8 ms·
Microsoft confirms Bing is down in China
- afpx 8y agoAnd, Microsoft even follows China’s censorship rules. Employees of tech companies protest when their companies collaborate with defense departments. But, yet those employees aren’t very loud when it comes to censorship.
- tubbs 8y agoSome counter points from Google: http://time.com/5370059/china-google-protest-censorship/ http://time.com/5370059/china-google-protest-censorship/ https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/29/18117400/google-china-petitions-dragonfly-sundar-pichai https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/29/18117400/google-china-pe... https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/11/27/employees-petition-google-to-stop-work-on-censored-chinese-search-engine-dragonfly/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/11/27/employees-petition-...
- afpx 8y agoVery good! Thanks for educating me.
- dep_b 8y agoMicrosoft never promised to be a world-healing company.
- viivaux 8y agoQuick tip: when people give out about a massive company (one with a real influence on the world, mind you) doing something they feel isn't right, that's :not the same thing: as assuming the company has a moral duty to heal the world.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 8y agoSo Google's fault is that they try to?
- pgc 8y agoBecause those employees who protest, which are a minority, are communists, just like China is.
- blattimwind 8y agoThe popular counterpant to "Everyone I don't like is Hitler": "Everyone I don't like is a communist". The 50s have called and want their witchhunt back.
- paradoxparalax 8y agoI will order a T-Shirt with these 2 sentences.the times we live. by blattimwind. I will give the credit(in smaller fonts, sure) maybe change/replace the "I don't like" by "stupid" or "dumb" or "brainwashed" Is fun. But when you make fun of Nazism, and you equate the negation of humanity, you make more harm then fun. Actually you make big harm for the world. But Who cares 'bout freaking world, I will make my t-shirt. humor was ruled by some supreme court as free to scorch anyone in any manner, if, and only if, made in form of charge. So I may need some drawing on it. Yeah but is true, some people are afraid of communism as like it was Aliens from Evil planet, others are afraid of Political Incorrectness as if was the Hydra of Lerna[1], so...each to their own.I upvote this blattimwind comment above, and I never vote, is against my principles, up or down, left or right. But this was a good one and is exception. 1-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra
- x220 8y agoIn 2019 people just don't care as much about censorship or freedom of speech as they used to. Not saying it's right, but that's the way most people think now. I can't remember how many times I've had conversations with people who genuinely had no idea why censorship is a bad idea or why listening to opposing ideas can improve your life.
- raxxorrax 8y agoNormal case of average stupidity until something bad happens again, I would smugly guess.
- idrios 8y agoThis actually surprises me for how much effort Microsoft puts into being compliant with China. Last year China took down Yahoo! too, despite Yahoo's relationship with Alibaba. I was an expat last year and with Google (& DuckDuckGo) blocked I already had pretty few options of search engine. Short of learning enough Chinese to manage Baidu, I can't imagine how hard it would be to use internet as a foreigner in China now.
- r3bl 8y agoI've seen business travelers carrying two smartphones: one for the Chinese Internet, and the other one for going around the firewall.
- lostlogin 8y agoHow do they go around it with the second? Edit: ardy42 answered this below. Foreign phones from home country provider seem to be exempt.
- MichaelMoser123 8y agois it possible to use a VPN in the PR of China?
- slickbuntu 8y agoIt's tricky. But doable. I know because I have done it on all three of my trips there.
- yourbandsucks 8y agoEvery 2nd English language page, visited from China, will be full of ads for expressVPN.
- drewmate 8y agoI'm curious what challenges you faced. I went once (a little over 3 years ago) and used a vpn fairly frequently (on and off as needed.) I think I even found and signed up for one while completely behind the great firewall. Now, of course, I'd recommend setting it all up before going, but I've heard that it's still relatively commonplace for Westerners and PRC mostly turns a blind eye.
- ardy42 8y agoSo, Google's Project Dragonfly is probably dead in the water now. If the PRC has banned Microsoft, despite it playing by their censorship rules, I don't see why they'd let Google in.
- jtokoph 8y agoIt honestly makes no difference. Bing search in China was absolutely useless the last few times I was there. Searches for any keyword, including technical terms, just returned a list of unrelated “news” articles.
- Cerium 8y agoBing in China fills my needs when I visit. Taking a look at my recent browsing history I was able to use Bing in China to find: hotels that accept foreign guests, terminals for flights, train maps, etc.
- motdiem 8y agoSame for me - it was fine when looking for touristy stuff, restaurants opening hours and things like that.
- ahoka 8y agoI had the exact same experience with Bing outside of China.
- draw_down 8y agoCome on
- chillacy 8y ago> Bing,..., is active on 320,000 unique devices monthly, according to third-party research firm iResearch. That’s dwarfed by Baidu’s 466 million and Sogou’s 43 million. Wow, bing is even less popular there than it is here relative to google.
- carlmr 8y agoI mean Bing also means sick in Chinese, so it's not a good choice of name.
- baobrain 8y agoThe Chinese name is "必应”，which means "will reply"
- entity345 8y agoWritten as 'bing' is may mean many, many things. I doubt any Chinese will say 'bing' means 'sick' not least because a syllable means nothing to them without a tone.
- carlmr 8y agoIt's very likely the first thing they'll think of, I never said it's the only thing. We're talking about a country here where many elevators don't have a 4th floor because 4 is the same syllable (with a different tone), as death. Same goes for Japan btw.
- ThrowawayR2 8y agoFalse, for reasons others have already pointed out. Why do people believe this myth? Microsoft has plenty of Chinese employees and Qi Lu was the executive VP of Bing for quite a few years. If there was an issue with the name, it would have been addressed by their marketing department long ago.
- HAL9000Ti 8y agoIt's not a myth, "bing" does means "sick". It also means other things like "ice", but "sick" is the first thing that comes to mind, and in China this is especially a big deal due to superstitions. Naming things is very important here. amusing anecdote: I remember a discussion about someone who wanted to name his shop 森林木 (three trees symbol, two trees symbol, one tree symbol) and everyone told him it was a bad idea and it would fail because the trees where getting fewer and fewer and that this name was an omen of bankruptcy, and if anything he should put it in the opposite order. (He ended up choosing a different name entirely) Bing is a really bad name, even tho this had probably nothing to do with it's relative failure
- amaccuish 8y agoApparently it's just technical problems: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/china-is-said-to-block-microsoft-s-bing-due-to-technical-error?srnd=technology-vp https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/china-is-...
- yorwba 8y agoPeople report that it's already working again: https://www.v2ex.com/t/530388 https://www.v2ex.com/t/530388
- tenmadlead 8y agoWouldn't surprise me if the leaders reversed the decision, instead of it being a technical problem. They've been known to reverse some bad decisions before, like taking coals away from average citizens during winter time. The government seems to be in panic mode, what with the recent news of luxury brands sales crashing 30-50%, lowest economic growth since 1990, 30% of factories have left while another 30% are looking to move within the next year, lowest level of birth since 1961, population set to shrink in 8 years, etc.
- paradoxparalax 8y ago"lowest level of birth since 1961" This is a good thing that shows(if not proves)that they are getting out of poverty. And is something they pursued for decades, so this is pointless info for the point you make: "China gov in Panick mode" Now, The current President, was already born with the lack of confidence, it means, the first day he assumed China's Gov, He was already in Panick mode. He needed to break a lot of the internal stability and a lot of power lines Inside the Party, to arise to power, So , His government was born with this crucial weakness already, And thats the reason the first week of assuming presidency he ordered to place absurdly ridiculous warmongering Ads in all the subway screens.... ..Absurd and ridiculous even for the Chinese, the chinese average Joe is much smarter then what you think. When a ruler start talking too much about war, you know he is afraid and Scared of loosing his power. Master Margareth Tatcher explained that if you need to Show Power, It is because you don't have the power. But taking google or yahoo down for days was already normal 15 years ago (when google was not totally blocked) ... Is not anything significant, just a collateral datapoint, at least for me, who have much more Older and Broader data about this issue. Luxury brands crash is not because of economic reasons, Luxury Buyers don't care about economical crisis, they are already freaking Rich, They are Rich in any situation, they are not affected, specially in China, where are Billionaires every corner. So why the sales dropped?? Because this wealth people got their moneys from corruption, and chinese people is fed up with this,( fight corruption, same as WarMongering, is the bulshitt the new president use to try to look better , because of his lack of confidence)... And this people are afraid of the Security Police hunting down "grey" or "black money" , So they don't go near a Louis Vitton Shop even with a 10 feet pole. Economy is bad because of incompetence of current government, Economical Incopentence, political incompetence, all Incompetence you can think. That't the reason, but despise His Incompetence, our economy is still doing not so bad. So the wishful thinking of China Moon land deniers ( people who believe that the chinese space craft landing in the dark side of the moon is a fake video)... And this wishful thinkers Deniers, will wait until the end of their lifetimes, if they think China economical Apocalypse is coming. The Bible's Apocalypse will come before that, believe me. I have been listening to "China will brake anytime now" for at least 25 years, before I even dream to be approved of the Economy University in China. So I don't worry about economy, but I am extremely worried about the current government Malice and Incompentece, ...exactly the opposite of the former Hu Jin Dao and Wen Jia Bao ruling period, a period of Competent and wise ruling, that is unfortunately not the case right now.
- ngcc_hk 8y agoThe western culture all accept china should have a firewall. That ... It is abnormal you know.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoNoone said that. If anything we accept we have no control over China's policies.
- jadeddrag 8y agoBoycotting is one small lever of control.
- 51lver 8y agoBut then you'd have to boycott some of the most loved US brands in history! Surely you wouldn't want to harm THEM? Just because they gave china so much money to become a world power doesn't make THEM part of the problem, right? Have a heart! You wouldn't want to possibly impact the retirement plans of those dearly loved brand CEO's would you? Naaaa. (/s)
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoI'm not on Windows, nor do I use Bing, but no it's not really when the company is a certain size.
- x220 8y agoYou have control over your own choice to oppress people or not oppress people.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoI'm not oppressing anyone. The Chinese government is. I'm not a lawmaker nor Chinese.
- x220 8y ago
- kenneth 8y agoI'm not surprised they were having issues if their systems are optimized for less than a million monthly unique users. The article says 320,000. A single popular news article could easily absolutely overwhelm that level of traffic.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- yzh 8y agoI started using this meta-search engine: searx.me It works fine for me. Integrates results from different search engines.
- SkeptinenSpede5 8y agoIs China doing wrong of censuring ?? Ms must love they own medicine