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Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

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Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#21

Post by polemic »

ciarannolan wrote: post #4
amrrs wrote: post #2

> The company said it would no longer block accounts outside of mainland China at Beijing's request, but did not say outright how it would handle such requests that affect users within mainland China. Instead, Zoom said, it would develop technology to block users based on geography. Funny how these kind of statements are thrown around wherever something is blown up about Zoom. I'm one of those who had goodwill on Zoo…

It's the Facebook playbook of doing something illegal/immoral, getting caught, saying 'gee sorry, that was an accident', then doing it all over again.

Hard disagree. Until extremely recently Zoom was a mature enterprise video conference solution. It's a B2B product that has suddenly exploded in general consumer usage, and suddenly product and commercial decisions made in that context are at odds with their new market.

They don't sell ads or your personal data, they're not interested in your private life, and their users are their customer. In other words, they lack the nefarious motive of the Facebooks of the world.

They're changing - rapidly - and I believe we can take their efforts to change at face value.

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#22

Post by joyfulmantis »

the offical blog post is at: https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/06/11/improving-our-poli...

Was it wrong to suspend accounts outside of mainland china? Ultimately yes, but as they stress these were accounts that were holding meetings with mostly mainland chinese participants in it.

Any company operating globally needs to follow all the local laws where they operate in. Zoom's decision to develop technology to ban participants from specific countries joining meetings seems to be a good solution to this problem.

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#23

Post by dicomdan »

gonehome wrote: post #14

“The reality is Zoom operates in more than 80 countries and continues to expand, which requires compliance with local laws even as Zoom seeks to promote the open exchange of ideas.“ This kind of rationalization isn’t just a problem with Zoom, Apple does the same thing - blocking podcasts and other apps in the Chinese market (also the Taiwan flag emoji). This is wrong. What’s legal and what’s right are not the same th…

The difference is that Zoom does China’s censorship outside of Chinese borders.

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#24

Post by lotsofpulp »

ct520 wrote: post #12
ciarannolan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Facebook playbook of doing something illegal/immoral, getting caught, saying 'gee sorry, that was an accident', then doing it all over again.

LOL for real. I will cry no tears for FB when they get what’s coming to them. Will be the MySpace of my kids time.(if it’s not already is)

FB has had solid revenue and net income for many years, so much that it’s one of the most valuable companies in the world. It’s not comparable to MySpace, and definitely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#25

Post by yingw787 »

I'm not sure I agree with Zoom's strategy here. Adtech can get away with compromising user's privacy because users aren't customers, they're eyeballs for advertisers. Zoom by contrast does primarily B2B sales, and calls do need to have some semblance of privacy. If a Western-based multinational corporation competes with a China-based company, Zoom suddenly looks a lot scarier.

People sometimes say nothing came of the Snowden revelations. I think they're wrong. When the NSA mentioned connections between datacenters were tapped, I believe FAANG immediately end-to-end encrypted links between datacenters, because otherwise your business secrets depend on how cozy you are with the government.

I'd even say it may have played a role in Google Fiber. I don't know about Google laying its own fiber because it wants to be nice or because it wants to roll in the mud with Comcast. But if Google was suspicious that ISPs could get Google data by tapping end users, then it makes sense to keep up the pressure, and less sense after getting everybody to use HTTPS. Timing seems to work out.

Might be a load of conspiracy hogwash, but it fits the laws of power.

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#26

Post by lmz »

I don't see why this is such a big deal. Company with operations in China gets order from Chinese government to suspend accounts of people the Chinese government don't like. Company with operations in the US gets order not to trade with people from US embargoed countries [1]. What's the difference?

[1]: e.g. https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/07/19/gcp-move-update/

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#27

Post by xster »

I mean our Twitter and Facebook have been shutting down accounts from elected offices of NATO "targets" like Venezuela and Iran for a while now https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/12/us-pressure-social-media-.... I don't see people up in arms saying "legality is irrelevant".

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#28

Post by BadassFractal »

refurb wrote: post #15

What I'm shocked about is that a group of senior leader at Zoom thought this was a good decision. Maybe they thought they could get away with it and things would blow over?

Or they knew this would blow up on Twitter, but that they would get in trouble in China for refusing the government request of their own volition.

So they did what the govt wanted, waited for the uproar, and now they can CYA by blaming the Western mob on the forced change of heart. Zoom ends up doing the right thing, and the execs don't end up in a gulag somewhere.

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#29

Post by kfk »

gonehome wrote: post #14

“The reality is Zoom operates in more than 80 countries and continues to expand, which requires compliance with local laws even as Zoom seeks to promote the open exchange of ideas.“ This kind of rationalization isn’t just a problem with Zoom, Apple does the same thing - blocking podcasts and other apps in the Chinese market (also the Taiwan flag emoji). This is wrong. What’s legal and what’s right are not the same th…

I don’t want to justify zoom but I do want to point out that we shouldn’t be ok with judging a country to the point of saying they have “bad laws”. Maybe it’s because I am Italian and have seen what happens when discussions go head to head like this (II world war for instance). If we would stand by “no acceptance of bad laws”, we’d isolate those countries even more. I think it’s far better to accept that’s how they operate today BUT also engage with them in conversations that matter to us like democracy and human rights.

Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request

#30

Post by duxup »

gonehome wrote: post #14

“The reality is Zoom operates in more than 80 countries and continues to expand, which requires compliance with local laws even as Zoom seeks to promote the open exchange of ideas.“ This kind of rationalization isn’t just a problem with Zoom, Apple does the same thing - blocking podcasts and other apps in the Chinese market (also the Taiwan flag emoji). This is wrong. What’s legal and what’s right are not the same th…

Apple blocks things in China right?

Zoom performs China's bidding globally.

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