Another international tech giant has shown its willingness to kowtow to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party and put profit and compliance ahead of conscience.

Over the weekend, tech watchers such as Slashdot picked up on an interesting new development on MSN Spaces on Microsoft’s China website.

When users entered words known to be taboo under the Communist rule - such as "democracy", "freedom", "Falun Gong", "Taiwan" - they were promptly scolded harshly by the website.

“Prohibited language, please delete,” was the message that some users faced when they tried to enter words in the subject line.

MSN Spaces is an online community built by Microsoft that allows users to interact and chat with each other.

A MSN spokeswoman contacted by The Epoch Times told us, “MSN abides by the laws, regulations and norms of each country in which it operates.” “In addition, the content posted on member spaces is the responsibility of individuals who are required to abide by MSN's Code of Conduct.”

However, the link to the Code of Conduct that was e-mailed to The Epoch Times, which spells out in detail what MSN Spaces users are not allowed to post, makes no mention about “politically incorrect” words or words that a particular country or government would find objectionable.

MSN Spaces quite possibly has a separate Code of Conduct for users in China. Microsoft representatives were not able to confirm this at the time this article went to press.

On Tuesday, the Associated Press quoted Adam Sohn, a global sales and marketing director for MSN, as saying that Microsoft and its Chinese business partner were working with authorities to omit certain language.

Microsoft is the third large international portal service provider to toe the line of the Communist Party, following Yahoo! and Google which have signed agreements with the China Internet Information Center, the government watchdog that polices website content in China.