This Chinese government has decided to encourage businesses and the general population to blog but without any subversive or sexually explicit language. According to an article in BusinessWeek, “…bloggers were not allowed to post terms to MSN Spaces such as ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’ and ‘Taiwan Independence’. Attempts to enter those words were said to generate a message saying those words were prohibited. Chinese censors scour Internet bulletin boards and blogs for sensitive material, and block access to violators. Sites that let the public post comments are told to censor themselves or face penalties.”
Apparently, this just goes with the territory when large corporations deal with China. Microsoft seems to take this in stride as part of the regulatory nature of dealing with individual countries and the filtering that needs to take place in order to do business in such countries. Earlier this year, France was up-in-arms about Google Books appearing online, which they thought may supplant French language and thought with English language and thought.
In order for U. S. technology companies to spread their wings abroad, it is important that they adapt to cultural norms inside the countries that they market in. This is especially true of countries that fear outside ideologies may be pushed upon them by the so-called “arrogant superpowers.” U. S. technology companies need to do their homework first when entering these countries and not rush into another Coca-Cola branding fiasco such as the one in China a few years back where the Coca-Cola corporation didn’t know the words “Ke-kou-ke-la” meant “bite the wax tadpole” in Chinese. Enough said.
