The Pirate Bay is not only the most visited BitTorrent site on the Internet, but arguably the most censored too. Many ISPs have been ordered to block their customers' access to the website, and recently Microsoft joined in on the action by stopping people sharing its location with others. Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger (MSN) now refuses to pass on links to The Pirate Bay website, claiming they are unsafe.

Imagine that you found this great new band sharing their music on BitTorrent for free.

You’re actually so excited about this find you want to share the experience with friends, so you paste them a link to the official torrent file via Windows Live Messenger.

Although this might sound like a good idea to some, Microsoft appears to disagree. Those who try to paste a Pirate Bay link to their friends through Windows Live Messenger will notice that it never reaches its destination.

Instead, Microsoft alerts the sender that The Pirate Bay is unsafe. Apparently, the company is actively monitoring people’s communications to prevent them from linking to sites they deem to be a threat.

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The same happens in other chat clients such as Pidgin when using a Windows Live Messenger account.

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Whatever Microsoft’s reason for monitoring private conversations and then swallowing Pirate Bay links, the Redmond-based company’s censorship policies are not very consistent. All of the other large BitTorrent sites remain unaffected, even though they offer content that’s identical to The Pirate Bay.

While it’s not clear whether the above is related to copyright concerns, censorship is indisputably an up-and-coming tool to protect the interests of the entertainment industries. Taking away your freedom of speech one link at a time.

TorrentFreak attempted to contact Microsoft for a comment on the issue, but we have yet to hear back.