Microsoft battles slavery in Asia

[Nomad559]

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=6403

Microsoft is donating $1m (around £540,000) to several groups in Asia battling the modern human slave trade, which mainly targets women and children, to curb the trade and highlight the issue.

The company plans to use IT training to give people skills to find jobs. The funds, distributed in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, are aimed at the people most vulnerable to human trafficking: women and children in poor nations.

The project won't necessarily gain from the recent announcement by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates that he plans to play a larger day-to-day role at the charity organisation he runs with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Microsoft is no stranger to projects involving human trafficking or sexual exploitation. The company has also worked with law enforcement agencies in several nations to develop a software system called Cets, short for Child Exploitation Tracking System, which allows police agencies to share and analyse information about peadophiles and other people who prey on children.

:)

[Poll_Blind]

1. Don't go breaking the bank, you generous white men, you.

PB

[Poppyseedman]

2. Gee, you are breaking Gates balls because he donated his

personal money to end modern human slave trade??? He seems to be taking on projects that most people or governments won't touch with a ten foot pole.

Maybe the first million was to see if it actually works before blowing his entire wad on programs that don't work?

How do you know how much he is going to spend in the next ten years?

[Poll_Blind]

4. First, it wasn't Gates' money, it was Microsoft's. Second, I really...

...no idea why you think that most governments or people won't touch the issue of human slavery in Asia. It's a huge problem along with human rights. A problem Microsoft is "helping" with, but not in the way the headline of the article implies. When Hu Jintao visited America recently, he stopped by Bill's house first.

Microsoft is also using the repressive Chinese government to stamp out open-source software which truly is another way of stamping out democracy.

>How do you know how much he is going to spend in the next ten years?

I don't. I don't think anyone does. Do you? But what I do know is Microsoft sucks up to the Chinese government, they like having monopolies, and they have no problem trying to destroy open-source software.

So when they only donate $1M, it seems to me to be a token gesture to garner a headline or two while benefitting to the tune of billions off of repressive regimes and unethical business practices.

PB

[William769]

6. Last I checked Microsoft is Bill Gates.

:eyes:

[Poll_Blind]

13. No, that's Steve Ballmer. n/t

PB

[William769]

19. Just the facts.

I think Founder out ranks CEO. BTW Bill Gates has not relinquished all control yet.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/default.mspx

[William769]

7. Bashing Bill gates just for simply bashing him

Some people have been brainwashed.

[Poll_Blind]

10. Two recent examples for you....

Microsoft Toes Party Line as China Steps Up Web Crackdown:

HONG KONG—China is further tightening state controls over Internet use, as overseas rights groups criticize U.S. software giant Microsoft for agreeing to censor politically sensitive terms such as "democracy" and "human rights" from personal online diaries—known as blogs—written by Chinese citizens.

The Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it had confirmed that certain key words were now being censored from text posted by Chinese users to blogs hosted by Microsoft's MSN Spaces service.

"When a Chinese blogger attempts to post a message containing terms such as 'democracy,' 'Dalai Lama,' 'Falungong,' '4 June' , 'China + corruption', or 'human rights,' a warning displays saying, 'This message contains a banned expression, please delete this expression'," RSF said in a statement on its Web site.

Microsoft censors Chinese blogger:

Microsoft has admitted to removing the blog of an outspoken Chinese journalist from its MSN Spaces site, citing its policy of adhering to local laws.

The blog, written by Zhao Jing, also known as Michael Anti, was removed from MSN servers on Dec. 31, according to investigative journalist and former CNN reporter Rebecca Mackinnon. She claimed that the blog was actively removed by MSN staff rather than being blocked by Chinese authorities.

A Microsoft representative told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that it blocked Anti's MSN Space blog to help ensure that the service complied with local laws in China.

I agree with you on on point though, some people have been brainwashed.

PB

[cigsandcoffee]

3. What does his skin color have to do with anything?

[Poll_Blind]

8. It was a reference to the idiom "Mighy white of you". "White" used...

...to be synonymous with "Honourable; square-dealing." That's where the idiom comes from. If you have access to an Oxford English Dictionary, you'll find exactly what I'm speaking of, in case you're dubious.

Because of Microsoft's continued collaborations with China, many of which result in the misuse of the technology by the Chinese to capture dissidents and Microsoft's attempts at entirely destroying the open-source software establishment in China which is deplorable and undemocratic to say the least.

PB

[cigsandcoffee]

9. Well, it seems kind of racist, wherever you say it comes from

I'm getting sick of seeing "white" thrown around like a slur.

[Poll_Blind]

12. So, when I, a white male, use the word white in a sentence critical...

...of arguably the world's richest company for donating a paltry $1M to human rights efforts when it is, in fact, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars from an actual, honest-to-gosh repressive, dictatorial regime, you construe that as an attack on white people? Especially when that particular definition has been associated with the word "white" for almost 130 years?

Well, I apologize. I meant no sleight on white people as a whole. Regardless of what my intentions were, I recognize the upset you registered. And I'm not just saying that to trick you while I go off and in some other message, try to destroy the white race, either.

PB

[cigsandcoffee]

16. Well, thanks. It's a pet peeve.

I think it's more than fair to be critical of Bill Gates and Microsoft, but don't understand why his being white should be of any significance to said criticism. As to the "that's mighty white of you" thing, I'd always been under the impression that this was a racist expression, and not really something that was used anymore.

I appreciate your apology, but I'm not really qualified to accept it. The casual tossing around of skin color (black or white or whatever) is just something that bugs me. No person should be singled out for that in this day and age.

[Vidar]

5. Good for them. I still despise Microsoft.

[Deja Q]

11. Coming from the predator of predator companies,

I smell something duplicitous.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6084505.html

[Richard Steele]

14. "Battles slavery"? More like "writes check and calls press conference."

Pfft.

[Poll_Blind]

15. Yep, notice the author's other title is "A drop in the ocean"?

$1m to get press is a pretty good deal considering the cost of print or television commercial time.

PB

[Richard Steele]

17. If you want some MORE interesting perspective...

...pop over to the DU "Macintosh Users Group" for 20 seconds, and take notice
of which DUer keeps spamming it with Apple-bashing threads.

[Nomad559]

18. And who would that be?

I saw no "Spamming" In the Macintosh Users Group.

:)

[gatorboy]

20. Yes, Microsoft are such humanitarians!

I guess that's why they help design software for china the bans words like...Oh...."Human Rights".."Democracy"....Stuff like that.

[Nomad559]

21. Apple uses slave labor to make iPods In China

But Apple gets a free pass from some people here on D.U.

Why Is that?

Photos: inside Foxconn's "iPod City"
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1815

Inside Apple's iPod factories
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1409312

:crazy: