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.
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station
‘INVESTMENT’: Rubio and Arevalo said they discussed the value of democracy, and Rubio thanked the president for Guatemala’s strong diplomatic relationship with Taiwan Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Guatemala City on Wednesday where they signed a deal for Guatemala to accept migrants deported from the US, while Rubio commended Guatemala for its support for Taiwan and said the US would do all it can to facilitate greater Taiwanese investment in Guatemala. Under the migrant agreement announced by Arevalo, the deportees would be returned to their home countries at US expense. It is the second deportation deal that Rubio has reached during a Central America trip that has been focused mainly on immigration. Arevalo said his
‘SOVEREIGN AI’: As of Nov. 19 last year, Taiwan was globally ranked No. 11 for having computing power of 103 petaflops. The governments wants to achieve 1,200 by 2029 The government would intensify efforts to bolster its “Sovereign Artificial Intelligence [AI]” program by setting a goal of elevating the nation’s collective computing power in the public and private sectors to 1,200 peta floating points per second (petaflops) by 2029, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The goal was set to fulfill President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision of turning Taiwan into an “AI island.” Sovereign AI refers to a nation’s capabilities to produce AI using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks. One petaflop allows 1 trillion calculations per second. As of Nov. 19 last year, Taiwan was globally ranked No. 11 for
Israel yesterday said it has begun preparations for the departure of large numbers of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in line with US President Donald Trump’s plan for the territory, while Egypt has launched a diplomatic blitz behind the scenes to try and head off the plan. The Trump administration has already dialed back aspects of the proposal after it was widely rejected internationally, saying the relocation of Palestinians would be temporary. US officials have provided few details about how or when the plan would be carried out. Trump yesterday said that Israel would turn Gaza over to the US after the
RSS