Why did China ban LinkedIn?

Ground Report | New Delhi: Why did China ban LinkedIn; LinkedIn will shut down the Chinese version of its service later this year. The company cited "a significantly more challenging operating environment and higher compliance requirements in China " as reasons for shutting down the local edition of its professional social network.

"While we have been successful in helping Chinese members find jobs and economic opportunities, we have not found the same level of success in the more social aspects of sharing and staying informed," LinkedIn said in a statement. 

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Why did China ban LinkedIn?

 Similarly, the social network pointed out that it took into account that in China it had to adhere to the requirements of the local government on Internet platforms if it wanted to continue in force in that territory. 

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

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However, he noted that “we are facing a significantly more challenging operating environment and higher compliance requirements in China. Given this, we have made the decision to retire the current localized version of LinkedIn, which is how people in China access LinkedIn's global social media platform, later this year. " 

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Chinese Internet regulator warned LinkedIn that it should better regulate its content, giving it 30 days to do so. "In recent months, LinkedIn notified several human rights activists, academics and journalists focused on China that their profiles were being blocked in  China, saying they contained prohibited content," The Wall Street Journal said in its report. 

LinkedIn works on new Chinese version 

 As such, the company is not leaving China entirely. You are working on a freelance job board app called InJobs, a new freelance employment app for China, which will not have a social feed or any way to share posts or articles but will continue to work with Chinese companies to help them create economic opportunities. 

LinkedIn agreed to adhere to state restrictions and block certain content when it launched in China in February 2014. However, some signs of trouble emerged this year.

In March, the company prevented new Chinese users from registering for a period while making sure it was complying with the country's laws. A couple of months later, China said 105 apps violated data collection laws, including  LinkedIn. 

The Microsoft- owned service was the last major US social network still officially operating in China. The country banned  Signal and  Clubhouse earlier this year. Facebook and Twitter have been blocked there since 2009 and  China banned Instagram in 2014. 

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