According to some researchers, Microsoft continues to look for, and find ways to cozy up to the Chinese authorities. This time, the behemoth is accused of censoring content frowned upon by Beijing in its search engine, Bing.
Given China’s history of online censorship this is on the face of it not a particularly newsworthy piece of information – except Microsoft is allegedly doing this in search results shown to US users.
Judging by some previous cases, such as the one involving Microsoft platform LinkedIn, the motivation here is money – China represents a huge market that many US tech companies find irresistible, and are willing to abandon their own proclaimed values for a piece of that lucrative pie.
For example, a couple of years ago Google was about to launch a search engine designed only for the Chinese market and respecting its many restrictions, but had to abandon – or suspend – the plans amid criticism. And Apple has been the center of a number of controversies where it was accused of falling in line with Chinese censorship in order to preserve its presence in the market and the hardware supply chain.
University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs Citizen Lab now says that its researchers ...
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