Microsoft recently announced that the company would close its social and career network website LinkedIn in China after the increasingly difficult challenges associated with compliance with the Chinese state.
While the latest action follows the backlash the company has faced for blocking the profiles of some journalist accounts, including Melissa Chan and Greg Bruno, it has assured everyone that LinkedIn will release a version of the site later this year called InJobs, which only provides jobs, although it will not include a social feed or the ability to share or post articles.
The company said in a statement: “While we are going to sunset the localized version of LinkedIn in China later this year, we will continue to have a strong presence in China to drive our new strategy and are excited to launch the new InJobs app later this year.”
Recall that Greg Bruno, one of the blacklisted journalists who wrote a book about China’s treatment of Tibetan refugees, remarked that he was “dismayed that an American tech company is caving in to the demands of a foreign government,” US senator Rick Scott In a letter to LinkedIn chief executive Ryan Roslansky and Microsoft boss Satya Nadella described LinkedIn’s action to blacklist some journalists on its platform as gross appeasement and an act of submission to Communist China.”