LinkedIn suspends journalists critical of government in China

A number of journalists who cover China have received notices from the professional networking site - LinkedIn, stating that their profiles are no longer accessible in the Chinese territory.

One of the journalists - Bethany Allen Ebrahimian, received a message from LinkedIn stating that the block had been placed due to the "prohibited content" in the summary section of her profile. The journalist is known to cover Chinese news for the Axios website.

LinkedIn did not specify which posts or details on her profile were considered to be prohibited.

She wrote on Twitter that she is extremely disappointed with LinkedIn's actions. Usually Chinese govt. censors or censors employed by Chinese companies in the mainland are responsible for censoring content. Unfortunately, in this case, an American company is paying its own employees to censor Americans.

Another reporter, Melissa Chan, part of the Deutsche Welle, a public broadcaster, also received a similar message which stated that her profile was blocked in China due to prohibited content located in the Publication section. She speculated that this could be a result of her piece on Uygurs or her essay on democracy.

Author Greg Bruno also said that his LinkedIn profile had been blocked. His book - Tibet, Blessings from Beijing which explores China's soft power war on Tibet was listed under his publication. This was enough to get his profile blocked in the Chinese mainland.

Linkedin responded to the journalists by stating that it would try to minimize the impact of the blocks and "review" profiles of the journalists if the content was revised. This is absolutely shameful. LinkedIn has bowed down to Chinese tyranny.

For profit, they have sold their values. LinkedIn tried to defend its actions by claiming that it "respects the laws that apply to us, including adhering to Chinese government regulations for our localized version of LinkedIn in China.”

This is a pathetic defense. Do profits matter more than the truth? These profiles are still visible across the globe. This block is going to make it harder for journalists to report about China.

LinkedIn has over 774 million users in over 200 countries and launched a version of its website in China in 2014. It is one of the few western social media sites that is allowed to operate in China and has around 45 million users there. The professional networking site has run into its own issues with China's draconian internet regulators. Hence, the Chinese government is shaping the behavior of firms through forced laws and regulations. Greedy for-profits, firms like LinkedIn are complying.

I woke up this morning to discover that LinkedIn had blocked my profile in China.

I used to have to wait for Chinese govt censors, or censors employed by Chinese companies in China, to do this kind of thing.

Now a US company is paying its own employees to censor Americans. pic.twitter.com/eRTq4u8rJl

— B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) September 28, 2021

The only way for democratic countries to counter this and preserve freedom of speech is by responding in kind -- passing and enforcing laws and regulations that incentivize companies to stop complying and bowing down to Chinese government censorship laws.

Western companies may claim they respect freedom of speech but their actions clearly show a disregard for the rights of Chinese users to receive authentic information that is not censored by the authorities.

Allen Ebrahimian's profile includes her role as a lead reporter on the China cables project. The project examined leaked government files connected to the interment camps in Xinjiang region and an investigation into a Chinese intelligence operative in 2020. Currently, she's also writing a book on Chinese political influence abroad.
Chan from Deutsche Welle said that she believes she was blocked due to her coverage of Uighurs and reporting on democracy. In June, LinkedIn issued a similar message to Swedish Author Jojje Olsson, who had put down an essay on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement under the education section of his profile These blocks are outrageous to say the least. China’s digital totalitarianism is not limited to the borders of China, but firms in other places of the world also follow Beijing’s orders. It’s completely unacceptable. The rules on complying are deliberately vague.
Everything is at the whim and discretion of the internet regulators of China.

China is the worst abuser of internet freedom for the seventh year, declared by Freedom House. Content removal and blocked websites are a staple. Social media companies are regularly pushed to "police" content.

Just in the March of 2021, China had rebuked LinkedIn for failing to rein in "political content". Basically, anything against the CCP needs to be censored. Clearly, China has its own rule in order to tame the international social media platforms.