This is the moment the Chairman of China’s biggest search engine – Baidu – has water poured over his head during a speech amid controversy over the company’s use of censorship.
The incident occurred as billionaire co-founder of Baidu Inc., Robin Li Yanhong, was giving a keynote speech on a valet service for parking powered by Artificial Intelligence during a forum in Beijing, the capital of China.
In the video, Li can be seen on stage introducing the technology to the spectators when a man in a black t-shirt walks up to him and empties a bottle of water over his head.
Local media reports suggest that Baidu is one of the most restrictive search engines when it comes to censorship.
The search engine tycoon stands still as the water is poured over him before saying in English “what’s your problem” as the perpetrator runs away.
Security guards can be seen chasing after him and reports say he was caught after he left the stage.
The crowd can be heard applauding and Li then says in Mandarin: “As you have just seen, many unexpected things can happen on the road to AI”.
The perpetrator has not been officially identified but local media report users of Chinese social media site say his name is Cheng Guanqi who had posted onto his page asking Baidu’s virtual assistant what would happen if he poured water “over your boss’ head”.
The man’s motivation is unclear but Li, whose personal fortune is estimated at around 6.9 billion GBP, has been criticised recently after the search engine announced their first quarterly loss since they became a public company in 2005. The company reportedly has around 70 percent of the search engine market share in China.
It is unclear if the perpetrator was arrested by the police.
To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: Alex Cope, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: AsiaWire Report
The Ananova page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.
