Microsoft criticised for censoring its Bing search engine in China

Several US senators and human rights organisations have criticised Microsoft's actions in China after it became known that the company was censoring the Bing search engine in the country.

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Senator Marco Rubio said that such actions cannot be defended by any US company. An investigation by Bloomberg showed that Bing in China is removing more and more information about human rights, democracy, climate change and other topics to satisfy Beijing.

The lawmaker noted that every company doing business in China is making concessions to a "genocidal authoritarian regime". Earlier, another senator, Mark Warner, called on Microsoft to consider closing its Bing search engine in the country.

In addition, human rights organisations have also expressed concern about this situation.

A Microsoft spokesperson explained that the Chinese version of Bing is the "least censored search engine" in the country and that withdrawing from this market "will only deprive people of access to information they otherwise have through Bing".

Source: Bloomberg