MySpace, the world's most popular online social network, has launched a version of its Web site in China, despite fears among human-rights campaigners that users will be censored or spied on by the totalitarian Communist state.
Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp, which owns MySpace, said last year that the company was looking for a way to enter China without running into political obstacles of the type faced by Google, which agreed to self-censor its content; and by Yahoo, which has repeatedly provided the Chinese government with information allowing them to identify anonymous Web users.
Both companies have been targeted by Irrepressible.info, the joint campaign run by the Observer newspaper and Amnesty International calling for freedom of speech online.
Murdoch has set up a separate business to avoid any problems. MySpace China is a "locally owned, operated and managed company" in which News Corp is only one among several investors, according to its chief executive, Luo Chuan, the former head of Microsoft's MSN China.
"Our team here will have the sole right to decide the operation model, the technology platform as well as the product strategy. It's very unlike the other multinationals you might have heard about or seen in the Chinese market," he said.
Campaigners fear that the site, which allows users to share text, pictures, music and videos, will provide another means for China's army of Internet police to gather information on users.
Dozens of Chinese bloggers have been jailed for posting political comments or spreading information concerning corruption and human-rights violations.
Even with MySpace China still in its "beta" testing stage, allegations of censorship have emerged. According to the technology news site Texyt.com, discussion forums on religion and politics are nowhere to be found on MySpace.cn, despite being popular topics on the main MySpace sites. Instead, users are only offered safer topics such as sport and films.
Texyt also reports that users are told to click a button if they spot any "misconduct" by other users -- actions such as "endangering national security, leaking state secrets, subverting the government, undermining national unity, spreading rumors or disturbing the social order."
Attempts to post content containing a variety of sensitive terms, such as "Taiwanese independence," "Falun Gong" or "Dalai Lama," produce the following message: "Sorry, the article you want to publish may contain inappropriate content. Please delete the unsuitable content, and then try reposting it. Thank you."
Ron Deibert of the OpenNet Initiative, an alliance opposed to the filtering of the Internet, said: "We should look at it along the same lines as other technology investors in the country that had to alter their conduct to comply with Chinese restrictions."
MySpace issued a statement which said: "As a locally owned, operated and managed company, MySpace China complies with local law and legal enforcement requests."
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
BACK TO WORK? Prosecutors said they are considering filing an appeal, while the Hsinchu City Government said it has applied for Ann Kao’s reinstatement as mayor The High Court yesterday found suspended Hsinchu mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) not guilty of embezzling assistant fees, reducing her sentence to six months in prison commutable to a fine from seven years and four months. The verdict acquitted Kao of the corruption charge, but found her guilty of causing a public official to commit document forgery. The High Prosecutors’ Office said it is reviewing the ruling and considering whether to file an appeal. The Taipei District Court in July last year sentenced Kao to seven years and four months in prison, along with a four-year deprivation of civil rights, for contravening the Anti-Corruption
RSS