Just yesterday I was writing about China and their actions against adult websites, cell phone text messaging and blogging. Today, one of the stories is about Chinese blogger, Zhao Jink AKA Michael Anti having his MSN Spaces China blog removed. What some are finding sizzling is that this doesn’t appear to be the handiwork of China but of MSN Spaces China. This might seem reminiscent of when Yahoo handed over IP addresses at China, but it sounds different.

Scoble is fired up and extending an invitation to Michael Anti to use his blog instead (Anti has since changed to a different third-party hosted blog service — why doesn’t this guy buy his own domain and host this himself?):

OK, this one is depressing to me. It’s one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm. It’s another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger’s work.

Scoble’s post dragged an acidic comment response (”this post seriously makes you come off as a jack ass”) from another Microsoft employee, Dare Obasanjo who works on the MSN Spaces team:

Given that you work at Microsoft and know folks on the Spaces team, isn’t the intelligent thing to do to get the facts straight first before faning the flames of speculation and making inflammatory comments (e.g. “state run thug”)?

Dare’s blog, however, remains silent on the issue. He’s currently not at CES at CES though (Update: looks like I may have been wrong on this one, but Scoble is there [?], my apologies, Dare), so I wonder how much of his feelings will be delivered to others face to face and never be blogged?

Mike Torres, MSN Spaces PM for here in the US, last blog post was about King Kong (which he liked).

I sat next to Mike at Seattle Mind and he seemed like a cool guy. Though I never met Dare, I can see why Dare (and Mike too?) might be miffed at Scoble who can’t seem to wait to hit the blog post button on some of these Microsoft-related hot issues, when it doesn’t seem like he always has all the facts. In his defense, sometimes he does, like the reporting/blogging he’s been doing on this WMF vulnerability mess.

Perhaps somebody needs to reel Scoble in for a refresher course in teamwork. Of course he probably hears that often so who am I to ask for that, but being the lone gunman blogger doesn’t work so well unless you’re a company of one. These folks are supposed to be a team, aren’t they? I don’t work for Microsoft, just go up there and beta test once in awhile, but man, Robert, it sounds like you screwed this one up.

More facts needed first. Details. Quotes from people working there. Tell us what you’ve done to follow up on the story rather than wait until the rest of the blogosphere — myself include — pontificates on what we think are the facts, Scoble is in the unique position of being able to deliver the actual non-filtered facts. That type of information is well worth waiting to see. I get the impression Scoble and some other prominent bloggers out there think getting the story first is more important than getting the story right.

Now from what I know about this story — and it’s no more than you can read from what’s out there on the blogs at this point — I think MSN Spaces China took the right action considering where they are doing business. If/when more information comes out that shows this blogger didn’t violate the TOS I reserve the right to change my opinion.

In the meantime, I’ll say this again, despite how distasteful this might sound: their country, their ballgame.

If MSN, Yahoo, Google, you or I want to do business in China we need to operate by Chinese rules, regulatations and beliefs. We have democracy here in America and so it’s only natural not to understand or like the fact that Communism exists but we do have a choice: don’t do business there.

And if not doing business there costs billions … well, there is still a decision not to business there, isn’t it?

The minute you open up a business in somebody else’s country, you have to abide by their rules and regulations. This isn’t about freedom of speech for this blogger. Look, he doesn’t have the First Amendment, he lives in China. Like, dislike, whatever, that’s just the way it is in his country.

(cue Bruce Hornsby piano)

Seriously, I just don’t like it when people try to change other countries beliefs, rules and regulations. Yes, we have to be alert and concerned that some radical country (I’m speaking generally now, not of China) isn’t building nuclear or biological weapons that will threaten all of mankind so don’t anybody get derailed thinking I’m all giddy about Communism. We must find some way as a society to stop trying to jam our beliefs down others throats. Tolerance for others, instead of intolerance. If China doesn’t want to allow bloggers in their country to say certain words or speak out against the establishment, that’s their decision, their soil.

Too bad Mr. Anti had his blog taken down, but he doesn’t get four outs when the rules say it’s a three out ballgame. Readers know I try to steer clear of most political topics but this one crosses into technology boundaries and has me annoyed. Not that MSN Spaces China took this blogger down, but the most popular response I’m reading so far is how MSN Spaces in China are cold-hearted bastards for enforcing their TOS.

They aren’t evil, they are acting within the rules and regulations in that country. Also, Mr. Anti agreed to the Terms of Service when he setup an MSN Spaces blog, yes? What did he violate there? My guess is at the end of the day, when facts come out that there were several TOS violations and MSN Spaces China was well within their rights to take down his blog. I believe the MSN Spaces China team will be vindicated from a business and legal standpoint.

The court of public opinion might deal them harshly for another business cycle or two, at least until Bill Gates announces something tomorrow night (he is is going to announce something new, isn’t he?).

Time for Gates to pull a joker out of his sleeve. Microsoft could really use one of them right about now. Really.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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