Bill Gates Weighs in on Doing Business in China

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BIll Gates Weighs In On Doing Business In China [reuters.com]

Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates on Monday said the Internet needs to thrive in China as an engine of free speech and described official online censorship by Beijing as "very limited."

Asked in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America about Google Inc's dispute with China, Gates said the Internet is subject to different kinds of censorship around the world but has proved a consistent success at promoting openness and the exchange of ideas.

"You've got to decide: Do you want to obey the laws of the countries you're in, or not? If not, you may not end up doing business there," Gates, the world's richest man, said without mentioning Google by name.

[bill]

The Western press does have a habit of exaggerating the amount of censorship on the net in China. It really is quite "limited" compared to the image many people have. I never encounter any censorship in China while going through my normal routine. You have to really work at going after taboo subject sites to see any evidence of government intervention in most cases.

[KenB]

My mother was over in China as a coach on the a US Special Olympics team and while there they did run up against quite a bit of censorship issues with emails they sent not arriving at their destination or being heavily redacted. What is so taboo about sending reports back about the Special Olympics?

There were some significant issues with Chinese team cheating during the games (come on, its the Special Olympics for crying out loud) and any messages people tried to get out about what was going on got nixed completely even if it didn't discuss the lack of fair play.

One individual reported that the computer she was using was actually redacting text from messages as she was trying to type (must have been a hotel or cyber cafe computer). In the end they resorted to sending out cryptic status updates that everything was okay.