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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

#171

Post by jobigoud »

jdm2212 wrote: post #87
yingw787 wrote: post #25

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…

Zoom's strategy is to follow local laws as much as possible. For US-based users, they follow US laws. For China-based users, they follow Chinese laws. International calls probably have to be compliant with both countries' laws. You may disagree with Chinese law, and maybe if you were Zoom's CEO you'd cease offering Zoom in China, but then you'd just be ceding the Chinese market to some Chinese videoconferencing solut…

The argument that if they don't do it another one will do it is constantly used to justify unethical things. It just shows that money is more important than compromising one's values.

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

#172

Post by echelon »

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)

As bad as Facebook is, it's being supplanted by the CCP-controlled TikTok. That's almost certainly worse for freedom.

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

#173

Post by ellimilial »

_8j50 wrote: post #162
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…

You do realize that what you're saying is a political opinion? Political dissent and a free press are democratic rights not human rights. China is not a democracy. Democracy is not a moral right and many would also say it's a wrong. Things like national sovreignity mean something. You don't get to decide if other country's laws are bad, the people of that country do, and if they don't like it, it's up to them to do s…

Not that suppression of said rights leads to violation of (what is a current consensus of)of human rights.

Ironically, those events were hosted for remembrance of those violations.

A fantastic approach meant at justifying non-interest, always present in the history of totalitarian regimes.

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

#174

Post by paulcarroty »

I'm not surprised. Zoom isn't the one and only service used by China to censor free speech globally:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dfg1ce/list_of_co...

* https://time.com/5557951/china-interference-global-media/

So if you're an activist and still use Reddit, Discord or services from the list above - prepare to be banned. Also check twice any China-affiliated service/products before using.

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

#175

Post by totony »

6AA4FD wrote: post #154
joyfulmantis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech is a concept even the west is struggling with -- Twitter hiding Donald Trump's tweets for example, or New Zealand banning the terrorists manifesto. If even the bastion of free speech is starting to have second doubts about it, how can you claim the moral high ground when a third country wants to restrict free speech?

If you have a problem with twitter hiding trump's tweets and new zealand banning the christchurch shooter's manifesto, there's no inconsistency. There's also room for applying your own standard of free speech vs hate speed across international borders: I might say that the protestors in china were exercising free speech for political change, while trump's speech has no important theoretical or political content and i…

I think the parent is right in that free speech is not an absolute and has geographical restrictions. Most western nations restrict free speech mostly by broadly defining some forms of speech as hate. Saying hate speech laws and free speech are consistent with each other is disingenuous considering one exists to limit the other.

I can understand the argument that hate speech is a fair restriction, but one must concede that it is a restriction and other countries may add their own restrictions to it which you may disagree on.

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

#176

Post by iforgotpassword »

jackson1442 wrote: post #165
HALtheWise wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most US companies that I am familiar with apply US laws to all their users, at least to some extent. For example, I don't think that YouTube will allow you to post a blatantly copyright-infringing video, even if your account declares a country that doesn't enforce US copyright laws. Similarly, I suspect that Facebook would take down a page for a terrorist group, without needing permission from the country they are ba…

> For example, I don't think that YouTube will allow you to post a blatantly copyright-infringing video, even if your account declares a country that doesn't enforce US copyright laws Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the data held to US law if it's stored in the US? I'm pretty sure the federal government wouldn't take kindly to me storing petabytes of copyrighted works in the US, regardless of whether my clients ar…

Googles Servers aren't exclusively located in the US.

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

#177

Post by totony »

Lio wrote: post #163
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is to not be in China at all. The problem with that of course, if that the softwares that do comply will suddently win an unfair market advantage against the ones taking a moral stand.

There is an argument that where China is blocking market access, the West should reciprocate. If Zoom is a Chinese company with just a registered US office as has been suggested, then it would appear to be an attempt to circumvent that.

>There is an argument that where China is blocking market access, the West should reciprocate.

I'm not sure following local laws is considered as protectionism if the same standard is applied to local companies. Blocking market access would be applying unequal standards depending on origin (which I don't allege that they don't do - but for this particular case it doesn't look like they do).

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

#179

Post by notsag-hn »

I struggle to understand how people work hard to build they dream technology, they are also lucky enough for it to take off like zoom in this case, and then they go ahead to do nasty stuff and to fuck up their users! I hope one day we'll really condemn and stop using apps/social media for things like this.

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

#180

Post by dumb1224 »

GhostVII wrote: post #68
joyfulmantis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that your country knows best and that your countries companies can feel free to ignore other countries laws while operating in them is -- imperialism.

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.

> The US does not put hundreds of thousands of people in camps because of their religion,

I have to say that China did a lot of things wrong but it couldn't care any less about religion. Most of the issues aren't religion related. It only makes matters more opaque and hide real issues. Hence I disagree with debates/discussions based on perceived perspectives and use these labels such as 'attack on religion'.

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