CEO and Co-founder of Internet Giant Doused in Water at His Own Conference

People sit below a Baidu logo at the Baidu headquarters in Beijing on Dec. 17, 2014. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)

Daniel Holl

China reporter

Daniel Holl is a Sacramento, California-based reporter, specializing in China-related topics. He moved to China alone and stayed there for almost seven years, learning the language and culture. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

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July 8, 2019Updated: September 7, 2019

biggersmaller

Robin Li, the CEO and Co-Founder of Baidu, the largest Chinese internet search engine, was embarrassed on stage at an Artificial Intelligence conference on July 3, according to video shared on Twitter. An unnamed individual came on stage and dumped an entire bottle of water on Li’s head, then quickly left the stage. The act may represent growing resentment from Chinese citizens on Baidu’s service to the authoritarian Chinese regime. This includes developing facial recognition technology for monitoring individuals.

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