The Chinese government has reportedly blocked Microsoft Bing in another move to censor American technology services in China.
The Financial Times reported that the search engine was blocked on Wednesday, per a government order.
“We’ve confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next steps,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email to GeekWire.
China already blocks U.S. online services such as Twitter, Google, Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp through its so-called “Great Firewall.”
The New York Times described Bing as “one of the last survivors” and called the censorship “a startling renunciation of more than a decade of efforts by Microsoft to engage with Beijing to make its products available.” Microsoft already censors Bing search results in China, where the company has a large Microsoft Research facility and operates Azure regions.
The Chinese government reported in August that the country has more than 800 million internet users.
[“source=geekwire”]
