Image Credit: Sorapop Udomsri / EyeEm / Oksana Kuznetsova 
A reporter for news outlet Axios claims she was censored by US-based social media app LinkedIn on behalf of China.
Highlighting the absurdity of a US company bending over backwards to appease Chinese censors, Axios China reporter Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian documented how LinkedIn asked her to modify the bio in her profile, or else it would be censored in the communist nation.
“I woke up this morning to discover that LinkedIn had blocked my profile in China,” Allen-Ebrahimian reported on Twitter Tuesday morning.
“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,” she observed.
In an email sent to the Axios reporter, LinkedIn explained parts of her profile contained “prohibited content,” with no elaboration on what that content might be.
“Your LinkedIn profile is an integral part of how you present your professional self to the world,” a message from LinkedIn stated. “That’s why we believe it’s important to inform you 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 you share with your network, will not be made viewable in China.”
In a thread documenting her attempts to get her account reinstated, the Axios journalist outlined how a Chinese activist Zhou Fengsuo faced similar account censorship in 2019.
Once “rectified,” LinkedIn began banning even more accounts in China.
A few months later, LinkedIn starting prolifically blocking the profiles of researchers, academics, and journalists with "prohibited" content (LinkedIn's own term).https://t.co/xVDXT5F9ou
— B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) September 28, 2021
Allen-Ebrahimian noted she’d attempt to reinstate her account by tweeting about the censorship, as that seemed to have worked for Fengsuo.
She also noted how LinkedIn provides a service to help users self-censor their profiles, and that once done the censorship is in place across the board – not just in China.
I'd like to highlight one especially disturbing part of the LinkedIn customer service email:
"We will work with you to minimize the impact and can review your profile’s accessibility within China if you update the Summary section of your profile."
— B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) September 28, 2021
I'll go even just a tad deeper into this very disturbing "offer" from LinkedIn.
They are suggesting that the politically sensitive content be removed from MY END, meaning it would be deleted entirely off the internet, not just for China's market. Total censorship.
— B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) September 28, 2021
The reporter has a litany of questions regarding her profile’s censorship, including who ordered it (“Was this action by LinkedIn carried out as an act of preemptive self-censorship, or did a Chinese government bureau contact LinkedIn about my account?”), what else is on the banned topic list (“If it was according to a list of prohibited topics, what is on that list? Shouldn’t that list be made public?”) and how many Americans have received similar notifications (“You know what I really want to know? How many people have gotten emails like this, and then DID edit their LinkedIn profile and DID take LinkedIn up on their request to ‘help’ them change their profile to regain access to China?“)
Despite LinkedIn’s imposition of censorship on behalf of the CCP, the reporter gave the company a pass claiming the “systemic” issue was an indication of a wider problem with how society conducts itself in regards to China.
LinkedIn is acting rationally according to the rules that American society (and western society in general) has conditioned it to act: Seek out emerging markets, maximize profit, don't break the law.
— B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) September 28, 2021
To now blame it for following the playbook that our own society created is not fair. But it's easier to say LinkedIn has a moral problem, than to say that perhaps the entire playbook our society created is the source of the problem.
— B. Allen-Ebrahimian (@BethanyAllenEbr) September 28, 2021
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