Company: ZHIHF
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000729
Chunk: 28

Company: Zhihu Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 28
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We may be subject to regulatory actions or legal proceedings in the ordinary course of our business. If the outcomes of these regulatory actions or legal proceedings are adverse to us, it could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may be subject to regulatory actions, litigation, disputes, or claims of various types brought by regulatory authorities or our competitors, users, content creators, employees, or other third parties against us in the ordinary course of our business. Such regulatory actions, disputes, allegations, complaints, or legal proceedings may damage our reputation, evolve into litigations, or otherwise materially and adversely affect our reputation and business. For example, as a UGC-based online content community, we may not be able to identify and remove all illegal or inappropriate content in response to user or any third-party complaints on a timely basis. As such, we have been, and expect to continue to be, involved in disputes or legal proceedings arising out of defamation, invasion of privacy, or other infringement claims. We may become subject to additional types of legal or regulatory proceedings as our business grows and the variety of our services expands. Litigation is expensive, may subject us to the risk of significant damages, requires significant managerial resources and attention, and could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. The outcomes of actions we institute may not be successful or favorable to us. Lawsuits against us, whether meritorious or not, may also generate negative publicity that significantly harms our reputation, which may adversely affect our user base.

Advertisements displayed in the Zhihu community may subject us to penalties and other administrative actions.

We monitor the advertisements displayed in the Zhihu community to ensure that they comply with applicable laws and regulations. In addition, where advertisers are required to obtain special government approvals for specific types of advertisements prior to delivering such advertisements on the internet, such as advertisements relating to medical care, pharmaceuticals, medical instruments, agrochemicals, and veterinary pharmaceuticals, we take steps to check or verify that the advertisers have fulfilled the requisite government requirements. Non- compliance with these laws and regulations may subject us to penalties, including imposition of fines, confiscation of our marketing services income, order to cease dissemination of the advertisements, and order to publish an announcement correcting the misleading information. Under the circumstances of any serious violation by us, PRC government authorities may force us to terminate all or part of our marketing services or revoke our licenses, and we and responsible persons may incur criminal liability.

We cannot assure