this is silicon valley, the heart and soul of the nation s computer business. here microsoft is respected and feared as a powerful giant whose every footstep sends shivers through the entire industry. there s this emerging war basically between the silicon valley culture built up around the web and the microsoft culture up in redmond. it s not just a cultural clash but an economic clash, technological clash, a clash for power. bill gates had to turn microsoft like a supertanker around to have it address the internet. the way they did that was by coming up with internet explorer which they presented as the world s best browser. it wasn t. you know, microsoft stuff never is the best. but it was well marketed, and it was pushed, and they had a lot of money behind it. here came microsoft with its own version of a web browser built into windows 95. their intention was to kill netscape as the browser and make
at netscape, a fast-growing software company that struck gold with its web browser, but microsoft began giving away its own browser and required computer manufacturers to offer it with windows. what they re able to do is they re able to illegally, we believe, use that monopoly power to block the competition. they re able to pay people to not use our software and do other things that monopolists are legally not allowed to do. a lot of people were saying the antitrust laws are outmoded. technology will enforce competition on its own. the counterargument is that when you begin to get lots of people to use your operating system, it becomes harder and harder for somebody else to break into that industry. microsoft chairman bill gates goes before congress for the first time today. gates is expected to face tough questions from the senate judiciary committee. i want to, if you don t mind, ask the audience one question and get a quick poll. how many of you use intel-based pcs in this a
if you just watch state tv everything is going great, there are no refugees fleeing the, quote, unquote, liberating russian army, nobody is bombing civilian homes. so it s really, i think, affecting russian popular opinion about this war because they re getting such skewed information. to your point there are some ways to get around these digital walls, the bbc is promoting a new shortwave radio service into ukraine and parts of russia, also promoting a web browser called tour that allows people sometimes to get around these walls, but these are real very real challenges. thomas freidman, is there any analogy, anything analogous to the situation where you have correspondents from the u.s., uk, other countries that are stopping broadcasting from russia, washington post taking away by lines for reporters in russia to protect. anything analogous in history? i can t think of it, brian. what i was going to say before i
information about freely available vpn services, and also the sifon service and the torbrowser, the so called dark web browser that would allow people to continue to access these services. and we can see from traffic that they are continuing to access them because, although traffic has fallen significantly, it hasn t fallen to zero. so we know that some of the digital information we re publishing from outside of russia is continuing to get through an absolutely vital lifeline service to our audiences inside the country. nonetheless, i m sure you ll be aware that the russian government will see these actions as something that is supporting the western perspective on this conflict, and the western desired outcomes in this conflict. i wonder if the bbc consulted with the uk foreign office before announcing these measures? no, it s something we ve decided to do on our own, very much in line with other circumvention measures we ve used in the past. it s very important to underline that th
web to try and access some of these services you re listing. is that not a reasonably antagonistic position for the bbc to be adopting, and why have you decided it s still worth doing? well, of course, circumventing blocking is nothing new to the bbc world service. there s a number of markets we operate in so particularly our iranian services, our farsi services foraudiences in iran, but also services we do for audiences in north korea, for example, and whatever information we re able to get into mainland china, where we ve also been blocked for many, many years. so encouraging audiences to circumvent blocking is nothing new for us. and, of course, it s absolutely right that we give out information about freely available vpn services, and also the sifon service and the torbrowser, the so called dark web browser that would allow people to continue to access these services. and we can see from traffic that they are continuing to access them because, although traffic has fallen signific