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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

#91

Post by jeswin »

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…

It's unfair to lay the blame squarely on private companies when things like this happen. If we have to defend freedom, democratic nations need to step up. The US probably will (for various reasons), but Europe won't. Europe will speak up and act when it comes to smaller nations, but will continue to do $550B in trade with China without complaining.

There has never been a peaceful rise of a dictatorship. Hong Kong and South China Sea today, Taiwan is next. The future is scary.

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

#92

Post by jbay808 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #80
whiddershins wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly, because if you are based in a certain country, you must follow their laws regardless of where the user is. Plus obeying local laws in regards to local residents, which don’t apply to this allegation. So, by this logic, Zoom’s actions only make sense if they are based in China.

Zoom can choose to ban / block whoever they want for whatever reason they want. Can’t they? They’re not required to do business with any particular individual by statute, are they?

I think the above discussion is about whether they have to, not whether they can. Zoom can ban all of their users if they want to, but presumably they only will do so if pressured, because businesses want users and also suspending accounts is bad press. By the way, you're also allowed to be outraged by what a business does even when that business is acting within its rights.

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

#93

Post by threatofrain »

gonehome wrote: post #66
joyfulmantis wrote: post #64

So are you saying that companies operating in New Zealand shouldn't follow New Zealand law to ban the Christchurch shooter's manifesto?

No, I’m saying that there isn’t an immediate answer to any of these questions and companies need to evaluate it themselves when deciding. The country’s own legal framework isn’t enough to decide for you. I think your moral relativism is lame, both here and in your other comments. It might feel good to offload that responsibility, but if you do, and you operate in a country that has problematic laws, then your self-as…

You're basically saying that different nations can't develop their own moral and legal conversations fast enough, and thus an international intelligentsia needs to pick up the slack; a bit of noblesse oblige.

Not a very reliable mechanism, and kind of a story of a ticking time bomb.

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

#94

Post by kd5bjo »

bonestormii_ wrote: post #53
dheera wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Legality should be the bare minimum standard - and in countries with bad laws (Middle East, China) it shouldn’t even be that. Honestly an app only needs to operate out of one country. To have users in other countries, all that is needed is an open TCP/IP connection and a cross-border payment system (e.g. PayPal, bitcoin); it is not necessary for them to operate a local business entity, which would mean that they sh…

I'm inclined to agree with you actually, and in spirit, I definitely do. But what's to stop a European from hosting content on USA servers, posing as USA company, and violating their regulation--even specifically targeting users local to their area from that remote server? Granted, if significant revenue is generated they'll have to exist officially in one place or another in order to report the income, but not all s…

> But what's to stop a European from hosting content on USA servers, posing as USA company, and violating their regulation--even specifically targeting users local to their area from that remote server?

That’s what customs and border control is ultimately for: to ensure that goods being imported are compliant with local laws. In the case of data, this means national firewalls— something that would fundamentally change how the internet works.

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

#95

Post by komali2 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #80
whiddershins wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly, because if you are based in a certain country, you must follow their laws regardless of where the user is. Plus obeying local laws in regards to local residents, which don’t apply to this allegation. So, by this logic, Zoom’s actions only make sense if they are based in China.

Zoom can choose to ban / block whoever they want for whatever reason they want. Can’t they? They’re not required to do business with any particular individual by statute, are they?

Nope! As a US company though of course they're not allowed to refuse to do business with someone based on gender, religion, or ethnicity though.

However it's still unethical.

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

#96

Post by est »

From earlier news:

https://www.axios.com/zoom-closes-chinese-user-account-tiana...

> Zhou and other organizers told Axios in a statement. "As the most commercially popular meeting software worldwide, Zoom is essential as an unbanned outreach to Chinese audiences remembering and commemorating Tiananmen Massacre during the coronavirus pandemic."

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

#97

Post by baybal2 »

monocasa wrote: post #20
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…

Also, as absolutely reprehensible Apple's similar actions are, Zoom canceled _a US based account_ because of a Chinese request. It's one thing to be all "we comply with local laws", and another to enforce one country's geopolitical aspirations across international borders. Like, I think companies should take a stand and both aren't acceptable, but Zoom takes new, additional steps here.

> Companies that work to suppress the rights of citizens are complicit in that suppression and its legality is irrelevant.

100% true. American corporations, and businessmen who collaborated with NSDAP in jew gassing "because it was the law," well, just did what they did. It made them genocide collaborators, and criminals regardless if they did it under the law, or not.

As ancient Romans were saying "a crime can be a tiny stone in a bag of flour."

Slavery is a crime, even if it is not unlawful in a last few countries practicing it.

People who go rape children in places, where, well, child rape is not illegal are committing a crime.

Dotcoms who go play ball with criminal states, which make a crime lawful under a law, claiming "we just follow the law!" even if the law itself is criminal, are just as decidedly criminal.

A crime can not be made less criminal under a law for sane person's moral judgement. I would say, a crime that was legislated, makes it an even bigger crime.

A word crime in a sense as a fault, as something objectively morally reprehensible itself underlines that a wrongdoing is discerned through a thorough judgement rejecting anything that is made to hide, "wrap around," or divert focus from the original fault.

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

#98

Post by 082349872349872 »

lmz wrote: post #26

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/

In the old days, this game used to be played with passports and visas[1].

I was surprised to hear a recording of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River" in Moscow, with the lines

    Show a little grit
    And you land in jail
Someone must've narced on him for showing a little grit: he didn't land in jail, but his economic livelihood (from touring internationally) was effectively destroyed when his passport was pulled.

"Yes, Minister" introduced me to conjugations of the form:

    I am an activist
    You are a troll
    He is a bot
To be perfectly clear: I am in favor of free exchange of ideas (what day of Eternal September[2] is today?); just trying to point out that repression at the hands of the state can take many forms, some more obvious than others.

[1] why do US visa authorities harvest VK and Youku accounts, anyway?

[2] that was too cynical; we're actually living in one of the easiest times for ordinary people to communicate, with other ordinary people in other cultures, ever. Not only do we have an internet (so timezone is more of a barrier than location), machine translation is no longer "invisible, insane."

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

#99

Post by komali2 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #89
GhostVII wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is fair to say that the laws in the US are objectively better than in China. The US does not put hundreds of thousands of people in camps because of their religion, or heavily censor the internet, or kill hundreds or thousands of civilians to suppress pro-democracy protests.

You’re on shaky ground there. The US does imprison more of its citizens on a per capita basis than any other comparable nation. The US isn’t the moral beacon it was billed to be. I’ll stop there.

And the USA did allow violence against democratic organizers last week.

But those same organizers weren't shipped to Guantanamo for indefinite periods of time for "reeducation."

The USA suffers from some of what it accuses the PRC - it is still not the PRC.

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

#100

Post by dheera »

bonestormii_ wrote: post #53
dheera wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Legality should be the bare minimum standard - and in countries with bad laws (Middle East, China) it shouldn’t even be that. Honestly an app only needs to operate out of one country. To have users in other countries, all that is needed is an open TCP/IP connection and a cross-border payment system (e.g. PayPal, bitcoin); it is not necessary for them to operate a local business entity, which would mean that they sh…

I'm inclined to agree with you actually, and in spirit, I definitely do. But what's to stop a European from hosting content on USA servers, posing as USA company, and violating their regulation--even specifically targeting users local to their area from that remote server? Granted, if significant revenue is generated they'll have to exist officially in one place or another in order to report the income, but not all s…

Well by virtue of the fact that you reside in Europe, you're subject to European laws. And by using a server in the US, you're subject to some US laws as well.

But if you're in the US, and your servers are in the US, you shouldn't have to obey European laws. European site visitors are no different than physical European tourists in the US; the owners of those US museums and tourist sites don't need to obey European laws just because they have European visitors.

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