They said Baidu and China violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as various civil and human rights laws, by conspiring to suppress their political speech from Baidu’s search engine results.

The plaintiffs said their content could be found through rival search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft’s Bing, and Google’s video-sharing service YouTube, and that the suppression on Baidu justified millions of dollars in damages.

[…] Furman put the dismissal on hold for 30 days, to allow the plaintiffs a chance to propose another means of serving Baidu, and show why China should not be dismissed as a defendant.

China did not make a formal appearance in the litigation, but had previously said the lawsuit should fail because a U.S. court cannot tell a sovereign country what to do.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, censorship, Internet censorship, lawsuits, new york city, search engines
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As part of Gu’s strategy, dozens of Yage staffers spent the workday surfing the Internet in search of negative news, comments and postings about government officials. Any official whose reputation seemed to be threatened would be contacted and offered Yage’s services as soon as negative information surfaced online.

High season for Yage’s business with local government clients was usually just before the National People’s Congress and China People’s Political Consultative Conference held every March in Beijing. It’s around conference time that officials typically come under attack from whistleblowers. It’s also when these officials are often willing to pay a premium to see negative publicity vanish.

[…] Arrested with Gu was Hu Chunyu, the financial news channel chief at Qianlong, a website tied to state-run media including the Beijing Daily newspaper, the Beijing Radio Station and Beijing TV. The site is managed by the Propaganda Department at the Beijing Municipality’s Communist Party Committee.

A few years after its founding in 2000, Qianlong started outsourcing part of its news production to public relations companies. In 2009, Yage won a more than 100,000 yuan-a-year contract to supply business channel content. Yage also won the right to post and delete articles on that web page.

[…] “We think Qianlong is shameless,” [a] source said. “But you really can’t cross it. It’s still one of the Beijing government’s official propaganda portals.”

Four Baidu employees were fired in July last year for carrying out paid deletions, and three of the four were subsequently arrested. At the time, Marbridge Consulting’s Mark Natkin told The Wall Street Journal that the problem was far more widespread: “There’s no major Chinese Internet company that has been able to completely avoid this sort of thing. It’s just very difficult to police everybody all the time.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, bribery, Internet crime, Internet entrepreneurs, National People's Congress, People's Political Consultative Conference, public relations, two sessions, whistle-blower
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The Securities and Exchange Commission began proceedings against the Chinese affiliates of Deloitte, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, BDO and Ernst & Young. The agency on Monday also moved to pursue a case they had put on hold against Deloitte.

It was the SEC’s widest enforcement effort yet to procure documents in connection with probes of possible accounting fraud of U.S.-listed Chinese companies, and raised questions about whether talks have stalled between the U.S. and Chinese governments to resolve the issue.

The SEC said it has been seeking documents related to investigations of possible wrongdoing at nine China-based companies. Chinese secrecy laws have stymied efforts to obtain audit documents that investigators need to determine whether there were accounting irregularities.

An administrative law judge will schedule a hearing to determine potential sanctions against the Chinese arms of the accounting firms, the SEC said.

The Financial Times reported that investors were spooked by the news, as shares in Baidu, Sina, Ctrip.com and others tumbled on Tuesday. Most of the accounting firms said they were cooperating with the regulators, according to Edward Wyatt at DealBook, though Kara Scannell and Shannon Bond of The Financial Times point out that the auditors are damned if they do, damned if they don’t, because they will violate U.S. laws if they withhold the documents and Chinese laws if they share them.

A number of U.S.-listed Chinese companies have come under fire over the past two years, as clouds of fraud have hung over the likes Sino-Forest, SinoTech Energy, and Focus Media. And while the SEC has subpoenaed for audit materials, Patrick Chovanec noted over the summer that Chinese regulators had blocked their information requests. Chovanec feared at the time that the SEC-appointed Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) would deregister the auditors in question, therefore leading to a delisting of all U.S.-listed Chinese firms because they would then lack a way to file audited financial statements with the SEC.

Ultimately, claims Ronald Barusch at the Wall Street Journal, The SEC had nowhere else to go in its clash with the Chinese and Monday’s action moves all sides toward a showdown. And while the SEC’s point is fair and might bring a moral victory, John Foley of  Reuters writes in DealBook that “a mass de-listing is no longer far-fetched:”

By escalating the issue to a 300-day court review, the S.E.C. may just prove that compromise is elusive. The agency is effectively asking Chinese auditors to flout local law, or China to cast off its preoccupation with state secrecy. Neither is plausible. Starting a fight as China prepares to hand over power to new leaders, who may wish to score easy political points by swatting away attacks on the country’s sovereignty, looks especially unwise.

It didn’t have to be this way. Back in 2000, when Chinese companies like Sohu and Sina first listed on U.S. exchanges, a tough stance on accountability might have worked. Instead, regulators foolishly turned a blind eye, despite the obvious contradictions in China’s state capitalist model.

Now the cost of taking a stand is high. Were the S.E.C. to refuse to accept accounts audited by Chinese firms, it might leave even established Chinese companies with no choice but to delist.

Both sides should seek a compromise to avoid the China delistings, according to a lawyer who spoke with Bloomberg’s Belinda Cao:

Should the auditors be barred from reviewing the financial statements of Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. the companies would have to withdraw from the market, Steven Winegar, a Hong Kong-based partner at Paul Hastings, which has represented companies including Nasdaq-listed Jiayuan.com International Ltd. (DATE), said on a conference call hosted by Jefferies Group Inc. today.

“That of course has a catastrophic effect on the market value and on the companies themselves.” he said on the call with investors. “It’s almost unthinkable that it will get to that stage.”

The key issue in this case is whether U.S. or Chinese regulators should have primary supervising responsibility for the accused auditing firms, according to Winegar. The SEC order “gives a fair amount of time for continuing negotiations and continuing settlements” between the Chinese and U.S. authorities, while “there’s no assurance this will be resolved any time soon.” he said.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: auditors, Baidu, fraud, Securities and Exchange Commission, securities violations, sina, sino-forest, stock market, U.S. relations
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The translations are by Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media.

21 August 2006, 16:30, Huang Jing

Recently, it has been discovered that the text “Monks Collectively Visit Prostitutes – The Background of the ‘Three Old Convent Scandal’ in Guangdong,” published by foreign websites, has been posted some domestic forums and blogs, etc., and attacks our religious policies. All websites are requested to strengthen management and earnestly inspect this, this text may not be reprinted or posted, where it has been posted, it must be speedily deleted.

21 August 2006, 21:30, Network Management Office

Content concerning the case of Gao Yingying, is no longer to be put on the main page of websites and the main page of news and forums. Stop renewing news trackers and forum trackers.

22 August 2006, 8:45, Network Management Office

All websites: the Youth World Cup has finished, please delete the special subject on the “Athletic Federation Youth World Cup;” the special subject of commemorating the Long March will no longer have “One Primary School Pupil’s Long March Website” as special subject entry, please restore the title of “Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Victory of the Long March” as entry; the special subject of running the web in a civilized manner will no longer have “Prevent Online Wrongdoing” as entry point, please restore the title of “Running the Web in a Civilized Manner” as title. In the near future, if there is no new notification, please only maintain these two entry points for special subjects in the important news section of the main page of news centers: commemorating the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Long March, and running the web in a civilized manner.

22 August 2006, 9:15, Network Management Office, Huang Jing

Sina, Sohu, NetEase, China, TOM, Xici Hutong, Western Land Forum, Mop Forum, DoNews, Blog Net, Baidu, China Search, Search Dog, Aiwen, Yahoo China, Qihoo, and Great Flag: the State Council Information Office Second Phase Internet News Training Class registration time is the afternoon of 25 August; the place of registry is the Yuanshan Grand Hotel (Xicheng District, Yumin Road, No. 2, between Anhua Bridge and the Panda Roundabout on the Axis Road, 50 metres to the west of the traffic lights, the hotel telephone number is 62010033).

24 August 2006, 9:47, Network Management Office, Huang Jing

All websites: Please put the matter of water pollution occurring recently in the Songhua River in the middle part of the important news section, do not put it in a header position.

24 August 2005, 16:56, Huang Jing

All websites, please make “Lin Biao’s diaries” into a keyword, delete all search results in search engines (including snapshots).

24 August 2006, 17:16, Huang Jing

All websites, on reports concerning the matter of workers gathering on the roof of a building to protest against late salary payments causing traffic disruption (images), all websites are requested to immediately remove it from information on their sites!

24 August 2006, 17:56, Huang Jing

Recently, a water pollution accident happened in the domestic tributary of the Songhua River, the Niu River, in Jilin City, Jilin Province, Xinhua has already issued news copy. For online reports of this matter, all websites are only to reprint Xinhua copy, do not reprint articles from other sources, do not set up news trackers, do not link it up with the Songhua River pollution incident. Management over forums, blogs and other interactive columns must be strengthened, harmful information that is inconsistent with official reports or uses the opportunity to attack the Party and State structure, etc., must be timely deleted.

27 August 2006, 0:56, Chen Hua

Search for and delete the article “Second Artillery Construction Sites Spread into Xinjiang, Tibet and Other Localities, Workload Quadruples,” search engines are to screen this article.

28 August 2006, 8:35, Network Management Office, Huang Jing

All websites, please immediately delete the recent online text concerning “Why Take the Knife of Cui Yingjie to Kill Chengguan.”

28 August 2006, 10:35, Network Management Office, Huang Jing

Propaganda instructions concerning Beijing recruiting volunteers for the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics:

(1) All sorts of information must be published according to the uniform formulation of the Beijing Olympic Volunteer Work Coordination Group. Information from other sources or non-standard formulations may not be reprinted;

(2) The wording “global recruitment” may not be adopted in news titles and reports on recruitment work;

(3) Information on negative trends occurring in recruitment work may not be reprinted.

30 August 2006, 12:12, Network Management Office, Huang Jing

Concerning the case of social security funds being diverted in Shanghai City, only transmit People’s Daily and Xinhua Net copy, do not make it into a special subject, do not open trackers, do not conduct surveys, do not debate it. All websites are requested to immediately deal with situations that do not conform to the above requirements. Forums, blogs and other interactive segments are not to discuss this.

31 August 2006, 9:00, Network Management Office, Huang Jing

All websites: please move the article “Dashan Village Committee in Panyu, Guangzhou, Forces Detention of 200 People concerning Temporary Residence Permits” to the domestic section.

31 August 2006, 9:53, Network Management Office, Huang Jing

All websites, please put the article “Beijing Network Media Deliberate the Long March Spirit in Zunyi, Chinese Long March Net Opened” in the middle or upper part of the important news section of the news center, and the title on the main page of websites.

31 August 2006, 9:53, Network Management Office, Huang Jing

Please immediately delete the article “Taiwanese Diaoyu Island Protectors in Fishing Boats Locked in Stalemate with Japanese Naval Ships, Use Drinks Bottles to Fight Back.”

2006年8月北京网管办发出的禁令（三）

2006年8月21日16时30分 黄婧

近期发现，有国内论坛、博客等贴发了境外网站刊登的”和尚集体嫖妓——广东省’三大古寺丑闻’的背后”一文，对我宗教政策进行攻击。请各网站加强管理，认真检查，不得转载、贴发此文，已贴发的要迅速删除
2006年8月21日21时30分 网管办

关于高莺莺一案的内容，不再放网站首页和新闻、论坛首页。停止更新新闻跟帖，论坛跟帖
2006年8月22日08时45分 网管办

各网：世青赛已经结束，请删除“田联世青赛”的专题；纪念长征专题不再以“一个小学生的长征网站”为专题入口，请恢复以“纪念长征胜利70周年”的 标题为入口；文明办网专题不再以“防网上恶搞”为专题入口，请恢复以“文明办网”的标题为入口。近期，如无新的通知，请在新闻中心首页要闻区只保留两个专 题入口：纪念长征胜利70周年、文明办网。
2006年8月22日09时15分 网管办黄婧

新浪、搜狐、网易、中华、TOM、西祠胡同、西陆论坛、猫朴论坛、DONEWS、博客网、百度、中搜、搜狗、爱问、雅虎中国、奇虎、大旗：国新办第 二期互联网新闻培训班报到时间为8月25日下午；报到地点为圆山大酒店（西城区裕民路2号，中轴路安华桥与熊猫环岛之间红绿灯西行50米即到，酒店电话 62010033）
2006年8月24日09时47分 网管办黄婧

各网:近期松花江支流发生水体污染一事请放在要闻区中部,不要放在头条位置.
2006年8月24日16时56分黄婧

各网:请以”林彪日记”为关键词,将搜索引擎中所有搜索结果清除(包括快照).
2006年8月24日17时16分黄婧

各网:关于工人聚集楼顶抗议欠薪致交通中断(组图) 一事的相关报道,请各网站立即从本网站的信息中删除!
2006年8月24日17时56分 黄婧

近日，吉林省吉林市境内松花江支流?牛河发生水体污染事故，新华社已发新闻通稿。有关此事的网上报道，各网站只转载新华社稿件，不转载其他来源的文 章，不开设新闻跟贴，不与松花江污染事件挂钩。要加强对论坛、博客等互动栏目的管理，对与正式报道不一致以及借机攻击党和国家制度等有害信息，要及时删 除。
2006年8月27日0时56分 陈华

清查删除千龙“二跑工地遍步新疆西藏等地，任务翻两番”一稿，搜索引擎屏蔽此稿。
2006年8月28日08时35分 网管办黄婧

各网站:近期网上关于“为何接过崔英杰的刀杀城管”一文请立即删除。
2006年8月28日10时35分 网管办黄婧

关于北京招募奥运会、残奥会志愿者的宣传提示：

1、各种消息要按北京奥运会志愿者工作协调小组的统一口径对外发布。其他消息来源、非正规口径不要转载；

2、在招募工作新闻的标题、报道中不得采用“全球招募”的提法；

3、对招募过程中出现的负面动态消息，不要转载。
2006年8月30日12时13分 网管办黄婧

关于上海市社保基金被挪用一案，只转载人民、新华网的稿件，不设专题。在转载时，不开跟帖，不搞调查，不搞辩论。请各网马上处理与上述要求不符的情况。论坛、博客等互动环节，不讨论。
2006年8月31日9时00分 网管办黄婧

各网:请将《广州番禺大山村委会强行关押200人办暂住证》一稿,移到国内.
2006年8月31日9时53分 网管办黄婧

各网：请将《北京网络媒体遵义研讨长征精神 中国长征网开通》一稿，放至新闻中心要闻区中上部，并在网站首页出标题。
2006年8月31日9时53分 网管办黄婧

请各网马上删除《台湾保钓人士渔船与日本军舰相持 用饮料瓶还击》一稿。

These translated directives were first posted by Rogier Creemers on China Copyright and Media on December 4, 2012 (here).

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 Beijing Olympics, Baidu, Beijing, Beijing Internet Instructions, censorship, Censorship Vault, Chen Hua, chengguan, Cui Yingjie, diaoyu islands, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Gao Yingying, Guangzhou, Internet censorship, Japan, jilin, Lin Biao, long march, Ministry of Truth, mop, netease, Panyu, people's daily, Qihoo, Shanghai, sina, sohu, Songhua River, State Council Information Office, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinhua, Xinjiang, Yahoo
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Baidu CEO Robin Li and his wife Ma Dongmin.

Baidu CEO Divorced? Baidu stock took a nosedive following rumors that CEO Robin Li and his wife Ma Dongmin have divorced and that Li may relinquish his post. A photo of Li and Ma on vacation in Norway has appeared on Baidu Tieba to counteract the rumors. The affected parties have not yet made any public statement. As for leadership change at Baidu, a November 19 report in Caijing on the possibility has vanished.

A search for “Robin Li” on Sina Weibo still returns results.

- Robin Li + divorce (李彦宏+离婚)
- Robin Li + marriage crisis (李彦宏+婚变)
- Robin Li + mistress (李彦宏+小三)

Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search.  CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, censorship, Internet censorship, Robin Li, Sensitive Words Series, sina weibo, weibo
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I’m not disputing that Maps does give a lot of strange results to a lot of people all around the world, but for a large, large number of people, iOS 6 Maps has been a huge improvement over Google Maps. I’m talking about those of us who live in China (you know, the place with 1.3+ billion people and the second-largest economy in the world). Google Maps was always pretty terrible here. In the big cities and tourist centers, it was passable. Once you left China’s large metropolises, however, you were pretty much on your own. You could usually see expressways, highways, and even a lot of smaller roads, but there were very, very few shops, restaurants, banks, ATMs, etc. listed.

[…] As someone who lives in China and has to find my way around, the superiority of iOS 6 Maps is clear. In my experience, the new version of Maps zooms in much further, shows more points of interest, clearly labels banks and cellphone shops (China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom), and gives the locations of ATMs and public restrooms (my original iPad running iOS 5 with Google-powered Maps doesn’t show either of those things).

Drendel’s post includes a comparison of Apple’s and Google’s renditions of an area just outside of Lijiang, Yunnan—perhaps not a large enough sample to base any firm conclusions on.

In any case, not all China-based users are benefiting from Chinese mapping partner Autonavi’s local knowledge. Charles Custer reported the company’s explanation at Tech in Asia:

AutoNavi […] has responded to Chinese user complaints by saying that there is nothing wrong with the AutoNavi Maps product, and the reason for the issues people have experienced is that apparently, the upgrade to iOS 6 has caused some users to be unable to connect to the AutoNavi service. Their maps of China, then, are being served by TomTom (another Apple Maps partner), and that’s where the mistakes are coming from.

Autonavi has offered a fix for this problem. Meanwhile, Baidu has released a major update to its own maps app.

At Sinosplice, meanwhile, John Pasden gives instructions for accessing a silver lining to iOS 6: its new system-wide text-to-spoken-Chinese function.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, Baidu, iPhone, iPhones, lijiang, maps, Yunnan
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Alibaba, Zeng predicted, will eventually connect in some way with Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Apple, Baidu, LinkedIn and others to create a giant trusted virtual “global commercial grid,” where individuals and companies will offer their talents and buy and sell products, designs and inventions.

Eventually, Zeng argued, “every individual will have to find a way to succeed” on this global grid. “National boundaries will offer you no protection.”

The other trend is that the Chinese will be big players on this grid. The creation of global trusted business frameworks like Alibaba is starting to enable a new generation of Chinese innovators — who are low cost, but high skilled — to extend their reach. We’ve seen cheap labor out of China; now we’re going to see more cheap genius.

Which is why Phillip Brown and Hugh Lauder, in a recent essay on Eurozine.com, argued that a big shift of the global labor market is under way, in which “many of the things we thought could only be done in the West can now be done anywhere in the world, not only more cheaply but sometimes better.”

Economist George Magnus writes in The Financial Times that as China loses its edge as a manufacturing hub, its growth model must “shift towards transformative technology and innovation” to remain competitive:

China’s manufacturing strategies will have to get smarter. Its 13 per cent of global R&D spending and prowess in incremental process innovation will have to focus more on product innovation, management organisation and the fusion of new information, biological, and materials technologies. Its prominence in patent registrations masks weakness in indicators such as cited patents. Chinese scientists and engineers are prolific, but their work is often viewed as a triumph of quantity over sometimes dubious quality.

It may be hard to overcome these shortcomings, which are rooted in a tradition that has rewarded good administrators over freethinking innovators, and made it hard for individuals to exchange ideas. It has also discouraged the curiosity, critical spirit and collaborative approach that are the hallmarks of advanced manufacturing.

These problems will not retard Chinese innovation and technological competitiveness forever. But to adapt, China requires extensive political reform, more robust institutions and a tilt in the role of the state towards supporting enterprise. It will not be helped by the uncertainty over the nature of its downturn and the consequences of the leadership change.

See also previous CDT coverage of innovation in China.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Baidu, Facebook, globalization, Hangzhou, innovation, LinkedIn
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The Baidu Mobile Browser, which will compete with UCWeb Inc’s UC Browser, Google Inc’s Chrome and default Android browser, and Apple Inc’s Safari, is about 20 percent faster than its rivals based on internal tests, Li Mingyuan, Baidu’s general manager of mobile and cloud computing, told reporters on Friday at a pre-launch briefing.

Baidu’s mobile browser also allows users to access a plethora of web-based mobile applications (apps) and run high-definition video through the browser without having to download apps or supporting software.

The browser, together with Baidu’s other mobile products such as its mobile operating system and cheap smartphones launched with partners, forms the core of what Baidu hopes will eventually become a source of revenue.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, Beijing, Internet, mobile technology
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伟光正 (wěi guāng zhèng): great, glorious and correct

A Western cartoon from the 1960s picked up by a contemporary netizen is captioned, “After the famine, the Party continues to be ‘great, glorious and correct’” (大饥荒后，中共继续“伟光正”).

The Chinese Communist Party has described itself as “great, glorious and correct” (伟大光荣正确 wěidà guāngróng zhèngquè) for over 40 years. A 2001 People’s Daily editorial is titled (with characteristic lack of irony) “The Communist Party of China is historically proved great, glorious and correct.” Recently, however, netizens have turned this term on its head and used it to sarcastically refer to the Party’s stubborn insistence that it is always in the right.

Netizens use the phrase in a number of ways:

1. As an adjective. Example: “When the country remains underdeveloped it is because the quality of the citizens is too low and domestic conditions are too complicated. When the country develops it is completely because they are great, glorious and correct” ( 国家发展不起来，是因为国民素质太低，国情太复杂。国家发展起来，全是因为他们伟光正了).

2. As a reference to the Party. “Great, glorious and correct cadres” (伟光正的干部).

3. As a personal name. Wei guang zheng sounds like someone’s name. A fake Baidu Dictionary entry on Comrade Wei Guangzheng (Chinese) describes a man who always thinks he is right, even though he clearly is not.

Political cartoonist Crazy Crab has illustrated the grass-mud horse use of “great, glorious and correct” in his Hexie Farm series for CDT: see “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,” “The Dragon Boat” and “The Loudspeaker.”

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, CCP, Crazy Crab, hexie farm, netizens, people's daily, propaganda, Wei Guangzheng, word of the week
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Below are comments collected from Weibo:

XuXiaoping: Some countries are busy opening up, while others are busy shutting up.

徐小平: 有的国家忙着开放，有的国家忙着封闭。

WangLifen: Some are both open and closed.

王利芬:有的一边开放一边封闭。

shootthesun: Iran should dig a super big hole and move the whole country into it. They can dispatch Cerberus and the Revolutionary Guard to watch the entrance, use fifty centers to wash everyone’s brains out and kill off the rebels with butcher knives. That way they can really defeat the American imperialist conspiracy of peaceful evolution.

射日邪弓：伊朗应该挖个超级大地洞，然后举国迁进去，派三头犬和革命卫队守住洞口，用五毛愚民洗脑，用屠刀杀戮反叛，应该就能挫败美帝和平演变的阴谋。

sails&clouds: Our leaders should study this. The Internet is full of disharmony. If we build an intranet, we can save all that money we’re spending on the Great Firewall.

千帆逐云：建议我们的领导学习之，国际互联网充满了不和谐，搞成内联网连GFW的钱都省了。

gravePlatform: We can totally lend “Kung Fu Net Master” Fang to them. It’s best they don’t return him…

古墓月台：完全可以把咱的“功夫网之父”方校长借给他们，最好不用还了。。。

lizeWatermonster: I strongly support this. I’m copying @CCPPropagandaDept @MinofIndandIT @SARFT so they can learn…

麗澤水怪：强烈支持，抄送@中宣部 @工信部 @广电总局 等部委学习…

yanxiang_pterosaur: Weak, Baidu took care of this great enterprise long ago.

严祥_飞龙切：弱爆了，百度早已完成这一伟业。

LazyMansiPad: So we aren’t the luckiest ones after all! Do you think we can overtake Iran and North Korea?

懒人支架iPad：原来我们还不是最幸福的！你说我们有可能赶超伊朗和北朝鲜吗？

YellowChina: The student has outdone his master.

黄天宇：小弟真是青出于蓝而胜于蓝啊

Via CDT Chinese.

“Netizen Voices” is an original CDT series. If you would like to reuse this content, please follow the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 agreement.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, chinternet, Great Firewall, Internet, intranet, Iran, Netizen Voices, netizens, North Korea, sina weibo, weibo
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Although she declined to comment on the nature of the content being deleted, [Baidu spokeswoman Betty] Tian said the practice had been limited to Baidu’s Tieba service, which functions like a collection of message boards and blogs that allow users to comment on different topics or people.

In China, individuals or companies often pay money to have controversial or negative posts deleted from websites and blogs, according to analysts. The practice is generally illegal in China.

“There’s no major Chinese Internet company that has been able to completely avoid this sort of thing,” said Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting. “It’s just very difficult to police everybody all the time.”

[…] One service, geared toward removing negative reviews of products, promises users they can pay after the targeted post is deleted. Another site charges 35 yuan to 45 yuan, or roughly US$5.50 to US$7, per modified or deleted post.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, online bulletin boards
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Lin Shuhao, as he’s known here—Linsanity has been translated to linfengkuang—is drawing attention not only for the breakout performances that have endeared him to American fans, but for qualities of particular interest to the Chinese: his earning power, his bi-cultural roots, and his place in the complex dynamic of mainland China’s relations with Taiwan. “You know his agent’s phone is ringing off the hook,” one Beijinger put it. With Yao Ming in retirement, Chinese fans (and N.B.A. marketers) are desperate for a new draw in China, and Lin has potential. He understands Mandarin, and speaks enough of it to answer some interview questions, though one joke making the rounds is that former Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury—who has spent the last two years in the Chinese league—might have better pronunciation. Most fans appear to have readily claimed Lin as Chinese, though some have taken note of the fact that he is American-born, with parents from the breakaway island of Taiwan. As one commentator put it: “Do Africans jump up to claim Kobe as one of their countrymen?”

Max Klein, a former researcher for the Letter from China, and now chief basketball correspondent, says local fans are still trying to make sense of Lin’s abrupt success. On the Chinese basketball blogs, they’re comparing him to “a trader laid off from a ‘second-tier’ firm”—Golden State—“who lands a janitorial position at Goldman Sachs, only to somehow win millions in fees for the firm within the first four days. A strategic pick-up for the Knicks, or did they hire their golden boy by happenstance?” Other Chinese fans have taken the opportunity to make a political observation: a photo of Lin towering over his parents touched off an endless string of theories about his height, including “that his stature is related to a lack of food [quality] scandals” in America, according to Charlie Melvoin, who tracked the trend at Baidu.

Osnos also recommends a list of Chinese translations of NBA team names, and those killing time can also check out the Jeremy Lin Word Generator. One person who isn’t impressed by Lin’s sudden rise, however, is boxer Floyd Mayweather. He believes that Lin, who was named NBA player of the week on Monday, is drawing attention in the United States because of his race rather than his performance on the court. From ESPN:

“Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he’s Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don’t get the same praise,” Mayweather wrote on his Twitter account on Monday afternoon.

Lin’s agent, Roger Montgomery, didn’t immediately respond to a text message sent by ESPNNewYork.com. Leonard Ellerbe, Mayweather’s top adviser, didn’t return a phone call from The Associated Press.

The Diplomat’s Jiang Xueqin writes that Lin’s story is worthy of a Michael Lewis book, alongside Moneyball and The Bling Side, though his race also helps to explain why he floundered in obscurity in the first place:

While Lin is the quintessential American underdog story of hard work and tenacity, passion and persistence conquering all it wasn’t an Asian-American story until Lin came along. Cultural prejudices against Asian-Americans tend to be stubborn and persistent because they happen to be mostly true: Many Asian-Americans excel in school without showing passion or curiosity, and become professionals where they demonstrate little initiative or creativity.

When college recruiters saw Lin play, many were probably thinking “He’s a scrawny Asian-American kid” and some may have been thinking “Does he have the passion and drive to excel at the game, or is he just playing us so that he can get a full scholarship to come to our school, drop out of the program to focus on his grades, and then end up as an investment banker?” And Lin probably didn’t articulate his love of the game because he also has those stereotypically Asian-American traits of humility, forbearance, and reticence.

As Lin’s recent performances prove, he must passionately love the game, which permitted him to stay focused and work hard, despite the cultural discrimination and his lack of genetic gifts. And that’s what makes him such a compelling story to people all around the world, whether they be basketball fans or not.

Against a tide of racism and discrimination against Asians in America, from the infamous “Debbie Spend-It-Now” campaign ad to recent mistreatment of Asian Americans in the U.S. military, Ling Woo Liu writes for CNN that Lin’s race matters whether we like it or not:

Lin himself has been candid about the racism he’s encountered along the way. “It’s a sport for white and black people,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008. “You don’t get respect for being an Asian-American basketball player in the U.S. … I hear everything. ‘Go back to China. Orchestra is on the other side of campus. Open up your eyes.’”

Unfortunately, success doesn’t stamp out racism. Minutes after Lin’s breathtaking career-high 38-point performance against the LA Lakers Friday night, FoxSports.com national columnist Jason Whitlock tweeted “Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.” After condemnation by the Asian American Journalists Association, he tweeted an apology, acknowledging that he had “debased a feel-good sports moment. For that, I’m truly sorry.”

Almost exactly a decade ago, some of us remember similar knocks against a certain 7’6″ new kid on the block. USA Today ran a column by Jon Saraceno in 2002 saying, “the [Rockets] franchise could wind up with egg foo yong all over its face” and “What happens the first time a bona fide NBA strongman, say Shaquille O’Neal, whacks [Yao Ming] in the chopsticks?”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, Floyd Mayweather, Jeremy Lin, New York Knicks, sina weibo, yao ming
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Under the mantle of the China Written Works Copyright Society, nine writers are suing Apple in Beijing’s No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court for copyright infringement of 37 works, seeking 11.91 million yuan in compensation. The group—in conjunction with other authors—has also waged campaigns over copyright infringement against Baidu and Google. In 2010, Google issued a formal apology to the writers, while in 2011 Baidu deleted nearly 2.8 million items in response to complaints from more than 40 authors ….

In August 2011, a writer named Zhu Jintai became the first Chinese individual to file a lawsuit against Apple when he sued the company for the alleged infringement of intellectual property rights. He resorted to litigation, he said, after Apple refused to provide any information about Apple’s developers.

Apple eventually removed the novel and issued a statement saying that developers, according to the terms of their agreement with Apple, may not violate, misappropriate or infringe copyright. The lawsuit is still pending.

Read more about Apple, ebooks and the Baidu Wenku case via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, Baidu, Baidu Wenku, Google, Han Han, Murong Xuecun, piracy, writers and literature
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During the discussion, which ended Saturday, the bosses reached a “common agreement” to “safeguard” the spreading of positive information online and “strengthen self-management and self-discipline”, the report said.

They also agreed to “resolutely curb Internet rumours, Internet pornography, Internet fraud and the illegal spread of harmful information” to develop the web into a “positive and beautiful spiritual home”.

Communist Party chiefs made the call in a list of “cultural development guidelines”, which analysts said were designed to strengthen the government’s control of the web and make state-run media more competitive.

See also: 50 Microblogs Shuttered as Web Crackdown Continues and China Detains Three for Rumor-Mongering via CDT.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alibaba, Baidu, Internet censorship, sina, social media
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The Shanghai 99 Readers’ Culture Co., Ltd., the owner of the store, plans to sell an e-reader application through Apple’s App Store by the end of this year in an effort to capitalize on the increasing popularity of tablet computers and mobile devices.

Mobile device users who download the application will be able to browse the company’s library and purchase copyrighted e-books for just 60 percent of the cost of buying a printed version, according to Yuang Yuhai, the company’s president.

“The Internet is an infinite bookshelf,” Huang said. He is already known for his ability to adapt to China’s changing publishing industry in the Internet era ….

Traditional publishing houses are scrambling to find solutions to what could become a dangerous trend for printed media. These companies have taken to using microblogs as a marketing tool in order to increase the visibility of their products ….

The change indicates that publishing has become a more dynamic and interactive industry, rather than merely focusing on the one-way transfer of information, according to Huang.

Ebook reading is also a prominent feature of Baidu’s new Yi mobile OS, based on Google’s Android. Baidu was said last month to have bought a 40% stake in ebook vendor Fanshu.com; the company’s earlier Wenku (“Library”) document and ebook sharing platform sparked accusations that the company was deliberately profiteering from piracy.

In April, Xinhua reported impressive growth of ebook consumption last year, with mobile phones the most popular platform:

The survey, conducted by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication (CAPP), covers more than 19,000 people from 51 cities in 29 Chinese provincial regions.

It says that Chinese people between the ages of 18 and 70 read 613 million electronic books in 2010.

Among them, 23 percent read e-books via mobile phones, up 8 percentage points from 2009. Another 3.9 percent read books on e-book readers and over 18 percent read books on the Internet, it said.

Online distribution and reading of novels has become well established in China in recent years, as Wired reported in 2007:

Zhang Muye is a thirty-something office worker who shows up to his Chinese investment company on time. Yet to millions of Chinese fans, he is the author of ‘Ghost Blows Out the Light’, an internet novel viewed more than 6 million times online. It has sold 600,000 copies in print ….

It’s a particularly lucrative game. Zhang is far from unique in China, where writing and reading novels online has become the hobby of an estimated 10 million youth. Yet unlike the music world, where MP3s are threatening to kill off CDs, online novels in China are helping physical books fly off the shelves. Print versions of popular online works sell by the millions and publishers, as well as authors, are cashing in.

“Novel,” the top search term on China’s biggest search engine, Baidu, yields thousands of Chinese literature websites. More than 100,000 amateurs shirk mundane duties to publish their tales of fantasy and love in installments on these platforms. A handful of anonymous web authors have seen their pageviews soar into the upper seven digits. When that happens, print publishers come knocking.

The phenomenon has much in common with the enormous popularity in Japan of ‘keitai shousetsu’ (cellphone novels), which are distributed, read and even written on mobile phones.

Sources:

Chinese publishers adapt to rising popularity of e-books – Xinhua
Survey indicates e-book boom in China – Xinhua
The Chinese Novel Finds New Life Online – Wired

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Baidu, Baidu Wenku, books, cell phones, literature, mobile technology, publishing
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