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Internet potential for truth and justice reduced to lies, fraud, trash
By Wan Lixin |
December 17, 2010, Friday
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Print Edition
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WHEN the Internet first became known, there had been much anticipation of a brave new world where truth will out, and justice prevail.
What we actually see today is a deluge of lies, frauds, and vulgarity.
A well-established home moving company legally known as Gongxing recently filed a lawsuit against search engine Baidu for hosting numerous links to scam moving firms also identified as Gongxing.
A couple years ago I myself had a brush with a fake Gongxing, thanks to misinformation on Google.
We had agreed on every detail when I wised up to the fact. I called the company for what it was and refused its service.
One of my relatives had the misfortune of actually being "served" by one such company a couple of years ago just before the Spring Festival.
When furnishings had been moved half way between the two homes in a heavy rain, the mover stopped to demand more payment, and unlike most of the customers who chose to yield to extortion, my relative refused, and the family's belongings were dumped on the road.
On August 11 this year, all reputable, legal home moving companies in the city announced their collective decision to exit the Baidu website, thus leaving the website with the responsibility of delinking all illegal movers.
Complications
Nevertheless, in the ensuing four months, Baidu continued to derive handsome profits from the scam companies. Obviously Baidu has been so used to such complaints that it knows better than to be distracted by complaints.
When Gongxing contacted Baidu's department handling legal affairs, it was directed to the technical department, which explained that screening illegal websites is too complicated to contemplate, and then required Gongxing to draw up a complete list of all the bogus companies.
The search engine doesn't find it too complicated when it comes to ranking business entities, because they only need to rank the sum of money received.
I always believe that by reducing words and phrases to a monetary value, search engines like Baidu and Google are consolidating their control over human mind, by defining the very words and concepts we use.
My name in Chinese is evocative of a number of things, but when I entered it in Baidu, it elicited a number of real estate projects in the country.
When you examine the results, you cannot but marvel at the imaginative power of Baidu where money is concerned.
But if you enter renquan ("human rights") in Baidu's knowledge search engine, the sage pleads ignorance by refusing to answer.
Unlike the factory boss in Toksun, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, who knew how to make money from the mentally retarded, Baidu has yet to find how to extract profits from some esoteric concepts, like the one mentioned.
Proposals
Relevant authorities are slow to step in, because, as Baidu announced gleefully, it's too complicated.
It would be hard to track down the scam companies, harder to build an ironclad case against them, and virtually impossible to establish where the tort occurs, given the nature of cyberspace.
The erring website is in so advantageous a position that the most effective way to seek redress is not to squander the money on a lawsuit, but rather to give the money to Baidu to secure a better ranking.
If Gongxing feels uncomfortable with being ranked with so many illegal namesakes, it could also pay to have its competition deleted from online. That would not be complicated.
As a matter of fact, paid deletion is a thriving business now.
Han Feng, a former government official of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region who was disgraced after his diaries detailing sexual escapades were leaked online, was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment on Tuesday, for corruption. When Han's juicy diaries were first posted online, Han had attempted to pay somebody 150,000 yuan (US$22,000) to have the postings deleted. He was unlucky.
The cyber age has so reduced our attention span that our memory and forgetfulness are equally susceptible to manipulation.
What we actually see today is a deluge of lies, frauds, and vulgarity.
A well-established home moving company legally known as Gongxing recently filed a lawsuit against search engine Baidu for hosting numerous links to scam moving firms also identified as Gongxing.
A couple years ago I myself had a brush with a fake Gongxing, thanks to misinformation on Google.
We had agreed on every detail when I wised up to the fact. I called the company for what it was and refused its service.
One of my relatives had the misfortune of actually being "served" by one such company a couple of years ago just before the Spring Festival.
When furnishings had been moved half way between the two homes in a heavy rain, the mover stopped to demand more payment, and unlike most of the customers who chose to yield to extortion, my relative refused, and the family's belongings were dumped on the road.
On August 11 this year, all reputable, legal home moving companies in the city announced their collective decision to exit the Baidu website, thus leaving the website with the responsibility of delinking all illegal movers.
Complications
Nevertheless, in the ensuing four months, Baidu continued to derive handsome profits from the scam companies. Obviously Baidu has been so used to such complaints that it knows better than to be distracted by complaints.
When Gongxing contacted Baidu's department handling legal affairs, it was directed to the technical department, which explained that screening illegal websites is too complicated to contemplate, and then required Gongxing to draw up a complete list of all the bogus companies.
The search engine doesn't find it too complicated when it comes to ranking business entities, because they only need to rank the sum of money received.
I always believe that by reducing words and phrases to a monetary value, search engines like Baidu and Google are consolidating their control over human mind, by defining the very words and concepts we use.
My name in Chinese is evocative of a number of things, but when I entered it in Baidu, it elicited a number of real estate projects in the country.
When you examine the results, you cannot but marvel at the imaginative power of Baidu where money is concerned.
But if you enter renquan ("human rights") in Baidu's knowledge search engine, the sage pleads ignorance by refusing to answer.
Unlike the factory boss in Toksun, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, who knew how to make money from the mentally retarded, Baidu has yet to find how to extract profits from some esoteric concepts, like the one mentioned.
Proposals
Relevant authorities are slow to step in, because, as Baidu announced gleefully, it's too complicated.
It would be hard to track down the scam companies, harder to build an ironclad case against them, and virtually impossible to establish where the tort occurs, given the nature of cyberspace.
The erring website is in so advantageous a position that the most effective way to seek redress is not to squander the money on a lawsuit, but rather to give the money to Baidu to secure a better ranking.
If Gongxing feels uncomfortable with being ranked with so many illegal namesakes, it could also pay to have its competition deleted from online. That would not be complicated.
As a matter of fact, paid deletion is a thriving business now.
Han Feng, a former government official of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region who was disgraced after his diaries detailing sexual escapades were leaked online, was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment on Tuesday, for corruption. When Han's juicy diaries were first posted online, Han had attempted to pay somebody 150,000 yuan (US$22,000) to have the postings deleted. He was unlucky.
The cyber age has so reduced our attention span that our memory and forgetfulness are equally susceptible to manipulation.
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