Chinese cyber police team up with search engine to crack down on rumors

BEIJING - Chinese cyber police and leading tech firm Baidu have launched an online service to control the spread of rumors.

The service is imbedded into the country's top search engine, and all news portals and online forums that Baidu operates.

Baidu said the company used big data, natural language processing and artificial intelligence technology to gather suspicious messages on the Internet and forward them to the institutes, experts, and the police to verify. The company will help them write stories to dispell the rumors and send that information to a target audience. Internet users will also be warned of Baidu search results that contain suspicious messages.

Baidu vice president Wang Lu said the company's search engine received nearly 3 billion requests to verify suspicious claims. Closer collaboration between the tech company and police will bring the dangers of false information down to a minimum, he said.

Baidu said it would build a database with up to 1 million verified rumors and share the information accordingly.