Since Wednesday, cn.bing.com, the emasculated version of Bing’s search engine built to please Chinese censors, has become inaccessible in mainland China, according to our own tests and comments from net users around the country.
While Bing may be the world’s most mocked search engine, it was one of the very few foreign alternatives to Baidu still available to Chinese net users. Google infamously scrapped its own China search engine back in 2010 and Yahoo search became blocked last August.
Though China’s net nanny can often be a fickle mistress, sometimes only blocking sites briefly before restoring access, it certainly appears as though we may have seen the last of Bing. The Financial Times reports that China Unicom was ordered to block Bing for “illegal content.” Meanwhile, a Microsoft spokesperson told the outlet, “We’ve confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next step.”
On Twitter, users have been busy saying their sarcastic goodbyes:
Then China came for Bing, and I did nothing, because I have never used Bing. https://t.co/YP6h4HRF4I
— Mike Forsythe 傅才德 (@PekingMike) January 24, 2019
Bing might not be blocked in China. It may just be down while Microsoft engineers google to find a solution.
— Tanner Brown (@luoshanji) January 23, 2019
Bing (yes, it still exists) latest casualty of #GFW. One step closer to an intranet in China. pic.twitter.com/RoR09Ax2sE
— Jeremiah Jenne (@JeremiahJenne) January 24, 2019
For those of you who are still loath to use Baidu, Russian search engineYandex still remains accessible in China. At least for now.
from Latest News - SUCH TV http://bit.ly/2T9HO7q
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