Microsoft’s Bing Reportedly Censoring Politically Sensitive Chinese Names, Researchers Say

Microsoft shares remained near their breakeven point in late trading, Thursday, amid a report that the company has started censoring Bing searches in the U.S. for certain Chinese names considered to be politically sensitive. According to the Wall Street Journal, the cybersecurity research organization Citizen Lab found that Microsoft’s Bing search engine had been adjusted to not automatically fill in suggestions for the names of some prominent Chinese dissidents, and national political leaders.

The autofill feature is common on Bing and other search engines and makes suggestions for terms after a few letters have been typed into a search query field. Citizens Lab said it first noticed the issue last fall when names such as that of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the late human rights activist Liu Xiaobo failed to automatically fill in in either English or Chinese in Bing searches. The Journal reported that Microsoft had corrected the issue, which it attributed to a “technical error.”