Peeping Tom: Some thoughts on Skype Spygate

Oct 6, 2008 12:17

Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Skype's China partner, Tom (or Tom-Skype), has been monitoring and recording instant message chats. A Canadian, Nart Villeneuve, made the discovery and reported about it on his Web site.

Shocking revelations like this in China have long lost their shock value. It's pretty much everyday news. Either a company comes into China independently, or it comes in via a local partner (as Skype did), or it doesn't come at all. When a company chooses to do business here, for better or for worse, it is subject to local laws--even if those laws clash with common ethics. With that in mind, here's a statement from Skype's president which explains their position. But to me, this statement only underscores why they should have been watching Tom like a hawk from day one:
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Xinhua's Premature Exclamations

Sep 29, 2008 23:56

Another one to file under F for fake... 

Xinhua, China's official news agency, can now apparently report news events before they actually happen. Such is the case with China's recent space walk, where Xinhua scooped all those other chump news agencies by two whole days:

A news story describing a successful launch of China's long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground.

The country's official news agency Xinhua posted the article on its Web site Thursday, and remained there for much of the day before it was taken down. . . The article, dated two days from now on Sept. 27, vividly described the rocket in flight, complete with a sharply detailed dialogue between the three astronauts. AP via Shanghaiist

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China milk cover-up still being covered up

Sep 24, 2008 17:47

Well, it looks as though the authorities may have been aware of this whole milk scandal as early as last year. And there are some pretty serious allegations floating around that Baidu might have been paid 3 million yuan to keep the scandal out of its search results. Read more »

Baidu MP3 search is soooo dodgy

Sep 19, 2008 13:47

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. When it comes to Baidu vs. Google, I have yet to see any advantage that Baidu has besides its dodgy MP3 search. Imagethief and Silicon Hutong just posted two excellent articles about Baidu that I recommend everyone read:
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On Chinese media: Denial is not just a river in Egypt

Sep 15, 2008 22:53

Mark Twain said that, though I don't think he'd ever been to China. Although if he were around today, he'd probably have noticed familiar patterns of scandal-denial-apologize in the Chinese media. Typically, it goes a lil' something like this:

1. Scandal or embarrassing incident occurs (i.e. SARS, tainted food or milk, underage gymnasts, etc.


2. Offending party in China covers up or denies any wrongdoing


3. Smoking gun emerges; offending party is doubly embarrassed due to cover-up/denial in step 2. 

Now I'm no authority on politics, but China's "emergence as a world power" (I'm getting tired of hearing that phrase) is going to require a change in strategy if it hopes to gain the world's trust and respect as a nation--which it does. And the Chinese propaganda posse is not helping, if this recent government-released work instruction for the tainted milk scandal is any indication:
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