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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

#381

Post by bad_user »

TheKarateKid wrote: post #347
bad_user wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US copyright is enforceable overseas due to trade agreements. As a US citizen do you think you can infringe EU's copyright law? It is true that US's culture has spilled into the terms of use of some of these services. I still remember the "napalm girl" being censored on Facebook for public display of nudity. However these aren't examples of individuals being targeted by the US government. Also just because there are…

There are plenty of countries that US copyright law is enforced on a US company's platform even though there are NO trade agreements with the US with respect to copyright. Otherwise, piracy would be allowed to be hosted in numerous countries. It's a blatant double standard.

Such as?

These trade agreements are global. The countries that don't have trade agreements are usually those suffering through an embargo.

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

#382

Post by claudiawerner »

HenryBemis wrote: post #239
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…

> authoritarian leaders will they comply? Apologies for the seemingly seagull-ish comment/rant, but it is 100% true: "money talks, bullshit walks". Zoom is not going to miss out a 1bn ppl market because of ethics. Apple will not miss out a 1bn market because of ethics. Blackberry handed the keys to the kingdom so fast the heads of the tortured people were spinning, and the tale goes on and on. Autocratic regimes play…

>Capitalism (aka money flowing from country A to country B) is cross-border, freedom-agnostic, and amoral (not IM-moral)(utter lack or morals instead of bad morals).

The idea that capitalism is an amoral system is presented as if it were fact, but I can think of several philosophers of morality who have arguments for the morality or immorality of capitalism.

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

#383

Post by tomComb »

gonehome wrote: post #375
tomComb wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is the one company that did walk away from a billion person market - and a strong, established position in it - when asked to censor, and you want to boycott then too? It's no wonder companies don't bother doing the right thing. People just ignore that massive sacrifice and pull out some other reason to not like Google.

I wrote this earlier, but the thread has become massive and hard to navigate so I figured I would respond to you here. Google's history isn't so clean either. They spun backing out of China as something they did in the interest of free speech, but it was more a response to them getting hacked by the CCP (it's still not clear what was stolen, but something big happened). More recently they were trying to re-enter the…

They spun it as leaving due to both. I've never seen an analysis that said it was a big hack, but both are points of principle.

Of course, they've re-examined it. It was the biggest sacrifice for principle in corporate history and they got almost no credit for it.

They must regret it every day, because people who simply dislike Google can take an example of Google doing exactly what they want, and still find a way to call them out for boycott on that exact issue. And even support that issue with quibbles that are tiny in comparison.

And leave Microsoft out of the boycott request in spite of their incredibly craven and spineless behavior on same point (jumping in to try to take Google's spot).

It would appear that, if you dislike Google, it doesn't matter what they do, so why should any company make any sacrifice on principle? They should just spend the money on marketing.

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

#384

Post by tekknik »

ddrt wrote: post #158
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…

You want to talk copyright and IP violations with the context putting China as the victim? That’s... actually laughable.

At some point the US will wake up as a nation and realize this is a new kind of war. Why suddenly is there a lot of pro chinese statements around the internet where there was none before?

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

#385

Post by tekknik »

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'.

If you have empathy then you should care about religious people regardless of your personal beliefs. How can you stand there and ask for equality for all then say something like you don’t care for a group of people? This is not equality.

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

#386

Post by pphysch »

bad_user wrote: post #355
pphysch wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the governments you mentioned has been under constant pressure of regime change & other geopolitical oppressions for 75+ years, the other is the one orchestrating said regime changes. It's not surprising that one is more defensive than the other in this regard. Is that activist a real Chinese citizen or part of a CIA campaign bent on massive destabilizion? Everything is on the table. The US is also far more de…

Right, so the reason for why the CPC is oppressive towards its own people is because of the US? Got it. You're talking btw with someone born in communism, in Eastern Europe. We blamed the imperialist enemy from the west too and our government saw that enemy among our own people. Everything bad that happened was due to the west trying to undermine our efforts. All I can say is fuck the CPC and fuck you too.

You can't blame everything on Western imperialism but the CIA's reach is long and established. Radio Free Europe being a well-known CIA operation. Funding mujahideen to destabilize Eastern Europe. Countless examples of regime change that have been unquestionably bad for the nation's peoples in the following decades.

CCP also undeniably took care of their people during the pandemic, like other "commie" countries like Vietnam, while America is using chemical weapons on theirs amid mass economic strife...

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

#387

Post by [deleted] »

ciguy wrote: post #336
anewdirection wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite, they allowed NSA explicitly, and now they have their own decryption keys. Whereever did you get the idea google hid data from the nsa?

From people I know working Data Center Ops at Google. They were super pissed about the NSA tapping at the time and steps were definitely taken to further encrypt their data in transit. Of course executives at Google may have handed over a set of keys to the NSA after this was done. If I had to bet I would say that the NSA has more than one way to get whatever data they want from any of the top tech companies. Either…

[deleted]

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

#388

Post by crazygringo »

redis_mlc wrote: post #379
crazygringo wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When will this meme die? Zoom is NOT a Chinese company. It is incorporated in and headquartered in the US. Like any American company ever, it follows US laws in the US, and local laws in other companies where it operates. End of story. Yes their culture certainly has stronger cultural internal ties to China, due to the number of Chinese employees, but what has that got to do with anything? At the end of the day, they…

> It's not like they're secretly and nefariously doing the CCP's bidding Yes, Chinese citizens do the bidding of the CCP or they or their families will be disappeared. The courts are not independent of the CCP, so there is no recourse to whatever the CCP demands. Can you explain why you think otherwise? Are you just engaging in false equivalence of Chinese and US governments, or do you have another reason for your de…

What the hell? In no place did I defend the CCP, so please don't put offensive words into my mouth. It's insulting and you should be ashamed of yourself for making false accusations.

And you are aware that Zoom's founder, Eric Yuan, is an American citizen? He grew up Chinese, but he acquired American citizenship, and therefore lost his Chinese citizenship. He and his family live in California where they're not going to be "disappeared".

So explain to me again why you think Zoom's founder and CEO, or its board members representing prominent venture capital firms, are doing the "bidding of the CCP"?

I'm not engaging in any kind of false equivalence or defending China. I'm pointing out that Zoom and China are totally different things. Using Zoom doesn't mean you're supporting China or being spied on by China. It's an American company, not a Chinese one.

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

#389

Post by gonehome »

tomComb wrote: post #383
gonehome wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote this earlier, but the thread has become massive and hard to navigate so I figured I would respond to you here. Google's history isn't so clean either. They spun backing out of China as something they did in the interest of free speech, but it was more a response to them getting hacked by the CCP (it's still not clear what was stolen, but something big happened). More recently they were trying to re-enter the…

They spun it as leaving due to both. I've never seen an analysis that said it was a big hack, but both are points of principle. Of course, they've re-examined it. It was the biggest sacrifice for principle in corporate history and they got almost no credit for it. They must regret it every day, because people who simply dislike Google can take an example of Google doing exactly what they want, and still find a way to…

If I pretend they left entirely for principled reasons then it shouldn’t matter that the public is too stupid to understand that.

I guess I take the position that doing the ethical thing is done because it’s the right thing to do and not necessarily because you’ll be rewarded for it with virtue from the public.

I agree that the public’s position on technology companies is often uninformed and contradictory, but I don’t really care about that.

If I worked at google I wouldn’t want to enable CCP censorship - not because I expect the public to like me for it it, but because I don’t want to be complicit in the oppression of Chinese citizens.

If they regret it and are willing to re-enter and comply then it wasn’t really based on ethics in the first place.

That said, I’m pretty sure the hack was the main motivation and the speech issue was just a nice story to tell about it.

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

#390

Post by idrios »

jumelles wrote: post #366
idrios wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's talking about the conversation going on about FB, Youtube, Twitter removing posts that are hate speech, inciting violence, spreading misinformation, etc.

None of that is government censorship.

nor did the parent comment say it was the US govt doing the censorship
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