李彦宏：警惕百度的30天破产

所属教程:金融时报原文阅读

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2020年08月29日

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李彦宏：警惕百度的30天破产

“魏则西事件”后，百度董事长兼CEO李彦宏首度发声，警告全体员工，如失去用户的支持，百度离破产只有30天。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

bankruptcy 破产['bæŋkrʌptsɪ]

Cyberspace Administration of China 国家网信办

distort 扭曲；使失真[dɪ'stɔːt]

Barclays 巴克莱银行（公司名）

vet 审查；诊疗[vet]

vaguely 含糊地；茫然地['veɪglɪ]

commercialization 商业化[kə,mə:ʃəlai'zeiʃən]

moderator 调解人；缓和剂['mɒdəreɪtə]

clinic 临床；诊所['klɪnɪk]

haven 港口；避难所['heɪv(ə)n]

阅读马上开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间，对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。

如果您读完全文用时为：那么，您的阅读速度相当于每分钟阅读的英文单词数

3分33秒母语为英语者的朗读速度 140

2分40秒母语为英语的中学生的阅读速度 250

1分37秒母语为英语的大学生的阅读速度 350

0分55秒母语为英语的速读高手 1000

Baidu chief tells staff improve focus on users or face bankruptcy （551words）

By Charles Clover in Beijing

-----------------------------------------------------

The chief executive of Baidu has said the Chinese search engine must reform or face “bankruptcy in 30 days”, following a scandal over an advertisement for cancer therapy.

“Our values have become distorted, and financial performance has become more important to us than user experience,” Robin Li told employees in a letter published a day after Cyberspace Administration, China’s main internet regulator, imposed controls on medical advertising on the site.

The search engine has been under heightened scrutiny following the death of a 21-year-old student from a rare form of cancer in April. His parents said he used Baidu to search for alternative treatments, and eventually paid Rmb200,000 ($31,000) for “biological immunotherapy” offered by a Beijing hospital. They added that the experimental treatment had no effect and led him to miss opportunities to use proven treatments.

Since the scandal broke earlier this month, Baidu’s share price has fallen more than 13 per cent as investors have questioned its dependence on under-regulated medical industry for much of its revenues.

Healthcare accounts for 20-30 per cent of the company’s search income, according to Barclays, while search revenues represented 84 per cent of the group’s total sales in 2015.

The regulator on Monday told Baidu to vet advertisers more carefully, mark and attach risk warnings to all paid search results more clearly. It also said ads must comprise only 30 per cent of results displayed on a page.

Mark Natkin, head of Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting, said the Cyberspace Administration’s statement was vaguely worded and its financial impact on the company would only become clear in the coming days.

Mr Li pledged in his open letter to change Baidu’s corporate culture, which he said was “drifting away from its users” by focusing on profits. “If we lose the support of users, we lose hold of our values, and Baidu will truly go bankrupt in just 30 days!” he wrote, saying the crisis was worse than any incident the company had previously experienced.

“I see senior engineers trapped in a conflict of interest between commercial interest and user experience, and often compromising the latter. Users are raising questions concerning the fairness and transparency of our commercial promotion results, and complaining about commercialisation of our products,” he said.

This is not the first time commercial relationships with the medical industry have created problems for the company.

In January, the company apologised after criticism over medical advice found on its online forums known as Tieba. Users had attacked the company for replacing the volunteer moderator of a board devoted to haemophilia with a for-profit clinic that paid Baidu for the privilege.

In 2014, Baidu was involved in a scandal after an ad for “Gay conversion therapy”, including electronic shocks and hypnosis, led a Chinese customer to sue. A court ordered the company to remove the ad in December 2014, although it did not find Baidu guilty of any wrongdoing.

Guo Yang, an analyst of mobile medicine at Analysys International, a Beijing-based internet research group, said the web had become a haven for unreliable medical information in China mainly because it was under-regulated.

“The law restricts clinics and medical equipment companies from advertising on TV and radio, so naturally these clinics turn to the internet, which is less restricted and where advertising is cheaper,” he said.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. What has become more important to Baidu as Robin Li told employees?

A. user experience

B. enterprise culture

C. financial performance

D. open mind

2. How old was the dead student from a rare form of cancer?

A. 21

B. 13

C. 22

D. 30

3. What is Baidu’s major income source in 2015?