Google has pulled Translate out of China
Under China’s regime of heavy censorship, Google has managed to maintain a limited presence. The company’s search engine, its main revenue driver, hasn’t been available for years and an attempt in 2019 to bring back a version that would’ve funneled user data to the governmentproved fruitless. Still, it does offer other services including Maps and Translate primarily on a commercial basis for Chinese firms to use. Google Translate, though, is getting turned off.
Google has toldTechCrunchits official reason for Translate’s departure from the country is “low usage.” The webpage forGoogle Translate Chinanow shows a splash screen with a link that directs users to Google Translate Hong Kong.
While Alibaba and Baidu compete for top spots in online services, Google does power some translation features for third-party services such as document viewing app KOReader. Those users are now left asking questions about what the publisher will do to patch the hole.
There’s speculation that the discontinuation of Google Translate in China may have to do with the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party happening on October 16 — government censors are more proactive and aggressive around large events in taking foreign services offline as well astracking and banning memes and keywordscirculating on social media. One such example was the likening of President Xi Jinping to A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. Mentions of cuddly, rotund teddy bear were scrubbed ahead of the last National Congress in 2017.
On the flip side, China has maintained its influence on the world’s digital stage with TikTok as one of its strongest examples. With hundreds of millions of daily active users, parent company ByteDance has resisted pressure to sell the app toforeign investorsand, more tellingly, hasdoubled down on Chinese leadershipover its global divisions.
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