Chinese language search engine Baidu has launched Baidu Baike, an online encyclopedia modelled on the lines of Wikipedia, the Florida-based free online user-generated encyclopedia. Baidu Baike had a soft-launch in the last week of April, and generated tremendous interest. Baidu Baike went formally online on May 13, 2006.

Like Wikipedia, Baidu Baike is also a user-generated treasure trove of information. Only registered users can make and edit entries. Unlike Wikipedia, however, Baidu Baike does not allow inclusion of subjects deemed to offend the authorities. These include topics on Falun Gong, Democracy and Tiananmen Square among others. Baike specifically bans pornographic or violent content, advertising, politically reactionary content, personal attacks, unethical content and malicious, meaningless content. Since many of these categorizations are broad and sweeping, the administrators at Baidu Baike can decide what will go online and what will not.

Since inception, Baidu baike inspired tremendous user interest, leading to submission of over a million entries in hardly three weeks. However, a Wikipedia article has pointed to criticism that many articles on Baidu Baike have been lifted and edited to suit Baidu's encyclopedia.

Baidu is the largest search engine in Chinese. Baidu's chairman Robert Li recently told the Financial Times that Baike has received an overwhelming response from users.

Interestingly, Wikipedia itself was accessible to Chinese internet surfers as recently as 2005. This was blocked by Chinese authorities, who have very strict internet control laws.

Though Baidu Baike has been accused of shielding the Chinese regime, the fact remains that self-censorship is something which even freedom-loving American multinationals practice in China. Among the US-based web companies which have tweaked their policies of information free flow to suit the Chinese authorities include Yahoo, Google and MSN. Now, Baidu Baike joins this elite group.

Just 20 days after its soft launch, Baidu Baike has been able to draw as much 300,000 registered users, the Chinese search engine-portal said. It also said that on an average, it uploads about 5000 new topics.

Unlike Wikipedia, Baidu Baike also has a set of experts to vet each and every entry that goes into its database. Also those searching for terms like "democracy" or "Falun Gong" from outside the Chinese mainland are immediately and temporarily throws out of Baidu Baike. Baidu Baike also claims exclusive copyright over all content in its database.