Elain Brown Tech 05.20.2022 07:May AM EDT

Microsoft Bing Plays It Safe: We Can't Easily Search for Politically Sensitive Chinese Personalities

Microsoft Bing has been censoring names involved in Chinese politics.

According to a new report published by the University of Toronto, Microsoft may be censoring search results on the Bing search engine for political dissidents in China as well as in the United States itself.

The study, which was conducted by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and published on May 19, came to the conclusion that the search results provided by Bing's autofill system, which makes educated guesses about what users are looking for after only a few keystrokes, frequently failed to connect users to the names of Chinese dissidents who are opposed to the current government.

If you try using Microsoft Bing, there may be no autofill results that appeared for several public figures or government officials, such as President Xi Jinping, in either the English or the Chinese version of the search.

Microsoft Censorship in Bing's Search Engine

According to The Citizen Lab, the Microsoft censorship is enforced both for names typed in Chinese characters and for names typed in English letters. It has an effect not only on Bing but also on the search function of the Windows Start menu as well as DuckDuckGo, which makes use of the autosuggest system that Bing provides.

Perhaps even more significantly, Microsoft's censorship is also seen in a variety of regions all over the world, such as China, the United States, and Canada. The study found that the names of the "Tank Man," human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, and President Xi Jinping are among the ones that Microsoft Bing won't autocomplete.

The Tank Man is a nickname given to an unknown Chinese man who is popularly known for standing in front of tanks as they leave Tiananmen Square. Xi Jinping is the current President of China. Liu Xiaobo is a human rights activist.

Also, researchers used to be able to find these names through Bing. However, they found what they called "overwhelming censorship" of Chinese names that were linked to political issues in China.

The researchers do not believe that the wide-scale censorship of these famous names, whether in Chinese or in English, is caused by a random human error. Rather, Microsoft's censorship must be the result of a process that targets politically sensitive names in China to a disproportionately greater extent than other names.

Microsoft Held Under Pressure by Chinese Politics

Microsoft Bing's censorship of the names of these political figures in China comes as no surprise.

This is not the first time that Microsoft has not been accurate with their search results regarding Chinese politics due to the pressure and order to comply with China's local laws on the subject.

After receiving pressure from Chinese regulators, the company decided to stop offering the autofill feature for Bing within China itself in December of last year.

The previous year, Microsoft came under fire after it was reported that the company had blocked searches for Tank Man in several countries, including the United States of America, France, and Singapore. When it came time for Microsoft to address the issue, the company said that it was due to an "accidental human error."

According to Engadget, a senior research associate at Citizen Lab named Jeffrey Knockel referred to the spread of censorship rules from one region of the world to another as a "danger." Internet platforms have users from all over the world.

In addition, Knockel said, "If Microsoft had never engaged in Chinese censorship operations in the first place, there would be no way for them to spill into other regions."