Global Voices Online

Thanks to Bennett Haselton of Peacefire.org for the following public service instructions for Chinese users wanting to circumvent the word filters on MSN Spaces China to put e.g. “democracy” in the title of their blogs.

If somebody would like to translate these instructions into Chinese, please feel free to do so, post the translation on your blog or website, and please give us the link in the “comments” section of this post. Alternatively, if you don't have a blog or website, you can post the whole translation directly into the “comments” section.

UPDATE: The Working Man blog in Taiwan now has a translation.

ALSO NOTE: Doubleaf says he has tried using MSN China Spaces and the sensitive words are no longer blocked. Are other people out there having the same experience?

FURTHER UPDATE (9:15PM June 16th) - I just tried setting up a Chinese Spaces blog myself using the Chinese characters for “democracy” “human rights” and “freedom,” and got an error message telling me I could not use forbidden words.

Also, if you're in China and try this, if you have problems, questions, or if it doesn't work, please also let us know in the “comments” section.

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How to put banned Chinese words in the title of a blog on MSN Spaces China

WARNING! Even though you can use these instructions to insert banned words into the title of your Chinese blog, Internet access in China is still monitored and controlled by the government. If you use these instructions to post banned material, you should not publish your blog from an Internet terminal where your actions could be traced back to you personally, and you should not publish anything on your blog that could be used to identify you. You should also use a HotMail.com address that doesn't identify you by your real name (create a new HotMail.com account if necessary).

To use these instructions, you will need to create a new MSN Spaces account. Unfortunately these instructions cannot be used to remove the filter settings from an existing blog. If you have already created an MSN Spaces account using your MSN.com or HotMail.com address, you will also need to create a new MSN.com or HotMail.com address, since each existing MSN.com or HotMail.com address can only be associated with one MSN Spaces account.

To create blog where you can post banned Chinese words in the title:

IF YOU SPEAK ENGLISH:

• If you speak English, go to http://spaces.msn.com/?mkt=en-us
  Use the English interface to create a new MSN Spaces blog.
• Then once the blog has been created, go to the URL http://spaces.msn.com/?mkt=zh-cn to switch the interface back to Chinese. You can now publish your blog in Chinese and use banned Chinese words in the title. As long as your blog is *created* using the English interface, the word filter will not be applied.

IF YOU DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH:

• You must have a HotMail account. Create a new HotMail account if you don't already have one, then go to www.HotMail.com and sign in to your HotMail account. Make sure you are signed in before proceeding.
• Go to this URL: http://spaces.msn.com/?mkt=en-us
  The interface will display in English.
• Click the “Sign Up” button in the middle of the page. [Note: if this document is translated into Chinese, the words “Sign Up” should remain untranslated, since this is how the user will see the button.]
• On the page where you enter settings for your new blog:
  In the field marked “1.”, enter a title. You can enter banned words in the title here, or you can change the title later.
  In the field marked “2.”, enter the URL you want.
  Leave “3.” the way it is.
  In section “4.”, check the checkbox (which indicates that you accept the MSN
  Terms of Service).
  In the bottom row, click the button on the left labeled “Create your space” [note, if this document is translated into Chinese, do not translate the words “Create your space”] to create your MSN Spaces account.
• The next page that comes up will say (in English) that your MSN Spaces account has been created. In the bottom row, click the button on the right labeled “Go to Your Space” [note, if this document is translated into Chinese, do not translate the words “Go to Your Space”] to proceed to the page to edit your MSN Spaces account.
• Once you are viewing the page to edit your MSN Spaces account settings (in English), add the characters “&mkt=zh-cn” to the end of the URL in the browser.

This will switch the interface back to Chinese. However, since you *created* the blog using the English interface, the Chinese word filter will still not be applied to the title of your blog.

• You can now edit the title of your blog to enter banned Chinese words.
  (However, you still will not be able to enter English words like “ass” that are banned from the English interface.)