Behind Baidu Post Bar： Pay the money and open the theme post bar.

Cai Jiming is a professor in Tsinghua University. He has been engaged in teaching and scientific research for many years. From one day in 2007, Cai Jiming suddenly found that his life had changed dramatically because of Baidu Post Bar, a product of Baidu. The people who scolded him seemed to be overwhelming.

One day at the end of 2007, Professor Cai Jiming of Tsinghua University suddenly received a phone call, which made extremely bad personal insults to Professor Cai Jiming’s wife and Professor Cai Jiming’s daughter, and also abused Professor Cai Jiming’s ancestors, the school and even the democratic parties. Cai Jiming hasn’t figured out what’s going on, and then, there’s a cell phone message coming. The content of the short message is also an abuse and personal attack on Professor Cai Jiming.

Not only mobile phones and e-mails, but even at home, people keep calling home to harass. One of them, He Jinsong, sent him more than 30 insulting messages.

Cai Jiming described the scene at that time: "I sent more than 30 short messages to my mobile phone and made countless anonymous calls. He sent a text message and then dialed a phone to prove that the phone dialed your message and received it. How bad it was, and then he sent me an email. "

Professor Cai wondered why so many people came to scold him all at once. How did you leak your personal information? Later, many students and friends told him that Mr Cai would go and have a look. There is a Cai Jiming in Baidu Post Bar, and your phone number, mobile phone and email address are all posted on it.

After listening to the students, Cai Jiming immediately visited Baidu Post Bar. I don’t know if I don’t see it. This look really startled him.

Baidu has a post bar named after the word Cai Jiming. bar owners begins with the meaning that people who are dissatisfied with the holiday system and want to scold Cai Jiming can post here. In this bar in Cai Jiming, there are a lot of posts about personal attacks, abuse, insults and even language threats, with a number of more than 3,000 posts and more than 600 topics. Some even combine Professor Cai’s head with animal portraits.

Originally, Cai Jiming was entrusted by the central leadership of the Democratic Progressive Party to set up a research group on holiday system reform in Tsinghua University, mainly to study how to reform our holiday system at that time. How to break down the long holidays into short holidays, and allocate the legal holidays saved to the traditional festivals of Qingming Mid-Autumn Festival and Dragon Boat Festival.

After the State Council decided to cancel the announcement of the May 1 Golden Week, some opponents took Cai Jiming as the object of venting their grievances, and Baidu Post Bar became a gathering place for these people. Because there are a lot of insulting and abusive posts in Baidu Post Bar, and his personal information is also leaked through Baidu Post Bar, Cai Jiming went to Baidu Company to negotiate.

But to Cai Jiming’s surprise, his request was rejected. At first, Professor Cai entrusted his agent to file a complaint with Baidu, asking to close this bar, but he didn’t get an answer. Later, he asked to be bar owners, but he was also rejected.

Professor Tsinghua: Baidu camp is a bad fortune.

Cai Jiming believes that Baidu, as the operator, has failed to fulfill its obligation to review the content of the website, indulged netizens in posting insults or slanders on the forum, and infringed on the legitimate rights of others, which constituted a violation of his right to reputation, portrait, name and privacy and a language threat.

In the case of fruitless negotiation, Cai Jiming took Baidu Company to court: he asked to delete the comments that violated his personal rights in the post bar and close Cai Jiming; Make an apology statement on the homepage of Baidu Post Bar and keep it for more than two years; Provide personal information of those who verbally abused and commented on Cai Jiming Bar, and claim 2 million yuan from mental damage compensation.

Cai Jiming said: "I pursue him for 2 million yuan. I just want him to learn a lesson, increase his infringement cost, and provide a case for the society and other victims. You should take up legal weapons and safeguard your dignity. I think when more and more people in the whole society can protect their rights and know how to protect their rights by law, the infringement will be reduced, and enterprises like Baidu will no longer be able to do whatever they want, and the cost of infringement will increase. "

The agent of Baidu said that in the Internet environment, it is necessary to strictly distinguish the behaviors of netizens and Internet service providers. The Baidu Post Cai Jiming Bar involved in the case belongs to bulletin board service (namely BBS service). The name and content of the post are posted by netizens, and the publisher should bear the responsibility according to the law. Baidu is only the operator of the post bar, not the publisher of the post involved. After discovering the content in the post bar that violates the regulations, they have deleted it in time and fully assumed the management responsibility, so they do not bear the tort liability.

As a result of the court hearing, Cai Jiming lost the case in the first instance, and Cai Jiming refused to accept the appeal.

Baidu lost the second trial and compensated Professor Tsinghua for 100,000 yuan.

Cai Jiming said: "There is no doubt that Baidu is not cursing the street, but it means that Baidu has provided a megaphone, a platform and a way to spread and expand quickly to the world. So who should bear this responsibility?"

Baidu also believes that citizens have the freedom and right to express their opinions on the post bar, and Professor Cai’s request to close the post bar involved has no legal basis. At the same time, I have already posted a reminder in the post bar, warning internet users not to use insulting language. Therefore, Baidu has fulfilled its management responsibility.

Cai Jiming said, "He said I had a warning, but it was useless to have a warning. We know that when we fly, the airline airport will warn you not to bring dangerous goods on the plane, but is it because of the warning that the security check will not be carried out? This is his extremely irresponsible business behavior. "

The Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court held that Baidu Company’s delay in fulfilling its obligations of post-event management led to the expansion of the damage consequences of network users infringing on Cai Jiming, and should bear corresponding responsibilities. It is decided that Beijing Baidu Netcom Technology Co., Ltd. will compensate Cai Jiming for mental damages of RMB100,000 and notary fees of RMB5,080 within 15 days after this judgment comes into effect.

Cai Jiming said: "I didn’t fight this case for money. Even if I can’t win this case, even if I can’t get a penny of compensation, I will still make money in it, but I will prove to the whole world that Baidu is infringing, and it is blatant infringement. His profit is ill-gotten wealth."

Baidu: We can control bar owners of Post Bar.

Is the content of the post bar really freely published by netizens? Will Baidu manipulate the content of the post bar? On August 15th, as a brand promoter of a company, the reporter met Li Youjing, the manager of the key account department of Baidu Beijing Branch.

Li Youjing told reporters: "Every post bar in Baidu has bar owners, although bar owners is a netizen. But Baidu can control him. As long as bar owners is responsible, he will always be bar owners. In the case of Professor Cai, he thinks it is only a matter of communication.

However, Professor Cai Jiming has another analysis of Baidu’s delay in handling his complaint. "What is Baidu’s profit model? It is nothing more than this post bar. It increases the click rate. There is a lot of noise in the post bar, anecdotes and scandals of celebrities. You just speculate on it. You scold him and scold you. The more lively it is, the better. Then the click rate of this post bar will increase, and its click rate will increase. Then manufacturers will advertise on it, and the advertising expenses will increase. According to relevant sources, the advertising revenue of Baidu Post Bar alone last year.

Baidu: Pay the money and open the theme post bar, which is called Nugget business.

Post Bar, which claims to be a free expression of netizens, is actually a profitable tool for Baidu. How is Baidu Post Bar profitable? In a conversation with Li Youjing, the key account manager of Baidu Beijing Branch, the reporter learned that the number of clicks on Baidu Post Bar is indeed quite large. How good is it? According to the manager, relying on this kind of traffic, Baidu has developed a new product named "Baidu Nuggets", which specializes in advertising in Post Bar. How did this "Baidu Nuggets" get through the Nuggets Post Bar? Li Youjing said that Baidu has made several customers for the product of Nuggets. Like those customers of big brands, Baidu has already signed up. Most customers can’t afford this kind of high-consumption clicks. Nuggets cost at least 3,000 yuan a day.

Not only that, the account manager told reporters that Baidu Nugget is a service that Baidu provides to high-end customers, and it even has the lowest consumption.

"If you don’t spend 3,000 yuan, we won’t put you online or sign a contract for you, because the position of Nuggets is limited. If customers say they don’t want to spend 3,000 yuan a day, I will spend 500 yuan, and Baidu will refuse to cooperate with customers."

So what kind of service will Baidu provide to their so-called high-quality customers? If the product information promoted by these customers on the Post Bar is inaccurate, and some netizens in the Post Bar raise objections, will Baidu choose to delete such public comments that are harmful to advertisers, or will it choose to stop the false propaganda of advertisers? Li Jingji said, "As long as it doesn’t involve personal health or anything, it won’t cause illness or death, and this should be fine."

Baidu: If the bidder goes up, the bidder will go down.

In addition, Baidu’s so-called high-quality customers can freely choose the advertising location. Is there a clear distinction between the public natural interaction platform and the advertising location in the post bar?

Manager Li Youjing said: "On the surface, these are all web pages published by everyone at will. Just click on a topic, all of which are spontaneously published by netizens. In fact, it is not certain. Baidu will look at the relevance. If someone spends money on promotion, then he will give priority to those who spend money. But when a person does not do it, the ranking will not be empty, and it will automatically grab some links from the search database."

From these links on the right, we can’t see any words like promotion, but in fact, there is no boundary between the advertising information of baidu promotion customers and the natural search results displayed on the right side of the post bar.

Editor’s note: Baidu clearly has everything under control, but in order to earn the click-through rate, it ignores the content that infringes on citizens’ personal rights, which not only shows the lack of corporate integrity, but also the lack of business ethics. As the saying goes, a gentleman loves money well, what kind of money can be earned and what kind of money can’t be earned. As an enterprise operator, there should be a clear boundary. If an enterprise needs to rely on fraud and slander to make profits, it will be difficult for it to win the respect of the market and it will be difficult for it to stand firm in the market.

At present, Internet enterprises in China are still a new industry, and the relevant laws and regulations are still relatively backward. Therefore, although there are various industry self-regulatory alliances in the Internet industry, this industry is still full of extortion. The prerequisite for maintaining the ecology of this industry is to operate in good faith and abide by morality and conscience. We must not tolerate any enterprise that ignores business integrity and social morality, infringes on personal privacy, spreads false information, or even makes a profit. If any enterprise dares to do this, then we will fight it to the end.