So these are just my personal opinions. 댓글 (7개)
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