LinkedIn to Shut Down Service in China, Citing ‘Challenging’ Environment
The New York Times
The Microsoft-owned service had censored posts in China, in compliance with the country’s laws, to operate there.
SEATTLE — LinkedIn said on Thursday that it was shutting down its professional networking service in China later this year, citing “a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements,” in a move that completes the fracture between American social networks and China.
LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, said it would offer a new app for the Chinese market focused solely on job postings. It will not have social networking features such as sharing posts and commenting, which have been critical to LinkedIn’s success in the United States and elsewhere.
LinkedIn’s action ends what had been one of the most far-reaching experiments by a foreign social network in China, where the internet is closely controlled by the government. Twitter and Facebook have been blocked in the country for years, and Google left more than a decade ago. China’s internet, which operates behind a system of filters known as the Great Firewall, is heavily censored and has gone in its own direction.
