Status: 10/15/2021 2:29 p.m.
Microsoft closes its LinkedIn career network in China. Strict regulation has prevented success, the US software company announced. But Microsoft does not want to give up the Chinese market entirely.
The US group is closing its social media platform LinkedIn in China and replacing it with a pure job exchange. The network, which is primarily intended for working people, is not as successful in China as it is in the rest of the world because of the strict regulations, the group justified the decision and spoke of a “challenging operating environment”. The platform is the only US social media network in China.
“While we have been successful in helping Chinese users find jobs and economic opportunities, we have not had the same success in the more social aspects of sharing and staying informed.” The new portal called InJobs will be launched this year, it said. However, the portal will not offer the social media functions of its predecessor; there is no way to post or share content.
Defend Western values
LinkedIn was launched in China in 2014 with a limited special version and subjected itself to the strict restrictions imposed by the Chinese authorities on online platforms. In China there is strict censorship of online networks, and certain content on the Internet is prohibited. According to the Wall Street Journal, LinkedIn received a warning from Chinese regulators in March.
The “Financial Times” (FT) quoted LinkedIn as saying that the profiles of some human rights activists and authors in China had been blocked for distributing prohibited content. The process affects international politics and the currently simmering conflict between China and the USA. As a result, pressure on the company grew not only from China but also from the United States.
While LinkedIn has to comply with Chinese laws in order to do business there, US politicians like the Republican US Senator Rick Scott accused the company of pursuing appeasement policies and submitting to an authoritarian regime. As a result, the accusation is, so to speak, of betraying Western values.
Facebook and Twitter are long gone
A US official told FT that if the Chinese market is used as a weapon to suppress free expression and support for human rights, the international community and the corporate sector must work together.
Microsoft bought LinkedIn for more than $ 26 billion in 2016. LinkedIn has more than 700 million users worldwide, 180 million of them in the US and around 54 million in China. Microsoft is one of the few US Internet giants active in China. Facebook and Twitter were banned from China more than a decade ago, and Google withdrew in 2010. The online retailer Amazon is available in China, but has never been able to assert itself against Chinese providers such as Alibaba or JD.com.