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'."

Comments

Orlowski would love this

[FhnuZoag]

The irony is that this is fairly close to what many western critics of Wikipedia propose. 'Moral responsibility', stronger 'editorial controls', protection of living people, 'accountability', anyone?

I guess this post is kinda flamebaity, but well...

Re:I Love Articles Like This

[kfg]

I'm afraid we consider that a negative and dispirited post.

It's the wall for you. Smile. Your children will be with you. Only one of them will have a real bullet.

KFG

Re:I Love Articles Like This

[Golias]

So then are you taking the position that the high esteem for free speech is *not* a value that should be universally shared?

That it's not okay to speak out against the values of the culture you are in?

Somebody mod this guy down!!!

Er... wait...

Re:In communist china...

[RingDev]

Scarey enough, that was going to be my next question. If you attempt to submit an article, and it gets edited, does your user account and IP go onto a government watch list?

-Rick

Didn't hackers solve this years ago?

[bill_kress]

Ch1na sux0rs. You can never fi1t3r me, i r 2 l337 4 u!

Side note: This brings up an interesting discussion a chineese friend and I had the other day.

There are some things in America that simply won't work in China. One, he claims, is all you can eat restaraunts. People will just move in until you kick them out. When they have a salad bar, people will build 3 foot high salads (Search for it on Flicker--it's a pretty amazing sight to behold).

This also came up when we were discussing selling a house. He was wondering why we clean the house when we leave. We don't have to clean the carpets or drapes, but you just do--often spending quite a bit of money that we don't have to.

Apparently there are many other examples, all coming down to, he claims and I paraphrase: Chineese people are much less likely to look out for the "Common Good" unless forced to by law.

With this concept in mind, I kind of wonder if open source concepts (including the contents of the wikipedia) will work in China, or will it all be like our whitehouse/wallmart where everyone is only adding entries when it helps themselves personally.

ps: I wouldn't even consider that this might be a racial issue, it's obviously cultural (if it existis at all--if not please correct me!)

Re:Didn't hackers solve this years ago?

[eklitzke]

My girlfriend is Chinese, and it's really fun to talk to her family about the cultural differences between China and America. For example, they were amazed that in American parks there are ducks and geese that can just walk around, and even go up to people for food. Apparently in China there would be a problem with people trying to catch the ducks, so that in the few places where you can see ducks out in public they stay the hell away from people. The same goes for flowers, which apparently aren't normally grown in parks because people would just pick them all!

This isn't to suggest that in China there isn't a value for the public good. Quite the contrary. Just a few years ago if you went to the Temple of Heaven the big steps that lead into the temple weren't fenced off at all. Specifically, there is a huge relief carving that goes up through the center of the stairs, and people had enough respect and common sense not to abuse that privelege by walking on it, or vandalizing it. All through Beijing there are landmarks that weren't protected at all from the people, because they didn't need to be. Of course, a lot of this has changed recently, and in the past few years some of these things have started to be fenced off.

On the Linux note, her parents view Linux with a kind of mild amusement. They find it somewhat humorous that people would spend so much time and effort to write free software, and think I'm kind of crazy for choosing a career with Linux.

Cultural Relativism, Universal Declaration of Huma

[Stargoat]

Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities make sense in terms of his or her own culture. Some followers of this principle are the Khmer Rouge, the Taliban, and practitioners of Sati.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, outlining the organization's view on the human rights guaranteed to all people. Chief amount these rights are:

* The right to life, liberty and security of person.

* The right to an education.

* The right to participate fully in cultural life.

* Freedom from torture or cruel, inhumane treatment or punishment.

* Freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

* Freedom of expression and opinion.

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

censorship can cut down on spam

[TheGratefulNet]

this thought just ocurred to me.

mostly, the portscan and connect attempts (break-ins) are from .cn (they surely are the lion's share of the hack attempts at my site).

I'm perfectly happy to ban all of .cn from my home (dsl based) site. I usually do /16 blocks on their netblocks, as I discover them, anyway.

but how about this for a pro-active idea? put photos of tienenmen sq. (the REAL photos - you know what I mean) on your home page. that, alone, should get your IP blocked by the chinese gov.

end result: you've just installed a spamblock closer to the source than you could ever accomplish without their 'help'.

I think I'm going to try this. (what is there to lose?)