Microsoft Censoring Chinese Bloggers?

This is a really tough one, because there's no good answer. For example, we run TypePad, and the entire service is blocked in China. So *none* of those people have a voice in China. If we had the option of just blocking the (presumable) one or two sites the government finds objectionable, while defaulting to the rest of the sites all being accessible, should we do so?

It's kind of a moot point, because it's not like there's some email address you can petition or send your grievances to, but I don't envy the MSN Spaces team having to figure this all out. Google's in the same boat as us, with all of BlogSpot being blocked.

As an American media company, MSN should stand by the First Amendment. Chinese citizens should be free to express themselves on U.S.-based websites.

The same logic expressed by Anil could be used to say that MSN should hunt down and jail Chinese dissidents because the Chinese government will inevitably do it themselves. MSN should also dump toxins in rivers... that's inevitable too. Don't kid yourself, MSN isn't doing it for humanitarian reasons. They aren't looking out for the Chinese people. They are looking out for their sorry ass bottom line, which isn't much to begin with.

On a side note, how can Chinese citizens avoid thwart the censors? I will assume anything with a static/fixed domain or email address can be blocked. I will assume the Chinese government has an office full of goons who do nothing but look for subversive websites and correspondences.

This goes to show that even the internet is not immune to censorship.