MSN spaces: Where "freedom of speech" are dirty words

MSN ought to be ashamed of itself.

A highly respected blogger in China has been shut down by MSN. Yes, you read right. It is not just China blocking access to the Anti blog -- Microsoft pulled the site from the source. In effect, Microsoft is doing the dirty work for the thuggish government of China and, in the process, censoring what we can read. Hey, what's a few small favors from one evil empire to another?

Rebecca McKinnon is doing some excellent work on this, including an examination of MSN's filtering policy, which bans "sensitive" keywords. Trying to build a blog with the title "I love freedom of speech, human rights and democracy" generates the error message "You must enter a title for your space. The title must not contain prohibited language, such as profanity. Please type a different title."