Yahoo China on Tuesday rolled out a new blogging network to tap into China's exploding internet market. The network will allow bloggers to swap thoughts, photos and "hobbies," according to Reuters, which broke the story two hours ago.
Hobbies, huh? Gotta wonder what falls under that rubric in China. Lots of people like model airplanes and knitting. But people also like to vent, rant and express political opinion. And when that happens in China via Yahoo, those people often wind up behind bars. Yahoo has developed quite a reputation for ratting out its customers who advocate for things like democratic reform and free speech. Now it creates a blog network to encourage an open exchange of ideas. This could get ugly.
