Microsoft’s Bing search engine is apparently the latest Western internet platform to be blocked in China, local media reported said on Thursday.
The website can no longer be accessed from China, joining the ranks of Google, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp and others, which are locked behind China’s so-called “Great Firewall.”
Sources told the Financial Times that Bing has been blocked following a government order.
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One of the sources said China Unicom, a major state-owned telecom company, confirmed the government ordered the block on Bing.
The Chinese government has been running tight controls over the internet for years by censoring sensitive content and blocking access to foreign websites.
Google, the world’s largest search engine, left China in 2010. However, it is reportedly trying to re-enter the market by building a censored search app.
The websites of human rights groups and news organisations such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are also banned in China.
dpa/NAN
