Freedom’s just another word for something you can’t say. Or at least you can’t say it on the Internet in China. Sort
of. According to this article, the Chinese, in all
their infinite wisdom, are chastising the use of certain words on the MSN Spaces section of Microsoft Corp.’s new
China-based Web portal. When words deemed taboo by the communist authorities are used — words such as democracy,
freedom and human rights — they get a nice little message that reads: “Prohibited language in text, please
delete,” the message says.
Granted it’s not like they are searching all China-based users messages and arresting people for writing the word
“freedom”, but the act does offer an interesting, and somewhat frightening, in the Orwellian sense, glimpse into
Chinese society. One wonders what George Carlin thinks of this.