Decoupling: LinkedIn disconnects from China
LinkedIn’s retreat from China after seven years is a symbolic moment for tech relations between the two global superpowers, said Will Knight in Wired. The Microsoftowned business-networking platform had been “the only major U.S. internet company offering content within China” after the departures of other tech giants such as Google and Facebook more than a decade ago. But pressure from the Chinese authoritarian government “has been mounting.” Last month, the company was forced to block some foreign journalists’ profiles to comply with broadening censorship requirements. LinkedIn finally announced it was pulling out shortly before a promised crackdown on recommendation algorithms was set to begin. Microsoft plans to continue operating its search engine, Bing, in China to maintain a tiny foothold. But LinkedIn will exist as a China-only jobs board within the country, “effectively removing the social-networking and content-sharing functionality of the site.”
“The LinkedIn model” was once seen as “a blueprint for how other tech giants could tap into China’s massive consumer base while appeasing Beijing’s censors,” said Grady McGregor in Fortune.com. After other social media companies exited, LinkedIn entered China in “a joint venture with local partners that offered a censored version of its global product” to mainland users. The idea of giving up so much control wasn’t totally embraced by Silicon Valley, although Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly considered producing a version of Facebook that would satisfy the censors. LinkedIn capitalized on its position as “the only social media platform to connect China with users overseas,” and grew to 53 million users in China. However, “as time passed, LinkedIn went from pioneer to sitting duck.” Its exit marks “a nearly complete decoupling of China’s social media and the outside world.”
“It will likely be years before another social network really tries again” in China, said David Wertime in Protocol.com. LinkedIn gambled to “keep everyone happy,” but it ultimately could not resolve the tension of being “a platform for expression” within China’s Great Firewall. The Chinese may not miss it: Many mocked it as “ling ying,” which meant “leading elites.” LinkedIn isn’t alone in trying to manage China’s censorship as it becomes more onerous, said the Financial Times in an editorial. Apple is also “treading a perilous path”; it has been asked to remove iPhone apps in China, blocking a popular Quran app earlier this month. For some companies, “compromises made to continue operating in China will be financially necessary.” But the choice for Western companies between profits and human rights “will become more stark.”