2012 in Review: Baidu's Top Searches Include Censored Terms

Baidu has just posted its Top 10 Fastest-Rising Search Terms and Top 10 Social Search Terms for 2012. Numbers 1 and 3 on the former are "Wang Lijun Incident" ( 王立军事件) and "Bo Xilai Removed From Posts" (薄熙来被免职). Number 1 on the latter is "Bogu Kailai" (薄谷开来). Regarding Gu Kailai, Baidu had this to say: Gu Kailai, wife of fallen Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, was the Lady MacBeth of this dramatic year politically. When she was publicly named on a CCTV1 news broadcast as being “strongly suspected” in the murder of British national Neil Heywood in Chongqing, many found it odd that all references to her included her husband’s surname, appended to hers as a kind of double surname. Speculation was that this was a none-too-subtle attempt to tie her husband more closely to her misdeeds. Searches for her peaked again around the time of her trial, when many netizens believed that a body double had been used in court. This has since been generally disprove