China Dictatorship (中国独裁统治)

5.16.4.2. LinkedIn (领英)

Immediately censors anything that the Chinese government asks to censor in China.

3 days after Ciro Santilli (三西猴, anti-CCP fanatic, 反中共狂热, stupid cunt, 傻屄, CIA agent, CIA特工, 肏你妈的) put up anti-CCP messages on his LinkedIn, the account was banned in China, with a message under https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/cases/36977487:

Hi Ciro,

Your LinkedIn profile is an integral part of how you present your professional self to the world. That’s why we believe it’s important to inform you that due to the presence of prohibited content located in the headline, background image and volunteer experience sections of your LinkedIn profile, your profile and your public activity, such as your comments and items you share with your network, will not be made viewable in China. Your profile and activity continues to remain viewable throughout the rest of the countries in which LinkedIn is available. We will work with you to minimize the impact and can review your profile’s accessibility within China if you update the headline, background image and volunteer experience sections of your profile. But the decision whether to update your profile is yours.

In February 2014, we began offering a localized version of LinkedIn in China. We believe that people everywhere can benefit from Chinese individuals connecting with each other and LinkedIn members in other parts of the world, and that the creation of economic opportunity can have a profound impact on their lives and the lives of their families and communities.

While we strongly support freedom of expression, we recognized when we launched that we would need to adhere to the requirements of the Chinese government in order to operate in China. As a reminder, your profile will remain viewable throughout the rest of the countries in which LinkedIn is available.

If you have any questions, please contact Customer Service.

Regards,

LinkedIn Support Team

2021-10-14 https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/14/microsoft-to-pull-linkedin-from-chinese-market/ Microsoft to pull LinkedIn from Chinese market

The leading Chinese clone appear to be MaiMai (脉脉):

300M investment and not even an English Wikipedia page, we live on different planets: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/脉脉

Interestingly however, Ciro still received some profile views from Chinese profiles from time to time, he wonders why, do they have a permit of some sort? E.g.:

2023-05-09 https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/08/linkedin-layoffs/

LinkedIn is cutting 716 jobs and will begin phasing out its local jobs app in China. In a letter today, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslanky said the decision to shutter the standalone China app, called InCareer, was because of “fierce competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate.”

InCareer was launched in December 2021, a couple months after LinkedIn announced it was shutting down its main service in China. At that time, it attributed the decision to shutter LinkedIn China to “a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements.”
2021-12-30 someone from 红山区公安分局 from Hongshan Public Security sub-department in Hongshan, Inner Mongolia
2021-09-29 someone from 北京云中融信网络科技有限公司 https://baike.baidu.com/item/北京云中融信网络科技有限公司/17048165, an instant messaging services company.
2021-09-17 Weber Shandwick
- https://www.webershandwick.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021-Geopolitical-Risk-Report.pdf 2021 REPORT ON GEOPOLITICAL RISKS TO BUSINESS REPUTATION by Weber Shandwick’s geopolitical Risk & Reputation Advisory Group
2021-08-09 https://www.linkedin.com/in/嘉伟-闫-bbbb60218/ 闫嘉伟领英中国 - 内容审核 (Yan Jiawei), LinkedIn China, content audit based in Beijing. One of the censors mistakently viewed Ciro’s profile without premium or internal tools! Hello. Started working there June 2021, no further personal information available.
2021-07-29:
- custommer service person from Huawei (华为, Chinese Qualcomm)
- financial consultant from Beijing
2021-05-23 LinkedIn profile view from https://www.linkedin.com/company/circussocial/ Circus Social https://www.circussocial.com/. Some of their China stuff: https://www.circussocial.com/blog/tag/china-social-media/
2021-03-23 https://my.cscglobal.com/ to cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship another compliance company, previous https://cms.securimate.com hits come to mind. China related articles:
- https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200728005641/en/CSC-Becomes-First-Foreign-Owned-Company-to-Receive-Domain-Registrar-License-in-China this company has some serious weight with Chinese regulators!
- https://www.cscglobal.com/service/webinar/china-web-policies/ talks mostly about ICP licenses
- https://www.cscglobal.com/service/webinar/china-ngo-law/
- https://www.cscglobal.com/cscglobal/pdfs/DBS/CSC-Your-Brand-Secured.pdf features Jayce Yeo, and mentions social media management
- https://medium.com/@hackermaderas/the-beginning-of-one-hackers-thoroughly-referenced-evidenced-osint-investigation-of-clearview-ai-1aa2e9109492 has a technical analysis that points that CSC has links to Clearview AI, and seem to be front-companies

Brave New World books passage (美丽新世界的书籍段落, 1932) comes to mind.

They also have a Anonymous accounts ban (2017) policy for all countries:

https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/28422/names-allowed-on-profiles you have to use your real name
https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/topics/6042/6059/430 you have to use your real photo

2021-09 Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian https://hongkongfp.com/2021/09/29/microsofts-linkedin-censors-us-journalist-over-china-content-makes-disturbing-offer-for-reinstatement/
- https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1442838821339639819
2021-03-11 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/11/tech/linkedin-china-microsoft-intl-hnk/index.html "LinkedIn suspends new sign-ups in China":

We’re a global platform with an obligation to respect the laws that apply to us, including adhering to Chinese government regulations for our localized version of LinkedIn in China," LinkedIn added. The company declined to elaborate on which local law it was examining.
2019-01-04 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/2180620/linkedin-adhering-beijings-rules-censors-chinese-profile-page-us-based "LinkedIn reverses course after censoring Chinese profile page of US-based human rights activist Zhou Fengsuo", see also: Zhou Fengsuo (周锋锁)
2014-06-04 https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/04/technology/linkedin-china-censorship/ "LinkedIn draws fire for China censorship" mentions: "Some LinkedIn (LNKD) users have received emails from the company in recent days informing them that their posts will not be shown in mainland China."

Figure 74. 3 days after Ciro Santilli (三西猴, anti-CCP fanatic, 反中共狂热, stupid cunt, 傻屄, CIA agent, CIA特工, 肏你妈的) put up anti-CCP messages on his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cirosantilli, the account was banned in China. They are quite efficient. Zhou Fengsuo (周锋锁) had notably previously achieved this. Another report by a Peter Humphrey.