Bulletins

Microsoft is shutting down LinkedIn in China

It's replacing it with a country-specific site called InJobs.

Aerial photo of Wuhan, China

LinkedIn was the only remaining major U.S.-based social media company to attempt to support a platform in China that followed the government's censorship rules.

Photo: Xinhua/Cai Yang via Getty Images

Microsoft will remove its platform for LinkedIn in China later this year because of the difficult internet compliance rules set by the Chinese government, according to a Thursday announcement.

The company plans to replace the specialized LinkedIn China platform, which was designed to obey Chinese government internet rules, with a unique standalone job-seeking site just for people within China, called InJobs. InJobs will not include any kind of social media element and will not allow users to post or share articles or links.

"We're... facing a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China," wrote Mohak Shroff, a senior vice president of engineering at LinkedIn, in the blog post.

In late September, LinkedIn blocked the profiles of several U.S. journalists in China because they violated "prohibited content" rules under Chinese government censors. LinkedIn was the only remaining major U.S.-based social media company to attempt to support a platform in China that followed the government's censorship rules. "We recognized that operating a localized version of LinkedIn in China would mean adherence to requirements of the Chinese government on Internet platforms. While we strongly support freedom of expression, we took this approach in order to create value for our members in China and around the world," Shroff wrote about the current version of LinkedIn.

Correction: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Mohak Shroff's name. This update was made Oct. 14, 2021.

Anna Kramer

Anna Kramer is a reporter at Protocol (Twitter: @ anna_c_kramer, email: akramer@protocol.com), where she writes about labor and workplace issues. Prior to joining the team, she covered tech and small business for the San Francisco Chronicle and privacy for Bloomberg Law. She is a recent graduate of Brown University, where she studied International Relations and Arabic and wrote her senior thesis about surveillance tools and technological development in the Middle East.

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