MSN Spaces: To Censor or not to Censor, that is the question!
MSN has finally released their new tool last week, and in all honesty it has some features I like. Although it doesn't support more than 10 megs of storage, the ability 
for custom URLs, any of the neat bubbling and Category controls our tool has nor even close to the amount of intuitiveness or traffic generation… it's not bad for a freebie service. Except for the censorship thing, they seem to have done it a bit better than Blogger did especially when it comes to managing photos.
They do have to work on the clunkiness of the navigation and the slowness, but if you can get over these pains then it can be a good “sandbox” blog for those who don't really understand what they are and how powerful they can become. With a tool that has the right features for both personal and business communications though, the opportunities are endless.
Some people have said this is good and bad for the blogosphere. Good since the Microsoft brand and marketing engine behind a service like this will create even more awareness and buzz in the market. Bad because this brings the highly contested topic of corporate censorship, which blogs have been mostly able to dodge so far, right to the forefront of industry headlights. The Chinese version of MSN spaces actually censors political figures names so this is leading to a place that's not just about profanity, and ends up being just a little scary.
Although we do have a TOS that is extended through our resellers to prevent any laws being broken or pornographic material being posted publicly, we do not force this TOS to language unless our resellers choose to do this on their own.
Personally, I do not believe that censorship of this nature should be extended to language in titles nor text that people create to exercise their inherent right of free speech (If they have it) to communicate, unless again, it is breaking a law in some way which I am totally against. In the end I would choose Blogger if I was forced to use a freebie, but that's just my 2 liberal cents for what it's worth 
Either way, MSN can do what they want, our resellers will do what they want, and I think the blogosphere is a better place for it all in the end run.
