Microsoft's Bing search engine can no longer operate in China, following a government order, according to the indications so far.
ΕIt was preceded in 2010 by a "block" on Google's most popular search engine, leaving no known foreign search engine in China. In 2017, Beijing had also put a "stop" on Facebook's WhatsApp application.
China is systematically blocking access to information it deems uncontrollable and potentially dangerous by President Xi's new policy of full national control of the Internet in his country, raising an ever-increasing online Chinese wall around it (known internationally as "The Great Firewall").
As of Wednesday, according to the Financial Times, Reuters and Agence France-Presse, Chinese users wrote on Weibo (Chinese Twitter) and other social media sites that they could no longer access Bing's Chinese website, which but it continues to be accessible to users outside of China.
Microsoft has confirmed that Bing is inaccessible within China, said it is investigating the matter and has not yet made any other announcement. Two sources, however, confirmed that Bing has been blocked by government order, while the Chinese state telecommunications company China Unicom also confirmed that the Chinese authorities have ordered access to Bing.
According to analyst firm StatCounter, at the end of 2018 Bing had a 2% share in searches in China, well behind the dominant Chinese search engine Baidu which had about 70%. Bing has so far been allowed to operate, as it has agreed to censor search results on "sensitive" issues, based on criteria by the Chinese government.
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