Chinese users have mixed feelings about LinkedIn departure

The Chinese LinkedIn app displayed on a device in Beijing, China. Microsoft is shutting down its main LinkedIn service in China later this year as Beijing tightens its Internet rules. — AP

HONG KONG: 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.”