Baidu.com Inc (百度), China's most-used Internet search site, has introduced an online encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia that excludes information censored by the Chinese government.
Baidu aims to use the Baidupedia service, started last month, to attract users to its Web site and may later sell advertising alongside the content, Cynthia He, a spokeswoman, said in Beijing, where the company is based.
The introduction of the Baidu encyclopedia service comes after access to San Diego-based Wikipedia was blocked in China because it carried content critical of the government. Baidupedia, which like Wikipedia offers information written by its users, will censor material submitted for posting. Google Inc, the world's biggest search engine and Baidu's main competitor, introduced China sites in January.
``We are following the same laws that the entire Chinese Internet is held to,'' He said.
China controls content disseminated via the mass media through state-ownership of all newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations.
China censors online content using the world's most "sophisticated" Internet filtering system, according to a joint study by the University of Toronto, Cambridge University, Oxford University and Harvard Law School.
Web sites banned in China include those of the British Broadcasting Corp and human rights group Amnesty International.
The Chinese-language version of Wikipedia has been blocked in China since late last year, the Financial Times reported yesterday, without citing a source.
Google's Chinese-language search site Google.cn excludes links to content such as pictures of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests, which were put down by the government.
Baidu.com had a 56.6 percent share of a Chinese search market at the end of last year, according to Shanghai-based research company IResearch Inc. Google had a 32.8 percent of the market and Yahoo! Inc. had a 5 percent share. Mountain View, California-based Google owns about a 2 percent stake in Baidu.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January last year have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
Japan’s strategic alliance with the US would collapse if Tokyo were to turn away from a conflict in Taiwan, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday, but distanced herself from previous comments that suggested a possible military response in such an event. Takaichi expressed her latest views on a nationally broadcast TV program late on Monday, where an opposition party leader criticized her for igniting tensions with China with the earlier remarks. Ties between Japan and China have sunk to the worst level in years after Takaichi said in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese
RSS