Chinese users’ feelings mixed about LinkedIn pulling out

For nearly seven years, LinkedIn has been the only major Western social networking platform still operating in China. People like 32-year-old Jason Liu view it as an important career enhancing tool.

Come the end of the year, Liu will no longer have access to the localised version of LinkedIn, after Microsoft, which acquired the platform in 2016, said last week that it would pull out, citing a “significantly more challenging operating environment.”

“It’s a shame,” said Liu, who works in the technology industry in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and uses the site to network with other professionals online.