Company: ZHIHF
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000729
Chunk: 29

Company: Zhihu Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-15
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 29
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 you that all content contained in the advertisements displayed in the Zhihu community complies with applicable advertising laws and regulations, especially given the uncertainty in the interpretation of certain PRC laws and regulations. The PRC government may, from time to time, promulgate new advertising laws and regulations in the future to impose further requirements on our marketing services relating to specific industries, such as medical care, pharmaceuticals, health care, and other similar businesses. If we are found to be in violation of applicable PRC advertising laws and regulations, we may be subject to penalties and our reputation may be harmed, which may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

We depend on service providers to provide services that are critical to our business, which exposes us to various risks that may materially and adversely affect our reputation, business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We currently use a large number of third-party service providers to provide services that are critical to our businesses. We have engaged third-party service providers to provide online payment, content distribution, data support, and other services. If any of these service providers breaches the obligations under the contractual arrangements to provide such service to us, or refuses to renew these service agreements on terms acceptable to us, we may not be able to find a suitable alternative provider for the service. Similarly, any failure of or significant quality deterioration in such service provider’s service platform or system could materially and adversely affect our user perception and may also result in reduced user visits or cancelation of premium content purchases. If any such risks were to materialize, our reputation, business, financial condition, and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

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Any significant disruption to our technology infrastructure or our failure to maintain the satisfactory performance, security, and integrity of our technology infrastructure would adversely affect user experience and harm our reputation.

Our ability to provide users with superior experience depends on the continuous and reliable operation of our technology infrastructure, including our IT systems and cloud infrastructure, the failure of which may significantly impair our user experience and decrease the overall attractiveness of our community to both users and advertisers. Disruptions, failures, or unscheduled service interruptions could hurt our reputation and cause our users and marketing services clients to choose our competitors’ platforms. Our IT systems are vulnerable to damage or interruption as a result of fires, floods, earthquakes, power losses, telecommunications failures, undetected errors in software, computer viruses, hacking, and other attempts to harm our systems. These interruptions may be due to unforeseen