Exactly three months ago, Microsoft's founder Bill Gates was accused of sitting on the fence when he tried to see both sides of Facebook's resistance to hacking an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernadino massacre suspects.
Now, the makers of Windows for PCs are not sitting on the fence as Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) cracks down on content which is considered to be terrorism.
But what exactly does that mean? Who defines it? And is it open to abuse? At very least, it is open to controversy and accusations of censorship. Is it even good business?
A week ago, Windows and Facebook's paths crossed again when Facebook was accused in a Gizmodo.com story earlier this month by former curators of Facebook’s “trending” news section revealed that they routinely “suppressed” right-leaning stories from appearing in the influential feed.
Gizmodo followed up the report with news that the US Senate Commerce Committee is launching an inquiry into Facebook’s process for curating trending news.
Now Microsoft is acting almost as though there is some competitive advantage in censorship because others are accused of the same.
Most tech companies are reluctant to appear to be restricting free speech partly because it is expensive to police and partly because it alienates users, some of whom may feel they are doing nothing wrong.
Yet Microsoft has made the decision to effectively ban content on its services that advocate and support terrorism or groups considered to be of terrorist organisations.
But Microsoft is not alone in its disposition this time: when it comes to issues of terrorism or perceived terrorism, it is joined by the ranks of Facebook, Twitter, Google and others.
In a service blog post Microsoft explained: "We believe it’s important that we ground our approach to this critical issue in central principles and values. We have a responsibility to run our various Internet services so that they are a tool to empower people, not to contribute, however indirectly, to terrible acts. We also have a responsibility to run our services in a way that respects timeless values such as privacy, freedom of expression and the right to access information. We’ve therefore carefully considered how to address terrorist content that may appear on our services without sacrificing the fundamental rights we all hold dear,” the statement read.
But just maybe it should be best left to those responsible with law enforcement, homeland security and armies in other jurisdictions, to make specific requests to Microsoft, to Facebook, or Twitter.
No one likes to see governments or courts shut down a service. Witness what happened this month in Brazil with Facebook's WhatsApp messenger service. Read more.
But perhaps it is better that governments take the responsibility - and the heat - for actions to protect safety and security rather than IT companies?
For one thing, IT companies that feel a moral or even commercial pressure to law down the ground rules as Microsoft calls them, nevertheless might find that the costs of enforcing rules through self-censorship will cost their own reputations more than it is worth. Their shareholders will not thank them for a spate of mistakes or gaffes.
On Sunday, the Mail of Sunday newspaper in London reported how one Donald Trump sympathiser, Lauren Southern, was apparently blocked from posting on Facebook after mentioning how the site blocked another conservative Facebook account's remarks. Later her ban was lifted and she said she received email apology from Facebook saying it was an 'error'.
Incidents like that make the tabloid newspapers and are regrettably a regular storyline, alongside accidental deaths in state hospitals or bravery of local citizens.
As such, there is a real risk that by taking a stance on an issue, social media platforms or other IT groups like Microsoft will walk into disputes which should be none of their making.
As retailers will normally tell you: we don't discriminate the customer.
A news agency like Thomson Reuters, at the height of the 9/11 bombings in the United States, banned the use of terms like "terrorism" even if War On Terrorism was the slogan of the George W. Bush administration. The news agency's stance was that, whatever atrocities it was required to report on, it was not there to take sides. It could not call violent groups terrorists any more than freedom fighters. The atrocities they might commit could only be termed "terror attacks". It was a not altogether subtle distinction.
Microsft shares closed down 1.2% at $50.03 on Monday.