Categories

Surf the web as Baidu bot. Ever wondered what the Baidu bot get’s to see online that you do not?

Have you ever wanted to surf the web as a bot? Ever wondered what a bot
gets to see online that you don't? In their latest online work,
!Mediengruppe Bitnik allows you to become a Baidu bot to find out.

The number one search engine in China, Baidu uses web crawlers that
extensively scrape the web for content for their search engines. Only
what the bots see is indexed, for discovery later by users searching on
Baidu.

Refuse to be Human allows you to install a web extension that
changes your browser’s user agent to match that of the Baidu bot, giving
you access to what is referred to as the ‘grey web’ – a layer of content
only visible to bots. This simple web extension allows you to experience
the web in a novel way: You will see fewer ads and less taylored content
and you will be able to access websites and archives usually paywalled.


Step 1:
💻 Install the web extension

Step 2:
📡 To start surfing as Baidu bot, click on the new icon in the browser toolbar

Step 3:
🏄🏾‍♀️ Surf your favourite websites

Step 4:
🌐 Check RYBN's Double Negative Captchas to see if you pass the bot test.
http://rybn.org/projects/1000scores/captcha.php
(You might have to take the test twice until it works.)


Refuse to be Human - The Baidu edition is an art piece by !Mediengruppe Bitnik commissioned by Kunsthaus Zurich.

The source code [1] for refuse to be human is free software and published under the GNU GPLv3.

<3 !Mediengruppe Bitnik

[1] source code: https://wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.bitnik.org/data/code/1000_bots_webextension.zip