Self-censoring 'Chinese Wikipedia' launched
NewScientist.com news service
15:54 11 May 2006

China's biggest internet search engine Baidu has launched a self-censoring online encyclopaedia modelled on the US site, Wikipedia, which is currently blocked by Beijing.

Unlike Wikipedia, which allows anyone to create and modify entries, Baidupedia is censored by the company to avoid offending the Chinese government. Entries to the encyclopaedia must first pass a filtering system before being added to the site.

Baidupedia bars users from including any "malicious evaluation of the current national system", any "attack on government institutions", and prevents the "promotion of a dispirited or negative view of life".

"The initial reaction has been very positive, so we are quite confident that we will quickly become number one in this area," Baidu's chairman and chief executive Robin Li told The Financial Times. "I certainly hope our encyclopaedia will be the most authoritative one for any Chinese users."

'Harmful' content

Li admitted that Baidupedia was modelled after Wikipedia, but claimed not to know that Beijing had banned the US site. Wikipedia's Chinese-language site was enjoying soaring popularity until the government blocked access to it late in 2005.

The Chinese authorities regularly ban international sites featuring "harmful" content such as pornography and violence. But they also restrict access to websites carrying politically sensitive material and some religious content, such as information about the Falungong movement.

Baidu.com holds a leading share of China's websearch market, at 37.4%. Its stock sale in August 2005 on the Nasdaq was one of the year's hottest initial public offerings, with shares surging 354% in a single day.

US censorship

Vying for a share of China's huge market of about 111 million internet users, western companies such as Yahoo, Microsoft and Google have all agreed to censor their content.

Google sparked controversy in January 2006 when it launched its new service for China, www.google.cn, that censors websites and content banned by the nation's government.

Yahoo also came under fire in 2005 for supplying information to the Chinese government that led to the arrest of a Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who was subsequently jailed for 10 years for passing on a government censorship order via his Yahoo email account.

To control internet access the Chinese authorities are employing increasingly sophisticated filtering technology. Officials also require internet cafes to register users and internet service providers to reveal user details.

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China's censorship is wrong. What I also find disturbing are the American people and companies helping. Hopefully this doesn't happen to us, web censoring sounds right up the conservatives alley. I wouldn't doubt that its happening to us right now but not on a severe level as China.

I definatly wouldn't say complete censorship is up the conservative's alley. Sidestepping key questions, and submitting 'distractions,' however are. Those smart enough to know what to pay attention to are rewarded with relevant knowledge.

As for American companies changing their policies to open up a Chinese market... Well, they don't have much of a choice. One in five people on this earth live in China. That's much too large a market to ignore, especially when the US economy is completely reliant on its service sector - its net production exports is extremely negitive, so a strong service sector is absolutely neccessary to at least minimally augment the gargantuian trade deficit to asianic countries, due largely to false manipulation of the Chinese Yaun and Japanese Yen...

Anyway, I'll stop the economics now..

never question the government ever.

Does this surprise anyone? "We" (U.S. businesses) are interested only in the profit side of this issue (for the most part) and in the goldrush for Chinese bucks, they'll run over their mothers to get 'em. These people (Chinese communists) aren't our friends-they're squeezing us dry and we just get back up for more- "thanks you sir, may I have another?" Ask yourself this- do you know anybody who lost a job because their production is now being run in China or Mexico? I do. And it's getting worse.

There's not a goldrush for chinese bucks, it's for chinese labor because the chinese yaun is artificially held so low, so that labor is much cheaper... We've run ourselves out of the production jobs, because of the international value of the dollar which is currently, which is going down because of the lower demand for US goods. It's a natural change for an economy to go into services, however. It's as natrual for a nation that's past the agriculture phase to go into production.

As you can see here, in the Big Mac Index, which is a commonly used tool by economists, an american dollar buys much more in china and most other countries than it does here, and it is one of the highest valued currencies.

I could go into the gold standard and how it eliminates trade deficits such as the one with china automatically, but there are also huge drawbacks. In any event, im not going to go into it right now cause its 5 am and i dont feel like thinking that much, becuase at this point of being up for a long time, i really cant.. but i will post it later.