Rebecca McKinnion weighs in on the pro-censorship, anti-expression, position taken by Microsoft’s in-house blogger Robert Scoble on Microsoft’s preemptive censorship in China:

I lived in China for nine years straight as a journalist, and if you add up other times I’ve lived there it comes to nearly 12. I don’t know what students and professors Scoble met with, and what context he met them in. But to state that Chinese students and professors have an "anti-free-speech stance" is the biggest pile of horseshit about China I’ve come across in quite some time. And believe me, there are a great many such piles out there these days.

Well said. Read the whole thing.

Rebecca is one of a handful of Sino journo-bloggers I admire, And on the Microsoft matter, I’m a bit disappointed with how another person I admire vacillates:

Obvious, many companies have decided that their business, and sometimes even their future, lies in China. While both individuals and companies might have different ways of drawing a line, for everybody there will be a bottom line. Bringing the discussion into the open is a plus and Microsoft should be applauded for doing it. In that way, they are a sign that things are changing, yet again, for all players involved in global business.