Welcome to the world of "internet sovereignty"!
The first public example of LinkedIn censoring a profile in China, that I'm aware of anyway, was Zhou Fengsuo's profile in 2019. The resulting media outcry resulted in his profile being almost immediately reinstated.
But LinkedIn went through a thorough "rectification" earlier this year, after Chinese authorities decided its censorship was too lax.
A few months later, LinkedIn starting prolifically blocking the profiles of researchers, academics, and journalists with "prohibited" content (LinkedIn's own term).
The Chinese government, like Trump, seems to have learned that if you do a terrible thing once, you face an immense amount of pressure. But if you flood the ecosystem with terrible terrible things, people get exhausted and you no longer face significant consequences.
Zhou Fengsuo's account was reinstated after he tweeted about the block on Twitter. So I'm doing that now too. I'll post an update to see if my account is reinstated.
@LinkedIn@LinkedInHelp
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."
Allow me to translate this PR speak into plain language: If I delete the offending parts of my profile, trained employees can check to see if I have self-censored enough to pass CCP regulations. i.e. Linkedin appears to offer a free self-censorship consulting service
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.
This goes beyond China's model of "internet sovereignty" and imposes China's censorship extraterritorially. I would suggest that LinkedIn -- well, stop censoring at all -- but allow users to create a completely separate LinkedIn profile for China's market.
I have many thoughts about the implications of this and what to do about it (which I write about in my forthcoming book), but the basic takeaway is this: The only way to fight China's censorship laws is with law and govt action. Transparency and civil society action won't work.
Additional questions: Was this action by LinkedIn carried out as an act of preemptive self-censorship according to a list of prohibited topics, or did a Chinese government bureau contact LinkedIn about my account? If the latter, which bureau specifically?
If it was according to a list of prohibited topics, what is on that list? Shouldn't that list be made public? Who is in charge of making and maintaining the list? Are there Chinese government officials tasked with sending regular updates about prohibited content?
Are the employees tasked with sending out "customer service" emails like the one sent to me based in the US or based in China? How do they communicate with relevant Chinese government agencies?
Bill Bishop's LinkedIn account was blocked in China in 2014 while he was posting from Maryland.
Allow me to suggest that blaming LinkedIn for "caving" to China is not the answer we are looking for. If the analysis stops at "wow look at the dilemma US companies are facing in the Chinese market," we're not looking deep enough. The answer, like so many answers, is systemic.
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.
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.
Read my book guys. Whenever I finish writing it....
If you're a current or former LinkedIn employee with knowledge of how censorship of U.S.-based accounts works, you can contact me via encrypted email at bethany DOT allen AT protonmail DOT com or DM me on Twitter for my Signal number
Getting some more questions so let me answer them here. Did LinkedIn specify what content on my profile was objectionable? No. Have I changed my LinkedIn profile since I received the email from LinkedIn? Haha, no.
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?