Google Translate has shut down in China, leaving users without one of the best online translation services available.
Google Translate is used around the world by users looking to translate text from one language to another. Like many of its services, Google has struggled to deal with China’s censorship, policies, and state-sponsored hacking.
According to TechCrunch, the company appears to have shut down its translation services in China, rerouting users to its Hong Kong servers. According to a Reddit thread, however, many users in mainland China can’t access Google’s Hong Kong servers, meaning there is no practical way to access Google Translate.
Ultimately, the shutdown is unlikely to impact Google very much since the company already has a minimal presence in China compared to homegrown companies.
In fact, the company told TechCrunch the decision was “due to low usage.”