Shvoong is a content site run by Israeli webpreneurs from Tel Aviv. It is unique in that it collects summarized essays on virtually any topic under the sun. The focus though is in the areas of literature and scientific research. Content submitters can earn money calculated based on number of visitors to their essays.
In March last year, Shvoong’s project was handled by TCS’ (Tata Consultancy Services) Lucknow center at the time of launch, and one of its founders Avner Avrahami has this to say when the project was completed:
In India you get the best software job done with global quality in half the price than in other parts of the world.
Shvoong has proven quite popular among historians and scientific fraternity, but of late it’s in news for a completely different reason. The site has been barred in China. Users there cannot gain access to the site, and it’s not known why the Chinese authorities did so.
Timothy Sexton, the recent winner of Associated Content’s maiden ‘Content Producer of the Year’ award, writes that one reason for Chinese government’s action may 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’.
In absence of any explanation from the concerned authorities it can only be pure conjecture as to why such an action has been deemed necessary. But if you think this is something that has no parallel in China in the past, think again.
Only some days back the authorities at China’s Xiamen city decided to clamp a law by which every surfer in the city will have to provide their real names when posting messages in websites registered in the city (see my story, No anonymity for Chinese blogger). This decision was taken after residents of Xiamen mounted a successful Internet campaign against proposals for a huge chemicals factory.
Clearly, what goes by freedom of expression everywhere else has a different meaning in China.
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