...[A] Chinese self-discipline pledge...[was signed by] a number of blog hosting services including MSN and Yahoo!...last week... Chinese bloggers...seem to view the pledge as a bunch of bureaucrats making yet another meaningless pledge to justify their existence... Beijing-based blogger Liu Xiaoyuan is suing Sohu for censoring several of his blog posts... [Q]uite a number of well-established and Silicon Valley-funded Chinese blog-hosting services and Web2.0 companies are not on the list of signatories. Good for them... [T]he censorship [pledged to]...here is nothing more, I'm afraid, than what all major blog-hosting companies have already been doing for quite some time now...[T]his could even be helpful if it enables companies to be more transparent and honest with users about how censorship is being done... [B]oth MSN and Yahoo! have issued explanations for why they signed the pledge...