LinkedIn, the world’s largest job search platform based in the U.S., will withdraw from China later this year. As a result, all U.S. social media service which had entered China, have all withdrawn.
LinkedIn, run by Microsoft (MS), said on its official blog on the 14th (local time), “We will suspend linked-in services in China due to stronger censorship by the Chinese authorities and stricter demands for compliance.” He also admitted, “Although Chinese users have contributed to finding jobs and gaining economic opportunities, they have not achieved the same level of success in social aspects of sharing or delivering information.”
LinkedIn’s exit marked the end of U.S.-based social media that withdrew after failing to overcome China’s strict censorship. Earlier, Google, Twitter, and Facebook gave up providing services in China due to content censorship and regulation by Chinese authorities. Alphabet’s Google stopped providing services in China in 2010 in response to calls to censor search results. Facebook and Twitter have also been blocked from using in China since 2009 as they have not crossed China’s “Great Firewall.”
On the other hand, LinkedIn has been the only Chinese authorities to cooperate in censorship when it launched a localized version service in China in 2014. According to the Wall Street Journal, when Chinese Internet regulators demanded stricter regulations on political content in March, LinkedIn temporarily suspended its new membership, saying, “We will confirm that it complies with local laws.” In addition, profiles of human rights activists, scholars, and journalists who have been engaged in activities related to China have banned content in China, blocking their exposure to profiles.
LinkedIn did not inform which of the profiles of those who blocked them specifically correspond to banned content or which laws of China were violated.
However, LinkedIn, which had endured until the last minute, eventually decided to withdraw its business by raising its hand to strengthen censorship by the Chinese authorities. Instead, LinkedIn is expected to bypass its business in China in another form. LinkedIn announced that it plans to launch a new job search application called InJobs in China later this year, which does not have the ability to share posts or articles or social feeds.
