Baidu Baike

Baidu Baike (/ˈbaɪduː ˈbaɪkə/; Chinese: 百度百科; pinyin: Bǎidù Bǎikē; lit. 'Baidu Encyclopedia') is a Chinese-language collaborative online encyclopedia owned by the Chinese technology company Baidu.[1] It was launched in April 2006.[1] As of November 2019, it had 16 million entries and more than 6.9 million editors.[1]

Baidu Baike
百度百科
The main page, on 1 February 2016
Type of site
Internet encyclopedia project
Available inStandard Chinese
Founded2006
Headquarters
Beijing
,
China
OwnerBaidu
Created byRobin Li
URLbaike.baidu.com
IPv6 supportipv6.baidu.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional (required to edit pages)
Users+6.9 million (2019)[1]
Current statusActive
Baidu Baike
Chinese百度百科

Critics of the encyclopedia note that it censors its content in accordance with the requirements of the Chinese government.[2][3][4]

History

Baidu Baike was launched in April 2006.[1] After 20 days, it had more than 300,000 registered users and more than 100,000 articles, surpassing the number in Chinese Wikipedia.[5] As of November 2019, it had 16 million articles and more than 6.9 million editors.[1]

Baidu's William Chang said at WWW2008, the conference of the World Wide Web Consortium, "There is, in fact, no reason for China to use Wikipedia ... It's very natural for China to make its own products."[6] When searching with the search engine Baidu, the link of the corresponding entry in Baidu Baike, if it exists, will be put as the first result or one of the first results.[7]

Community

There are three organized groups within Baidu Baike community. The Baike Elite Team consists of about 340 core contributors that are directed by Baidu and serve as community liaisons. There is also a group of campus ambassadors made of students and an expert team with over 2,500 members, including university professors.[1]

Partnerships

Baidu Baike engages in partnerships with cultural institutions in China and abroad to digitize cultural heritage. In late 2017, Baidu signed an agreement in China to create "2,000 online digital museums" in the next three years.[8] In early 2018, partnerships were expanded to cover 1,000 Spanish cities and tourist sites, including the Camino de Santiago, the Sagrada Família and the Prado Museum.[9][10]

Controversies

Censorship
Further information: Censorship in China and Internet censorship in China

Being in the jurisdiction of the Chinese government, Baidu is required to censor content on their encyclopedia in accordance to relevant laws and regulations such as the China Internet Security Law and the National Intelligence Law.[11] All editors need to register accounts using their real names before editing, and administrators filter edits before they go public.[12] This censorship has attracted criticism.[2][3][4]

Further information: Intellectual property in China

In 2007, Florence Devouard, then Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, said that "They [Baidu Baike] do not respect the license at all, [...] That might be the biggest copyright violation we have. We have others."[2][12] Users of the Chinese Wikipedia created a list of entries allegedly infringing Wikipedia's copyright.[1] The Wikimedia Foundation decided not to pursue any legal action.[12] In response to criticism, Baidu stressed that Baike is a platform for user-generated content.[2]

See also

References
  1. Zhang, Jane (20 November 2019). "How Baidu built an encyclopedia with 16 times more Chinese entries than Wikipedia". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 18 March 2020. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  2. Woo, Eva (13 November 2007). "Baidu's Censored Answer to Wikipedia". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 23 August 2020. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  3. Jason Q. Ng, August 28, 2013, Who’s the Boss? The difficulties of identifying censorship in an environment with distributed oversight: a large-scale comparison of Wikipedia China with Hudong and Baidu Baike Archived 10 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto
  4. Han-Teng Liao, (2013). How do Baidu Baike and Chinese Wikipedia filter contribution?: a case study of network gatekeeping. Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration. doi:10.1145/2491055.2491082
  5. "Baidu desafía a la Wikipedia en China con su nueva enciclopedia 'on line'". El Mundo (in Spanish). EFE. 12 May 2006. Archived from the original on 19 March 2020. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  6. Webster, Graham (22 April 2008). "Baidu's William Chang: 'No reason for China to use Wikipedia'". CNET News. Archived from the original on 5 October 2008. Retrieved 22 June 2008.
  7. "《互动百科诉百度"垄断"》". 孙超逸. 网易. Archived from the original on 14 November 2011. Retrieved 23 February 2011. (Chinese)
  8. Wang Kaihao (5 December 2017). "Govt, Baidu to jointly create 2,000 online museums". China Daily. Archived from the original on 13 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  9. Wang Kaihao (8 February 2018). "Spanish pilgrimage route soon in Baidu encyclopedia". China Daily. Archived from the original on 13 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  10. "Baidu creará recorridos virtuales del Museo del Prado y el Camino de Santiago". eldiario.es (in Spanish). EFE. 6 February 2018. Archived from the original on 13 April 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
  11. Cimpanu, Catalin. "China's cybersecurity law update lets state agencies 'pen-test' local companies". ZDNet. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  12. Nystedt, Dan (26 August 2008). "Baidu May Be Worst Wikipedia Copyright Violator". PC World. Archived from the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
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