Shvoong.com Being Targeted By Chinese Crackdown on Internet Access
Timothy Sexton
July 15, 2007
I have previously written an article that guides writers and students to Shvoong.com. Shvoong is a site where you can make a little bit of spending money by writing abstracts and summaries of pretty much anything-from poems to entire web sites. It is one of the premier sites on the internet for dissemination of information. Naturally there are any number of fearful cowards in this world that are more afraid of information being shared than of planes shooting guided missiles. Shvoong has been attacked by the repressive Chinese government that has become notorious for being the leader of placing obstacles in the way of internet access.
Chinese writers are, in fact, among the top contributors to Shvoong. Living in a country that seems to exist solely for the purpose of keeping its citizens uninformed will do that, I guess. It has yet to be determined exactly why the Chinese government has moved to block user access to Shvoong. One reason may very well be that Shvoong recently signed a contract with Tsinghua University in Beijing to receive over one million academic abstracts on such topics as medicine and technology. Yes, the idea that some of its billions of citizens might gain some information about such subjects by visiting Shvoong does ring true. Except that, as Tal Perry, Shvoong's Head of Business Development told me, 90% of the Chinese content available on Shvoong is material of exceptional quality and service that has absolutely no political agenda to speak of. So basically, there seems to be little to justify the Chinese government having taken this action.
Thus far, Shvoong has been unable to get in touch with the authorities within the Chinese government and so have been given no explanation for their action. I have been contacted by Shvoong to get this news out and I am passing along the baton to all who are interested in upholding the concept that freedom of speech isn't something that any government can take away. If you have a blog, write about this. If you write for another site, do an article about this. Contact your Congressman. Any repression of the freedom to write and read what you want in any country represents a dangerous precedent. The Chinese government cracking down on web site may seem entirely unimportant to you, but if you are a writer you've got to understand that the loss of potentially millions of readers for those contributing to Shvoong today could mean the loss of potentially millions of readers for this web site tomorrow.
Chinese writers are, in fact, among the top contributors to Shvoong. Living in a country that seems to exist solely for the purpose of keeping its citizens uninformed will do that, I guess. It has yet to be determined exactly why the Chinese government has moved to block user access to Shvoong. One reason may very well be that Shvoong recently signed a contract with Tsinghua University in Beijing to receive over one million academic abstracts on such topics as medicine and technology. Yes, the idea that some of its billions of citizens might gain some information about such subjects by visiting Shvoong does ring true. Except that, as Tal Perry, Shvoong's Head of Business Development told me, 90% of the Chinese content available on Shvoong is material of exceptional quality and service that has absolutely no political agenda to speak of. So basically, there seems to be little to justify the Chinese government having taken this action.
Thus far, Shvoong has been unable to get in touch with the authorities within the Chinese government and so have been given no explanation for their action. I have been contacted by Shvoong to get this news out and I am passing along the baton to all who are interested in upholding the concept that freedom of speech isn't something that any government can take away. If you have a blog, write about this. If you write for another site, do an article about this. Contact your Congressman. Any repression of the freedom to write and read what you want in any country represents a dangerous precedent. The Chinese government cracking down on web site may seem entirely unimportant to you, but if you are a writer you've got to understand that the loss of potentially millions of readers for those contributing to Shvoong today could mean the loss of potentially millions of readers for this web site tomorrow.
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