Microsoft Clangers
I just saw this story on the MelbourneLefty blog. It has absolutely everything you could want in a news story about Microsoft! It has Microsoft employees being arrested for ignorance, disputed territories being reclassified in the best Orwellian traditions, and whole countries being wiped from the map to satisfy implacable corporate greed. What more could you possibly want?
The thing that upsets me most about the article is the way in which powerful countries can, as usual, steamroller over the valid objections of smaller countries... in this respect, Microsoft are no worse than many corporations, especially in the field of computing. Computers, and more specifically the Internet, have an unprecedented opportunity to democratise much of modern life for those that have access. No longer do we need to go through monolithic news agencies to find out what's happening in the world, no longer do we need to go through corporate-minded publishers to find an outlet for our opinions. The internet allows for ideas to be expressed without the omnipresent censorship that is inevitable when someone's bottom line is being considered.
It's not just Microsoft - other companies have an even worse track record in these areas. It's not that they are thwarting 'the dream', but that they are actually contributing to the general suppression of human rights. Nowhere is this more evident than in China. Consider Cisco, for example, and its part in developing the Great Firewall of China. Or consider Yahoo and Google, who routinely censor the results of their searches to meet China's repressive demands.
It's not even a new phenomenon - IBM played a major role in allowing the Holocaust to go forward.
I know why these decisions are made, and I also know the 'justifications' used in an attempt to gain some kind of moral acceptability. However, it is never okay to profit from the repression of others. The relentless drive towards profit in modern corporations is perhaps the biggest issue that faces us in modern times. Microsoft's smudging over tricky political truths is just one minor symptom of a deep-rooted problem that we will have to deal with before it destroys us.
The thing that upsets me most about the article is the way in which powerful countries can, as usual, steamroller over the valid objections of smaller countries... in this respect, Microsoft are no worse than many corporations, especially in the field of computing. Computers, and more specifically the Internet, have an unprecedented opportunity to democratise much of modern life for those that have access. No longer do we need to go through monolithic news agencies to find out what's happening in the world, no longer do we need to go through corporate-minded publishers to find an outlet for our opinions. The internet allows for ideas to be expressed without the omnipresent censorship that is inevitable when someone's bottom line is being considered.
It's not just Microsoft - other companies have an even worse track record in these areas. It's not that they are thwarting 'the dream', but that they are actually contributing to the general suppression of human rights. Nowhere is this more evident than in China. Consider Cisco, for example, and its part in developing the Great Firewall of China. Or consider Yahoo and Google, who routinely censor the results of their searches to meet China's repressive demands.
It's not even a new phenomenon - IBM played a major role in allowing the Holocaust to go forward.
I know why these decisions are made, and I also know the 'justifications' used in an attempt to gain some kind of moral acceptability. However, it is never okay to profit from the repression of others. The relentless drive towards profit in modern corporations is perhaps the biggest issue that faces us in modern times. Microsoft's smudging over tricky political truths is just one minor symptom of a deep-rooted problem that we will have to deal with before it destroys us.
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