Search engine Bing is available again in China after government blockade

Bing is back online in China. The government had temporarily blocked access to Microsoft’s search engine because of ‘illegal content’, a common argument in China for censorship.

Barely a day after China blocked the search engine in part of the country, Bing is back to normal in the People’s Republic. Since Google was banned in 2011, Bing has been the only non-Chinese company search engine that can be used by the Chinese population. To operate in China, Microsoft applies self-censorship to Bing’s search results to comply with the country’s strict laws, known as The Great Firewall.

According to the Financial Times, China Unicom, a major state-owned telecom operator, has been ordered by the Chinese government to block Bing. The reason is cited as ‘illegal content’, the newspaper reports on the basis of an anonymous source. On Friday, a Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider that “access to the search engine has been restored.” Microsoft will not comment further on the matter.

It is not clear why Bing is back online in China after one day. It has often happened in the past that websites are temporarily blocked, only to return afterwards. However, services such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp have been blocked indefinitely.