Why did China ban yet another social networking app- LinkedIn

Microsoft revealed that it will be shutting down services of LinkedIn in China later this year.

In a blog post, LinkedIn senior vice president Mohak Shroff stated that “a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements” was the reason for shutting down the career-oriented social network platform.

In a statement, LinkedIn revealed that while it was successfully helping Chinese users to find job opportunities, it was unable to find some level of success in the social aspects like sharing and networking.

Microsoft’s decision to retire the localized Chinese version of LinkedIn comes amid the stringent regulatory requirements imposed on the platform for the past few months.

Chinese authorities are making the Chinese market a tough environment for the survival of Foreign as well as homegrown Chinese firms due to its policy of harvesting consumer data.

It has become another US-based tech giant to break its ties with China under the watchful eye of government censorship.

LinkedIn will comeback with a new chinese version

According to senior vice president, Mohak Shroff LinkedIn plans to launch a new app specially designed to suit the Chinese market. It will focus on the job posting only and will not have social networking features.

The Tech giant has been working on a freelance job board app named InJobs to be available in China. It will help create economic opportunities without having a social feed or a way to share posts or articles.

Several hints indicated its fate in China

According to Wall Street Journal, The Chinese regulators required Linkedin to adhere to r

regulations on its content. 

Earlier this year regulators booked LinkedIn for not compiling to keep a check on the political content on the platform. The company was required to perform a self-evaluation and present a report. The government also forced LinkedIn to suspend its new sign-ups for about a month.

LinkedIn struggled to keep up with local Chinese competitors and to function in the curtailed freedom of expression. The firm also received backlash for blocking contents and profiles in compliance with Chinese regulators earlier this year

Linkedin started its operations in China in 2014 with a localized version that said that its shut down was to create value for users in China and across the world

Since its launch, the platform censored posts in accordance with Chinese regulatory laws. While the company said it strongly supports the freedom of expression, it acknowledged that this approach would facilitate a means of connecting professionals for economic opportunities.

China served as one of the biggest markets for the platform with over 54 million users after the US and India

The experiments of a foreign social networking platform in an authoritarian regime have reached their fate now.

China’s new data security laws give a hard punch to tech platforms 

The new data security law requires companies such as Linkedin to store more data on local users within china and provide access to the Chinese government. These new rules have also affected some of china’s top companies including Alibaba and Didi.

 The operating environment for U.S tech companies is increasingly becoming more challenging than what already is. 

The platform also suffered due to the growing bitterness between the U.S-China relationship 

The ‘Great Firewall’ of China led to the sunset of LinkedIn

Beijing tightened regulatory shackles on tech firms since the last year. It has now led to the sunset of Microsoft’s LinkedIn seven years after its launch.

Internet in China is heavily controlled by the government. It banned signal and clubhouse earlier this year. While popular apps like Facebook and Twitter remain ban for a decade now.

China’s internet operates behind the system of censorship and controls known as the great firewall. It is the disruptor of all social media platforms. In this way, the Chinese government controls, restrict, and delete content that stands as a threat to its propaganda.

Sensitive topics are constantly watched over. The authorisation government keeps shifting their laws and regulations

This crackdown shows how private tech firms domestically or from foreign countries suffocates under the political situation in China 

It is yet not revealed what will be the fate of Chinese user accounts on LinkedIn. Previous cases of shut down indicate that the government might block its access completely.

It marks the dismal of the last US social network service operating in China.

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