On June 3rd, the third-largest Chinese video site, 56.com went offline. The official reason: Technical problems. But widespread reports concluded the cause was governmental censorship. Now, the site, whose name sounds like the words "I'm happy" in Chinese, is back online.
56.com has received funding from a range of Western investors, including Silicon Valley venture firms Sequoia Capital, Disney's Steamboat Ventures and Intel Capital, along with private equity firms
The company had reportedly failed to heed prior warnings about content from the Chinese government -- and was punished as a result. A Sequoia partner in China representing 56.com had at one point met with government officials to try to get the site back up but got a chilly reception, according to a rumor heard by China blogger Kaiser Kuo.
56.com's larger rivals, Tudou and Youku, have already worked out relationships with the government that have kept their sites up for the most part; Youku, notably, received official governmental approval to operate in China, earlier this week.
A specific reason to think 56.com was censored: At one point, a source in China (who I most certainly won't mention anything more specific about) told me that 56.com had not been adequately censoring videos of the terrible May earthquake in the country. Indeed, a Washington Post article this week says Chinese journalists are still being arrested for covering one of the main causes of the high earthquake death toll -- shoddily built elementary schools, built by corrupt contractors who cut corners. However, Western media was covering that issue in May, and from China, and the Chinese government has been publicly holding local officials accountable who were involved in the school construction.
We may never know the real reason why 56.com went down. Maybe it was just a technology problem. The company itself has stayed completely silent from June 4th on.
In any case, it now remains to be seen if the site can regain its users. Now, at least they have a fighting chance.