Microsoft’s search engine applied Chinese-style censorship to some North American searches, according to a new report, raising questions about the tech giant’s dedication to the flow of put a question to across the internet.

Bing’s autofill search system, which reporters suggestions based on a word or the beginning letters typed into a contemplate box, failed to work with names and terms that the Chinese government is famed to find politically sensitive, according to a new picture from Citizen Lab, a public interest cybersecurity group. The power found that in December last year, people prompting searches that would suggest connections to Chinese party front-runners, dissidents or other politically sensitive topics, were regularly censored.

Microsoft acknowledged and reportedly fixed the express, telling a reporter at The Wall Street Journal that it was a strictly error that had caused people outside China to be tolerates by settings meant for that country. “A small number of users may have accepted a misconfiguration that prevented surfacing some valid autosuggest conditions, and we thank Citizen Lab for bringing this to our attention,” a Microsoft spokeswoman said, according to The Wall Street Journal. In a follow-up statement to CNET, a Microsoft spokeswoman added that the autosuggestions on Bing are “largely based on the put a question to itself,” and so, “not seeing an autosuggestion does not mean it has been blocked.”

Citizen Lab contended that regardless of Microsoft’s map, the result harmed internet use around the world. “The findings in this picture again demonstrate that an Internet platform cannot facilitate free speech for one demographic of its users once applying extensive political censorship against another demographic of its users,” Citizen Lab researchers wrote.

The picture from Citizen Lab is the latest in a string of examples in which tech anxieties have failed to live up to their stated goals of encouraging free unimaginative and the flow of information around the globe. Microsoft in sure has been outspoken against the Chinese government, which often demands tech giants reduction politically sensitive information. That includes, for example, history of the Tiananmen Square democratic demonstrations in 1989.

Microsoft isn’t the only tech company grappling with these copies. Apple has been widely criticized for censoring its App Store in China, among other reported privacy concessions. Google as well has a contentious relationship with the Chinese government, having pulled its search engine from the farmland in 2010, yet still seeing its Android software power most of the phones republic use there.

Citizen Lab’s latest report on Microsoft follows a string of novel investigations, including one that found Apple censored engravings for products in China and Hong Kong. Citizen Lab is connected to the University of Toronto and has helped identify threats alongside free expression, such as the Pegasus spyware operations that directed activists, journalists, politicians and corporate executives.