Agylen

Yesterday, Scoble served us one of the lamest excuses ever heard for the all too common behavior of a big company kowtowing to a dictatorship’s demands in the name of business (emphasis mine):

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger | My stance on the Chinese free speech question: “I’ve been to China (as an employee of Winnov about seven years ago). I met with Government officials there. I met with students. I met with professors. They explained their anti-free-speech stance to me and I understand it. I don’t agree with it, and I will be happy to explain to anyone the benefits of giving your citizens the right to speak freely, but it’s not my place to make their laws. It certainly is not my right to force their hand with business power.”

“Their” anti-free-speech stance? Come on, Robert, are you really saying that you believed all that bullshit? Or are do you think that we would believe it?

You remind me of all those people who went visiting the USSR and came back telling everybody how happy the people were and how much more they valued their socialist values compared to so-called “bourgeois” freedoms. Never mind that when you were allowed to interview people, it was always within ear of the KGB!

So, when you talk about “their anti-free-speech stance”, I don’t know if you’re gullible or are just trying to rationalize an untenable position. Another bad rationalization is here:

When doing business in various countries and, even, various states here in the US, we must comply with the local laws if we want to do business there.

The fact is, there are no laws in China forbidding the use of words like “democracy” or “freedom of the press”, as far as I know. What Microsoft is bowing to is not the law, it’s the ukase of some party brass and Microsoft could have displayed a little more spine, instead of bending over backwards, even if this could have costed them some business. Or are we trying to imply that everything goes, as long as the shareholders are happy? Like in Bhopal?

But, and this is a big but…I’m not Chinese. I’m American. So I have ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS forcing the Chinese into a position they don’t believe in.

Right, and you have no business forcing the Iraqis into a position they don’t believe in, either.