Self-Censoring 'Chinese Wikipedia' Launched

Billosaur writes "New Scientist is reporting that Baidu, China's largest search engine, is launching its own version of Wikipedia. The site, Baidupedia, differs from the more well-known Wikipedia in that it is self-censoring." From the article: "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'."

Re:evil

[bersl2]

The Chinese government has no right to do that under any circumstances.

It is my impression that one has every right to fork Wikipedia or otherwise imitate it.

Now, restricting access to one site over the other is a completely different story.

Re:Censorship rights

[Gossi]

Just to clarify, the chinese government blocked Wikipedia back in 2005.

Is this a coincidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did a search on "Intel" and got some Intel-info, written in Chinese.
I then did a search on "Falun Gong" - and then got "The page cannot be displayed" from my browser. I now can't get in again. Did they ban me for that? Well, I'm not crying :)

Ensucklopedia

[blindd0t]

In an unrelated story, sales of the book, "Beavis and Butt-Head Ensucklopedia" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_butthead# Books) have recently sky-rocketed.

Re:Is this a coincidence?

[Hogwash McFly]

Jesus, that's pretty scary.

I did the same; I got an Intel article, a Samsung one, then tried to slip her the old 'Falun Gong' and whaddya know, I drop off their end of the Internet. Permanently.

Are there any other keywords that should have the same effect and that somebody else can try?

No need to take this Baidu encyclopedia seriously

[Lorenzarius]

The Chinese version of Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has only 67k articles for several years of development, however this Baidu encyclopedia already has more articles than that within several days. Why is that? It is because Baidu doesn't care about copyrights. According to their user agreement/disclaimer [baidu.com] (which is only available in Chinese), the content will be released under GFDL and/or CC-SA 2.5 (which are incompatible) and at the same time all copyrights are reserved by Baidu. In fact there are a bunch of other contradictions within the same document. On the other hand, its users also doesn't care about copyrights too, because many of the articles are just copied from all the sites around the web.

Therefore we don't have to take this Baidu encyclopedia seriously, because even Baidu doesn't take this encyclopedia seriously. They launch this project just to create cohesion within its users.

<conspiracy>However there is one more interesting thing about this Baidu encyclopedia: Baidu as a search engine raises to prominence in China after Google is blocked. And if you don't know already, the Chinese Wikipedia (actually all the wikimedia projects) is blocked in China. Coincidence?</conspiracy>

Re:Cultural Relativism, Universal Declaration of H

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

It is interesting to note that China, being a permanent Security Council, should feel obliged to follow these declarations, but does not.

Ah, but they do [people.com.cn]:

CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
CHAPTER II. THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS

Article 33. All persons holding the nationality of the People's Republic of China are citizens of the People's Republic of China. All citizens of the People's Republic of China are equal before the law. Every citizen enjoys the rights and at the same time must perform the duties prescribed by the Constitution and the law.

Article 34. All citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of nationality, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education, property status, or length of residence, except persons deprived of political rights according to law.

Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. No citizen may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people's procuratorate or by decision of a people's court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ. Unlawful deprivation or restriction of citizens' freedom of person by detention or other means is prohibited; and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited. Article 38. The personal dignity of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. Insult, libel, false charge or frame-up directed against citizens by any means is prohibited.

Article 39. The home of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. Unlawful search of, or intrusion into, a citizen's home is prohibited.

Article 40. The freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens of the People's Republic of China are protected by law. No organization or individual may, on any ground, infringe upon the freedom and privacy of citizens' correspondence except in cases where, to meet the needs of state security or of investigation into criminal offences, public security or procuratorial organs are permitted to censor correspondence in accordance with procedures prescribed by law.

Article 41. Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or functionary. Citizens have the right to make to relevant state organs complaints and charges against, or exposures of, violation of the law or dereliction of duty by any state organ or functionary; but fabrication or distortion of facts with the intention of libel or frame-up is prohibited. In case of complaints, charges or exposures made by citizens, the state organ concerned must deal with them in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures, or retaliate against the citizens making them. Citizens who have suffered losses through infringement of their civil rights by any state organ or functionary have the right to compensation in accordance with the law.

And, in case there was any doubt,

AMENDMENT FOUR

...

Article 33 has a third paragraph added: "The State respects and preserves human rights."

...

Of course, there's Article 51.

Re:You gotta love

[DRM_is_Stupid]

West Bengal has been running under a democratically elected communist party since 1977. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Communist_pa rties [wikipedia.org]

Re:Freedom Depends on the Citizens

[grumpyman]

Huh? You must be bit slow here. He did NOT say that NO ONE wanted democracy. He did, though, quite accurately say that MAJORITY OF CHINESE wouldn't give a flying fuck about invidual freedoms, including "western" democracy. If it was there, nice; but it won't compare with other stronger values (from materialistic ones to nationalistic and community values). Mr. Coward, look, who in the world can say that majority of Chinese won't give a flying fuck about individual freedom? Have you even been to China? Did you talk to even ONE Chinese over there? Or did you do a nation-wide poll or something?

Students at the Tianamen square were but a tiny ant's piss: they did and do not represent significant proportion of chinese as whole. His point is entirely valid: if enough chinese did want things we in the west take for granted, they would get it. They don't, at least not yet.

You really don't have clue about the scale of it do you. There were protest up to 100,000 people in the streets of Beijing early May. And there were protests in every major cities in China during the month. If you weren't old enough to read in 1989 you can do it now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_prot ests_of_1989 [wikipedia.org]

2600 died and 30000 injuried over one single night. That's about the same number on the war with iraq [antiwar.com] since 2003. That's an ant's piss to you eh?

MOD PARENT UP

[Ambush Commander]

Chinese Wikipedia was blocked, and not much response came from the tech atmosphere. Wikipedians even conjectured that China was preparing to launch their own version of Wikipedia... well, now, that has happened. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Wikipedia _in_mainland_China [wikipedia.org] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_S ignpost/2005-10-31/China_block [wikipedia.org]

Re:Censorship rights

[Brushen]

And, oddly enough, much of the content in Baidupedia was copied directly from the real Chinese Wikipedia, at zh.wikipedia.org.

Re:Freedom Depends on the Citizens

[durianwool]

Exactly rightly said. I am in China now, and has been visiting almost every other year since '99. I've many colleagues and friends who were Chinese and now living in other countries.

Most outside commentators just don't understand how much has changed here. You cannot comprehend how is it to move forward with a population of 1.3Bn with a 3000+ years of unbroken history that is more varied than the entire Europe put together.

It definitely isn't the same as some small Eastern European state where a march down the square will change and solve everything.

People here are optimistic. 5 years ago, there's hardly any private cars. Nowadays there are traffic jams. 5 years ago, people pay for their goods with stack full of cash. These days, they swipe. 15 years ago, you walk into a shop, "Take it or leave it", these days, "Welcome, have a look at our ..."

As for freedom, have you watched the stuff that's shown on TV here these days? There are plenty of current affairs, COPs type of shows. There are 'sex health' shops in every city. OK, so you can't shit on everyone like in Hyde Park. But is being able to that a measure of the quality of life?

Although saying that, it is really stupid and frustrating that I cannot look up some info in Wikipedia, although everyone knows the proxies to circumvent that!