LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned business and employment social media platform, has blocked the account of an Axios reporter in China because it contains alleged “prohibited content.”
“I woke up this morning to discover that LinkedIn had blocked my profile in China,” said Axios reporter Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian in a tweet.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shows his fist ( Stephen Brashear /Getty)
Chinese President Xi Jinping stands by national flags at the Schloss Bellevue presidential residency in Berlin on March 28, 2014. Chinese President Xi Jinping begins a landmark visit to fellow export powerhouse Germany Friday, the third leg of his European tour, expected to cement flourishing trade ties and focus on the Crimea crisis. (Photo by Johannes EISELE / AFP)
“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.”
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
Allen-Ebrahimian writes about China for Axios and is also publishing a book about the country for Harper Collins.
In its message to Allen-Ebrahimian, which she posted on Twitter, LinkedIn informs the reporter that “due to the presence of prohibited content located in the Summary section of your LinkedIn profile, your profile and your public activity, such as your comments and items that you share with your network, will not be made viewable in China.”
Allen-Ebrahimian’s summary section on LinkedIn references her work exposing Chinese internment camps in Xinjiang:
Before joining Axios, I served as the lead reporter for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ China Cables project, a major leak of classified Chinese government documents revealing the inner workings of mass internment camps in Xinjiang.
Her profile also mentions that she covered a story about the China-linked video conferencing platform Zoom “suspending the accounts of U.S.-based activists after they held events commemorating Tiananmen.”
Her colleague at Axios, Jonathan Swan, accused LinkedIn of censoring content on behalf of the CCP.
US company LinkedIn now works as a censor on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, blocking my Axios colleague’s profile because of her critical reporting on the CCP. You should follow Bethany. She is a diligent, ethical reporter and we are lucky to have her at Axios. https://t.co/4yEfXojXyp
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) September 30, 2021
“US company LinkedIn now works as a censor on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, blocking my Axios colleague’s profile because of her critical reporting on the CCP,” said Swan.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
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