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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

#211

Post by mellow2020 »

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.

> You’re on shaky ground there.

Would you accept prison or murder as counter-argument to this or other opinions of yours? If not, you prefer free speech.

> The US isn’t the moral beacon it was billed to be.

Who billed it thusly? In my books, the US or other nations don't determine the value of free speech, their respect for free speech determines their value.

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

#212

Post by lmz »

summerlight wrote: post #196
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/

This case can be framed more like "an american company suspended an american account of an american citizen to comply with Chinese local law." Operating in China doesn't necessarily expand its jurisdiction into the US. What Zoom should have done is blocking participants in China from the meeting created by Zhou and Wang rather than suspending a US citizen's account. For the case of Gitlab, Google and Gitlab are both…

Do they not have a local Chinese subsidiary that hires their employees there?

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

#213

Post by aristophenes »

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?

Zoom says it is a US company, and the account it banned was a US account. Imagine if everyone did that. China doesn’t get to make their laws for our companies to enforce for us. We have our own laws. Freedom of speech would be dead otherwise.

Zoom needs to own up to being a Chinese company or stop bowing to the CCP, at least outside of China.

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

#214

Post by 0x8BADF00D »

joyfulmantis wrote: post #110
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.

It is very hard to objectively judge laws specifically and political systems in general. The only way to do so is to look at their outcome, but with the large amount of variables, and the time it takes to draw conclusions, objective facts about them are hard to make. The world in general has concluded that planned economies (communism) is strongly inferior to market economies, but during the early days of communism i…

> It is very hard to objectively judge laws specifically and political systems in general.

It’s not as hard as you might think. For instance, when the British East India company came into India, they banned the practice of Sati, revenge killings, etc. It really boils down to what version of history you subscribe to. Do you believe in the principles of the Enlightenment or not? If you do, then you’ll realize that colonization is actually a net positive for the world. Some cultures need to be told how to behave. Not all cultures progress equally or linearly.

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

#215

Post by jcytong »

dumb1224 wrote: post #180
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.

> 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'.

It's about control. The CCP sees religion as a threat because it challenges the party's atheistic view. The underlying issue is the rejection of a pluralistic society which religion is a part of it as well as language, way of life, etc...

https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/how-chinas-xi-jinping-destroye...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_conflict#Re-education...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Tibetan_unrest

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

#216

Post by grishka »

astatine wrote: post #88

These skirmishes (Zoom now, TikTok earlier and the ongoing Huawei one) make for interesting shows, for those outside China and the US. China uses nationalism as the excuse for censorship. As long as you don't criticize China you are free to do anything you want. The US uses morality as the excuse for censorship. As long as you don't do anything that violates that particular notion of morality (the American way of lif…

> Wonder which will be easier for the 80% of people outside these 2 countries.

I'm Russian. Neither. We have our own Facebook that doesn't moderate as much and explicitly allows adult content as long as it's marked such.

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

#217

Post by jcytong »

xster wrote: post #27

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".

That's not the right comparison. To use your example, a closer example would be

You believe it's unjust to have those FB/Twitter accounts shutdown and you host a Zoom call to build a campaign to voice out. Your local government ask Zoom to shut you down. Zoom then deletes your account as well as those of your allies in Vanezuela and Iran. On top of that, the local law requires Zoom to give data to identify you at which point your life is at risk or a jail term without a trial.

That's what those people face in China.

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

#218

Post by morelisp »

komali2 wrote: post #99
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> weren't shipped to Guantanamo for indefinite periods of time for "reeducation."

But Ramsey Orta essentially was.

The difference in the USA is solely one of pervasiveness, focus, intensity, not any particular outcome.

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

#219

Post by fit2rule »

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…

>What’s legal and what’s right are not the same thing,

I look forward to Americans putting their war criminals in prison.

Moral relativism doesn't help. For every company that has to comply with local laws, there is only one greater power that can overcome compliance with that requirement: war.

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

#220

Post by summerlight »

lmz wrote: post #212
summerlight wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This case can be framed more like "an american company suspended an american account of an american citizen to comply with Chinese local law." Operating in China doesn't necessarily expand its jurisdiction into the US. What Zoom should have done is blocking participants in China from the meeting created by Zhou and Wang rather than suspending a US citizen's account. For the case of Gitlab, Google and Gitlab are both…

Do they not have a local Chinese subsidiary that hires their employees there?

Almost every multinational companies have some level of presence in China, even Google has offices there. If we apply your logic, China should be allowed to order search and seizure warrants to those companies for any user information that might related to their national security. Of course, this is absolutely non-sense.
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