Shanghaiist Website Abruptly Shut Down

Popular website Shanghaiist was abruptly taken offline early this morning after its US-based owner pulled the plug on the site.

In an announcement posted to DNAinfo and all Gothamist LLC sites — which included Shanghaiist, DCist, Chicagoist, LAist, SFist and, of course, Gothamist — CEO and billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade Joe Ricketts explained the sites would cease publication:

The letter was posted at 5pm Eastern Standard time (5am in China).

The network of Gothamist sites as well as DNAinfo now redirect to Ricketts' letter, and the archives appeared to have vanished. But as Quartz points out, the archives still exist and will probably be resurrected.

The move, which came as a shock to many, comes just a week after Gothamist employees in New York voted to unionize.

A former Shanghaiist editor said: "We worked for years in the shadow of the Great Firewall, worrying we could be blocked and kicked out of the country at any time." 

"We never expected the threat to come from the US, from a petulant spoiled billionaire resentful he lost his fight to prevent employees unionizing. His cruel and arbitrary response, which came with no warning, shows exactly why that drive was necessary," he said.

"At least Gawker got to write its own obituary. Shanghaiist was just run down in the street."

First founded in 2005 by Dan Washburn, Shanghaiist has been a staple of life for people not just in Shanghai, but all around China and the world, with over five million fans on Facebook alone.

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