The New York Times Opinion Piece: ‘Boycott Microsoft Bing’
This is confusing. Microsoft is trying to court the newspaper industry and willing to pay them to remove their content from Google. Instead Microsoft wants the newspapers to post their stuff on Bing for a better user experience and paid content to enhance the newspapers financially. But on November 20, 2009 there was an opinion piece in which the writer suggests that we should ‘Boycott Microsoft Bing.’
The opinion piece states the following:
If you search a term on Bing that is politically sensitive in China, in English the results are legitimate. Search “Tiananmen” and you’ll find out about the army firing on pro-democracy protesters in 1989. Search Dalai Lama, Falun Gong and you also get credible results. Conduct the search in complex Chinese characters (the kind used in Taiwan and Hong Kong) and on the whole you still get authentic results.
But conduct the search with the simplified characters used in mainland China, then you get sanitized pro-Communist results. This is especially true of image searches. Magic! No Tiananmen Square massacre. The Dalai Lama becomes and oppressor. Falun Gong believers are villains, not victims. What’s most offensive is that this is true wherever in the world the search is conducted – including in my office in New York. If Microsoft felt it had to bow to Chinese censorship within China’s borders, based on the IP address, that might be defensible. But when Microsoft skews its worldwide searches to make Hu Jintao feel better, that’s a disgrace. It becomes simply a unit of the Central Committee Propaganda Department.
Microsoft claims that it is a ‘bug’ in their system that has been fixed. But the author of the piece disagrees and claims it has not been repaired. The author also notes that on Google it is similar but not as bad as Bing.
Which made me wonder. If the N.Y. Times gets paid by Microsoft to dump Google and use Bing, will the N.Y. Times remain truly independent and continue to write opinions about Microsoft that are not flattering? Or will the N.Y. Times need to watch what they write since Microsoft will be paying their bills?
What do you think?
Comments welcome.
6 Comments
Gary Bing
November 24th, 2009
at 3:54pm
I already have as I found out the prices for the purchases on Bing do not match that of their sponsors as well. That made me fly out of that site like a bat out of hell .I’m not pleased with this sleazy business tactic associated with my name that they got because “I was a little slow getting it.”I think that people who think they’re getting a fair shake at Bing are a little slow.
Cliffystones
November 25th, 2009
at 9:11am
Bing, Microsoft, New York Times, The Peoples Republic of China. They all have one thing in common, manipulation!
Whether it is to promote their political philosophy, or make a less than totally honest buck, it’s a sad state of affairs for us “consumers”.
Justen
November 25th, 2009
at 10:49am
I can tell you from personal experience that Microsoft is going out of its way to pay people to use its online software. It’s pursuing the market very aggressively, no-holds barred, use-us-or-else, kill-all-competition, standard Microsoft style. You can not avoid them if you do any high-end web development. This may be good or bad depending on your position, but it comes as no surprise that they’re trying to pay people to pull their results off Google, or that they’re bending over backwards to please the commies in China.
Bob Rankin
November 25th, 2009
at 1:18pm
The NY Times has lost pretty much every shred of credibility they once had. If they start taking payola from Microsoft it’s just another nail in the coffin of the sputtering newspaper biz.
Michael Molnar
November 26th, 2009
at 12:46pm
Corporations are always talking about ethics and some even make you take tests to ensure you are a person of high integrity during the course of your employment yet it is only a front to a dirty workshop which behind closed doors breaks every moral rule in the book. When will they learn that sleeping in bed with the CCP is not good for your health … perhaps they like selling their souls for profit.
Reid
November 28th, 2009
at 10:21am
Money corrupts – that’s old news. The key for NYT or any other newspaper is that they maintain objectivity in spite of the cash – that’s where they get their respect. If they can’t do that, though they may hide it for a while, they will eventually lose their reputation and with it their business.
Of course there are gray areas with that – very little in this world is black-and-white. But the paper still lives on its reputation: sully that too much and it’s gone. Good thing, too!
If stuff like this bites the NYT, I for one won’t shed any tears. It’s up to them to maintain their worth and reputation, and up to them to pay the price if they fail to do that.
As for Microsoft playing hardball, even dirty hardball, that’s not news either. The best antidote to that is sunshine – when it’s known, it’s less effective, or can even work against the corporation engaging in it. THAT’S where the NYT and other media come in!