Lawmaker asks LinkedIn, Microsoft why they censored US journalists’ accounts in China
- The three targeted reporters had written about the mass internment camps in Xinjiang, Tibet and deteriorating press freedoms in China, among other topics
- Action by the professional networking platform is ‘a gross appeasement and an act of submission’ to the Chinese government, US Senator Rick Scott says
A United States senator wrote to Microsoft and LinkedIn on Thursday demanding an explanation for the professional networking platform’s recent decision to block China-based users accessing the accounts of several US journalists.
Earlier this week, LinkedIn blacklisted the accounts of Axios’ Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian and independent journalists Melissa Chan and Greg Bruno, the latest in a string of actions the Silicon Valley-headquartered company has taken to preserve access to the Chinese market.
LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.
In a letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky, Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, called the move a “gross appeasement and an act of submission” to the Chinese government.
“The censorship of these journalists raises serious questions about Microsoft’s intentions and its commitment to standing up against Communist China’s horrific human rights abuses and repeated attacks against democracy,” wrote Scott, who serves on the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation.