As per The Register article published on the 13th of June, ‘05:
Microsoft has bowed to Beijing’s political censors and has banned the use of the words “freedom” and “democracy” on some areas of its Chinese internet portal, along with a host of other politically sensitive words such as “Taiwan independence” and “demonstration”.
According to the Financial Times, portal operators have imposed the restriction on the names users give their blogs, although the words can still be used within blog’s text. Users who try to use the offensive terminology are met with error messages informing them that they have used “forbidden speech”, which they are asked to delete from the item.
From this, I think I’ve spotted something no-one else has yet to mention. If we take the words “democracy”, “democratic”, “freedom” and “demonstration” as blocked words, then it would in fact be impossible for a mainland Chinese blogger to repost the “Constitution of The People’s Republic of China” (alternative translation). The former translation has 47 occurances of “forbidden speech” though the latter fairs better with just 30 such incursions.
Would it not be the case then that Microsoft are not just censoring mainland Chinese bloggers, but in fact the government of the People’s Republic of China itself? Whom is wearing the trousers here?