Western social media companies and China have never been a great mix, with a wide range of regulations getting in the way of the industry’s admittedly unregulated way of doing things. Most have even been banned from general use in the country. Microsoft is the latest company to be forced to make changes, with plans to shut down LinkedIn in favor of a non-social media-focused option announced today. Chinese job searchers won’t be without some help though. LinkedIn plans to launch a new job listing site, dubbed InJobs, that will exclusively help users to find jobs. There will be no social media features involved with the platform, which will ideally allow the site to exist without any issues. It’s no secret China has been adding regulation after regulation to curb the questionable practices and effects of social media. It could be that those regulations finally caught up to Microsoft and LinkedIn, leading to the decision. Odds are though, this move came due to a Wall Street Journal report, which found out that scholars were being blocked from LinkedIn in China without explanation. While Microsoft did not directly address the report, it’s safe to assume that the timing is anything but a coincidence. VPNs are designed to hide and move your geolocation, so you can use apps, services, and platforms that are only or uniquely available in certain countries. This is often used to watch varied catalogs of streaming platforms like Netflix, but could also be used for LinkedIn in China, although there are some vaguely strict laws on the matter. The additional benefit of VPNs is security. The best VPNs will allow you to log in from anywhere without allowing anyone to see your data. Companies with employees going remote in the pandemic can also benefit, ensuring company data isn’t being accessed on unsecured networks.
