Z-Library China Operators Began to Censor Certain Kind of Books
web.archive.orgThe announcement was posted on Z-library Weixin Official Account. Original link was: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/5Yri4QHEAQuV5lTS6mBHWg
Translated to English by op:
Z-library Weixin Public Account / Bilibili Account Statement: The volunteers operating the public account and the Bilibili account have not participated in any operations of the zlibrary website, have not received any donations, and are completely unaware of the politically related books uploaded by users on the zlibrary website.
Regarding the Website: Effective immediately, the Z-library website
1. No longer accept any donations from mainland China.
2. Block any access from mainland China.
3. Discontinue the Z-Point project in Mainland China.
Thank you for your support and understanding.
The official Z-Library blog https://z-library.se/blog/50 doesn't mention removal of any books or that they're blocking Mainland Chinese users/donations on their end.
I guess the "Zlibrary Official" WeChat account is run by people who were operating an unofficial mirror site (there's lots of these, many quite shady) and collected donations for their own use via Chinese payment methods, which has now gotten them into hot water.
It seems like they think they can continue operating as long as they remove a handful of books from the mirror, but I somewhat doubt it. The manual effort required for censorship compliance is likely to be substantial.
EDIT: the Internet Archive has a snapshot of the donations page http://web.archive.org/web/20240403051246/https://z-library.... with Alipay and WeChat Pay listed, so there must've been a money trail to someone in China. Maybe the WeChat Official Account is more official than I thought.
I believe it is not a decision made by official z-library operators, but by volunteers who helps organizing related things in China.(Still waiting for announcement from z-library official though.)
It is pretty sad to know about that, and it means that people in China lose a precious method to exchange books(and knowledge).
Volunteers who work in China to help with such things will need to endure risks.And publication regulations are quite strict in Mainland China.
- Except for textbooks, there're some books Chinese government doesn't welcome on the z-library website.
- And Z-Points used for exchanging books means that people are able to distribute books without interference of the government(as far as I'm concerned).