Microsoft Shutters Chinese Version of LinkedIn

The last big U.S. social network in China — Microsoft’s LinkedIn — is shuttering operations in the country over concerns about internet censorship and regulations, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

China, which has some of the strictest censorship rules worldwide, has already blocked numerous U.S. social platforms on its own accord, including Twitter and Facebook, which have been banned for over a decade, according to the report. Google shut down its operations in the country in 2010.

After pulling LinkedIn, Microsoft will instead introduce a job search site in the country without the social aspects of LinkedIn. The decision comes after LinkedIn was up and running in China for seven years but became a hard environment to operate within, the report stated.

“We’re also facing a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China,” LinkedIn Senior Vice President Mohak Shroff said in a blog post.

The localized version of LinkedIn was launched in China in 2014, “driven by our mission to connect the world’s professionals” Shroff said in the post, adding that the company knew it would have to abide by the requirements of the Chinese government.

“While we strongly support freedom of expression, we took this approach in order to create value for our members in China and around the world,” he said in the post . “We also established a clear set of guidelines to follow should we ever need to re-evaluate our localized version of LinkedIn in China.”

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Microsoft’s move comes on the heels of China’s aggressive crackdown on technology firms and follows a March discussion with internet regulators in the country that gave LinkedIn 30 days to better moderate its content, WSJ reported.

LinkedIn is likely China’s third-biggest market, according to Statista data. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion, according to a press release.

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