May 13, 2006 at 01:01Baidu launched Baidupedia
China's largest search engine Baidu has launched its own version of the "people's encyclopedia." For local residents , Baidupedia should be a complete replacement for the original Wikipedia, which is banned in China.
The “Chinese” Wikipedia is modeled after the likeness of its foreign counterpart. Here, anyone can edit any article or add new text. However, the authors of the articles are well aware that any freethinking here will be stopped in the bud. Dozens of Chinese bloggers are already in jail.
Wikipedia, which is now the most popular encyclopedia in the world, at one time became a fairly well-known information resource among Chinese users. The number of articles in the Chinese version grew rapidly and reached 67,000. However, last year, Chinese authorities blocked access to this site. As you know, the "great Chinese firewall" filters out hundreds of Western websites. Even the search results on the Chinese versions of Google and Yahoo give results that are significantly different from those that the US versions of search engines produce.
On the Chinese Internet, any mention of well-known dissidents, as well as events in Tien An Myn Square, is carefully filtered out. Naturally, it is not possible to remove such important and well-known information from the English-language Wikipedia, even if all Chinese Internet censors combined work on this (according to some estimates, the staff of the Chinese "Internet police" is 30,000 people). Therefore, the authorities had to completely block access to Wikipedia. Users will be offered a surrogate of domestic production. The
Chinese version of the encyclopedia began work in April 2006 on the Baidu portal , so by analogy with the Western model, it can be called Baidupedia. Project developers are recognizedthat specifically created the site in exactly the western style. At the same time, the Chinese version directly warns users that in their articles they avoid "malicious evaluations of the modern state system", any "attacks on government institutions", as well as "propaganda of decadent or negative outlooks on life." All materials pass through an automatic filtering system beforehand, and authors receive incentive points for each successful publication.
The “Chinese” Wikipedia is modeled after the likeness of its foreign counterpart. Here, anyone can edit any article or add new text. However, the authors of the articles are well aware that any freethinking here will be stopped in the bud. Dozens of Chinese bloggers are already in jail.
Wikipedia, which is now the most popular encyclopedia in the world, at one time became a fairly well-known information resource among Chinese users. The number of articles in the Chinese version grew rapidly and reached 67,000. However, last year, Chinese authorities blocked access to this site. As you know, the "great Chinese firewall" filters out hundreds of Western websites. Even the search results on the Chinese versions of Google and Yahoo give results that are significantly different from those that the US versions of search engines produce.
On the Chinese Internet, any mention of well-known dissidents, as well as events in Tien An Myn Square, is carefully filtered out. Naturally, it is not possible to remove such important and well-known information from the English-language Wikipedia, even if all Chinese Internet censors combined work on this (according to some estimates, the staff of the Chinese "Internet police" is 30,000 people). Therefore, the authorities had to completely block access to Wikipedia. Users will be offered a surrogate of domestic production. The
Chinese version of the encyclopedia began work in April 2006 on the Baidu portal , so by analogy with the Western model, it can be called Baidupedia. Project developers are recognizedthat specifically created the site in exactly the western style. At the same time, the Chinese version directly warns users that in their articles they avoid "malicious evaluations of the modern state system", any "attacks on government institutions", as well as "propaganda of decadent or negative outlooks on life." All materials pass through an automatic filtering system beforehand, and authors receive incentive points for each successful publication.