Last updated: August 17, 2011 6:14 pm
China’s state broadcaster attacks Baidu By Kathrin Hille in Beijing
China’s main state broadcaster has attacked Baidu, the country’s largest online search company, in a move likely to fuel concern among foreign investors about the risks of operating in the Chinese internet industry.
CCTV, which is launching its own internet search engine, broadcast investigative reports and published blog posts and commentary criticising Baidu as a “monopolist”, which, it alleged, abused its power and failed to manage content responsibly.
Some observers interpreted the coverage as an attempt to discredit a competitor with consumers and advertisers ahead of CCTV’s annual auction of advertising slots.
“Could it really just be a coincidence that CCTV launches its own search engine and attacks Baidu at the same time?” said Xie Wen, a former head of Yahoo China.
Given the broadcaster’s role as one of the ruling Communist party’s most authoritative propaganda mouthpieces, it has also raised fears that the campaign against Baidu is the prelude to a wider clampdown on the vibrant and often chaotic internet sector.
The government has struggled to adjust its traditional propaganda approach as growing numbers of citizens go online for news and information, often from informal sources.
“Investors in Chinese internet stocks like Sina, Youku, Sohu, Tencent, Alibaba et al should be wondering if Baidu is the only target of this CCTV campaign, or if other firms are next,” said Bill Bishop, a Beijing-based investor, in a blog post.
On Wednesday, CCTV set up a special page on its website under the headline “Trust is Gold”, claiming that it was participating in a government initiative to safeguard broadcasting on the internet. CCTV said it was “exposing false information, negative behaviour driven by unfair competition, and promoting the establishment of a healthy, fair online environment.”
But the page featured nothing but CCTV programming and online comment scathingly critical of Baidu. One programme aired on Tuesday night featured a professor who accused Baidu of failing to remove allegedly libellous comments against him from a social networking service it hosts. Another programme featured an anchor reading out comments by internet users disappointed with Baidu’s web search.
Three years ago, Baidu changed its advertising keyword auctioning system in response to a wave of criticism about fraudulent ads and a lack of clear separation between sponsored and ‘natural’ search results. That criticism had also been triggered by an attack from CCTV.
“There are certainly some problems with the development of the internet in China, and Baidu has made a number of mistakes,” said William Long, a software engineer and prominent internet commentator, on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social networking service. “But letting an institution which doesn’t understand the internet and even has a hostile attitude towards it handle the issue is definitely the wrong approach. That will not make the internet any better.”
Both Baidu and CCTV declined to comment.
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