In a recent development, Microsoft Bing and Copilot AI are currently experiencing an outage, with users unable to access the search engine and AI-powered features. Users attempting to open bing.com are encountering a technical error message. The outage is affecting users in India, the US, and other countries, with 55% reporting issues with the website, 30% with the search function, and 5% with login. Additionally, DuckDuckGo is also facing disruptions, with users unable to utilize the search engine. As of now, neither Microsoft nor DuckDuckGo has released an official statement regarding the outage [cdb9e227].
This outage comes in the wake of the European Commission's announcement that Apple's iMessage and Microsoft's Bing search engine will be exempt from stricter EU rules that aim to regulate the activities of tech giants. While major digital firms such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft will be required to comply with more stringent regulations under a landmark law, the European Commission has determined that iMessage and Bing should not be classified as 'gatekeepers' for their respective services. This decision has been welcomed by both Apple and Microsoft. The exemption for iMessage and Bing has sparked debates about fairness and the level of dominance held by different platforms. Some argue that the exemption may give Apple and Microsoft an unfair advantage, while others believe that iMessage and Bing do not have the same level of influence as other platforms and therefore do not warrant the same level of regulation. This decision sheds light on the complexities of regulating tech giants and the ongoing discussions surrounding their influence [a09db35a].
Furthermore, a recent article from Rest of World reveals that Microsoft's Bing translation and search engine services in China censor more extensively than Chinese competitors' services. Bing's censorship rules in China are so stringent that even mentioning President Xi Jinping leads to a complete block of translation results. Bing censors more than top Chinese services, including Baidu Translate and Tencent Machine Translation. Microsoft has operated in China for more than 20 years and has more than 80% market share. U.S. lawmakers are scrutinizing Microsoft's compliance with demands from Beijing. Bing's censorship practices harm people's ability to communicate. Bing is the only China-based translation service to consistently produce blank outputs, while other Chinese services silently omit triggering sentences. Microsoft may have recently expanded its China-based censorship. Chinese firms likely have access to more Chinese-language data, enabling more precise censorship. Microsoft appears to be playing it safe to avoid Chinese government backlash. Microsoft has made the calculus that complying with Chinese laws is necessary to stay in China [c2537f36] [920ebd48] [a09db35a].