Chinese Search Engine Baidu To be Investigated by Authorities
The Chinese do not use Google for online searches since the state has banned the globa search engine giant from its servers for refusing to comply with the censorship norms of the country. Instead the residents of China use their very own search engine named Baidu and have been doing so without any trouble for the last 16 years. However, it seems that the publicly listed company that has revenues in billions has run into serious trouble after it emerged that possible misinformation on its search engine resulted in the death of a student who was trying to treat his cancer.
Just like Google, Baidu promotes certain content in the search results in return for advertising fees and it was one of those promoted links that led to the mishap. 21 year old Wei Zexi, a resident of the Shaanxi province in China, was searching for hospitals, where he could find a cure for a little known type of cancer. There are hardly any hospitals in the reagion where he could be treated for his condition, known as synovial sarcoma but according to the information he read on the website, his condition could be trated at the Second Hospital of the Beijing Armed Police Corps.
The treatment was expensive and close to $30,000 was raised for the treatment by the members of his family. However, the treatment that he got at the hospital was erroneous and he was neither given chemotherapy nor a surgery was performed. M. Zexi detailed everything in a blog post prior to his death and accused the hospital of promoting and administering the sort of treatment that had not proven to be effective for his condition. The revelations have resulted in widespread fury among the Chinese public and search engine Baidu has come under attack from plenty of netizens. People's Daily, which is published by the Communist Party observed, "Companies that were involved in services that deal with human life should be particularly conscientious of their duties when conducting their businesses. Billions of net users trusted Baidu for their search engine and online forum services, the company is hence responsible for the trust and is obligated to taking up their social responsibilities."
