Microsoft to Shut Down LinkedIn in China, Cites ‘Challenging’ Environment

Microsoft closed LinkedIn nearly seven years after its launch in China, which marked the last major U.S.-owned social network retreat in China as the Chinese authorities further strengthened their control over the Internet industry.

LinkedIn said in a blog post on Thursday that it will replace the platform with a streamlined version later this year, which focuses only on work, called InJobs, and does not include social feeds or sharing options. “Although we have been successful in helping Chinese members find jobs and economic opportunities, we have not found the same level of success in sharing and staying informed more socially,” LinkedIn said. “We are also facing a more challenging operating environment and higher compliance requirements in China.”

LinkedIn’s actions in China have been closely watched. As a model of how Western social media applications operate on China’s heavily regulated Internet, the country has banned many other platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The platform expanded in China in 2014, when the company admitted that it had to censor some content posted by users on its website to comply with Chinese regulations.

It is one of the companies that have been hit by Beijing on a large scale in the past year, and Beijing has imposed new restrictions on its Internet companies from content to customer privacy. The Chinese government also expressed the hope that the platform will more actively promote the core values ​​of socialism. In March of this year, LinkedIn suspended its new registration in China, saying it was working hard to comply with Chinese laws.

Two months later, it became one of 105 applications that China’s top Internet regulator accused of illegal collection and use of personal information and ordered rectification. The news site Axios reported last month that LinkedIn has blocked the personal data of several American journalists and academics on its Chinese platform, which contain information that China considers sensitive, on the grounds that “content is prohibited”. Microsoft also owns Bing, the only major foreign search engine accessible from within China’s so-called firewall, and its search results on sensitive topics are censored.

News Source : Gadgets 360