Microsoft ended LinkedIn operations in China in October 2021.
LinkedIn had entered China more formally in 2014 with a Simplified Chinese version. The company acknowledged that it would need to restrict some user content to comply with Chinese regulations, while arguing that the service could still help professionals connect and find work.
By 2021, Microsoft said the operating environment and compliance requirements had become increasingly difficult. It announced that LinkedIn would be shut down in China and replaced by InJobs, a China-focused job application without LinkedIn’s broader social-networking features.
The decision is sometimes confused with Russia’s 2016 ban, which followed a data-storage dispute. Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn also happened in 2016, but the Chinese shutdown came five years later. LinkedIn subsequently announced that its China-focused app would be phased out in 2023.