Not long ago, Baidu issued a statement saying that on September 9 and September 12, Sanlu Group did indeed express the hope that Baidu would block negative news about Sanlu, but was rejected by Baidu.
Recently, it has been widely reported online that Baidu received 3 million yuan from the Sanlu Group to help shield all negative information about Sanlu. In the afternoon of the 13th, Baidu issued a statement saying that on September 9 and September 12, Sanlu Group did indeed twice express the hope that Baidu would block negative news about Sanlu, but was rejected by Baidu.
The following is the full text of the statement:
Recently, an internal document allegedly from the Sanlu Group has been widely circulated online. It claims that during Sanlu's recent public relations crisis, there were plans to invest 3 million yuan to seek Baidu's assistance in blocking all negative news about the Sanlu Group. After the news spread, many media friends, colleagues, and netizens who care about Baidu called the Baidu PR department at the first time to inquire about the authenticity of the information, which also caused us to pay high attention to this rumor.
One of the most important values in Baidu's philosophy is to be realistic. We, like all netizens who care about Baidu, hope to understand the entire truth and restore the facts to everyone. Colleagues from relevant departments of Baidu found the original text of this letter online in the first time (attached is the original fax of the letter). This "internal document of Sanlu" claims that "Baidu, as a search engine, is the gathering place for all websites and also the main platform where most consumers obtain search information. For Sanlu Group, it will be a heavyweight medium in the public relations process... It is strongly recommended to establish a good cooperative relationship with Baidu during this special period when the event has not yet been widely exposed, to prevent the outbreak of negative news from becoming uncontrollable in large quantities, while at the same time gaining control over news public relations and not being threatened by small websites." At the same time, the document also states that "Sanlu has established strong cooperation with Sina and Sohu, and unless involving notifications from national authoritative institutions, these two websites will have no negative news about Sanlu Group this year."