Apple took down one of the world’s most popular Quran apps in China
It says something about the climate: Apple has taken down one of the world’s most popular Quran apps in China days after Microsoft’s LinkedIn announced it is closing its localized Chinese version of the platform.
The closing of the Quran Majeed followed a request from officials, the BBC reported. Apple did not comment but directed the BBC to its Human Rights Policy saying the company is required to comply with local laws, and ”at times there are complex issues about which we may disagree with governments.”
Quran Majeed app offers complete Quran in Uthmanic and IndoPak script with audio recitations and translations. It is globally available and is reported to have at least one million users in China. The fact that it is not any longer available in China was was first reported by Apple Censorship – a website that monitors apps on Apple’s App Store globally.
LinkedIn launched its localized Chinese version seven years ago but had now decided to close it.
LinkedIn said that it is “facing a significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements in China. Given this, we’ve made the decision to sunset the current localized version of LinkedIn, which is how people in China access LinkedIn’s global social media platform, later this year.”
The company also said that ”while we’ve found success in helping Chinese members find jobs and economic opportunity, we have not found that same level of success in the more social aspects of sharing and staying informed.”
”Later this year, we will launch InJobs, a new, standalone jobs application for China. InJobs will not include a social feed or the ability to share posts or articles. We will also continue to work with Chinese businesses to help them create economic opportunity.”
Chinese authorities earlier this year started what can be described as a crackdown on the country´s own big tech introducing new regulations of how long kids can play games and strickter rules for giants like Tencent and Alibaba.
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