Murdoch Stands Shoulder to Shoulder with Chinese Government

Murdoch has bent over and spread his arse cheeks for China:

MySpace, the world's most popular online social network, has launched a version of its website in China, despite fears among human rights campaigners that users will be censored or spied on by the totalitarian Communist state.

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp, which owns MySpace, said last year that the company was looking for a way to enter China without running into political obstacles of the type faced by Google, which agreed to self-censor its content; and by Yahoo, which gave the Chinese government information about the site's users. Both internet companies have been targeted by Irrepressible.info, the joint campaign run by The Observer and Amnesty International calling for freedom of speech online.

Murdoch has set up a separate business to avoid any problems. MySpace China is a 'locally owned, operated and managed company' in which News Corp is only one among several investors, according to its chief executive, Luo Chuan, the former head of Microsoft's MSN China. He said: 'Our team here will have the sole right to decide the operation model, the technology platform as well as the product strategy. It's very unlike the other multinationals you might have heard about or seen in the Chinese market.'

Campaigners fear that the site, which allows users to share text, pictures, music and videos, will provide another means for China's army of internet police to gather information on users. Dozens of Chinese bloggers have been jailed for posting political comments online.

What a guy.

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