Most Universities and companies really don’t care, it seems. Zoom is one of the many shady Chinese companies (yes I am aware of Zoom’s recent change in status here) who we just do business with no matter HOW harmful it could potentially be. Recently there was concern about how certain anti-cheat software included with Chinese games is an effective root kit as well. And several large American firms have been help China build out their surveillance infrastructure which is used to send people to death camps.
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
#102So 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…
The choice for companies is to either follow a country’s laws, or not operate in that country. It’s not moral relativism, it’s just business.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Call it whatever you want, I'll take the imperialist country that doesn't censor activists' accounts.
And which country would that be? Even if the US, peer pressure is often enough to get political dissenters banned from their social media accounts, jobs, etc. Many people use the cope out that it's different when it's done by the government or by a private company, but I don't see it as being that different.
It's no cop out - businesses don't hold a monopoly on violence. They can't summarily remove the right of travel and speech (by jailing someone).
A Nazi getting banned from Facebook isnt comparable to a human rights lawyer being stuck under house arrest for years.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 chang…
Correct. Countries can impose firewalls. China does. Iran does. The EU can if they want to.
But as a website host, I don't have to do anything.
Alcohol is illegal in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi citizen is free to buy alcohol during their visit to the US. They just can't take it back home of course. But the liquor store they visit in the US doesn't need to change their policies for that one customer, and doesn't even need to know which country their customer is from.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm saying that we all have responsibility for the software we put out into the world, and we're complicit in how it's used.
It's wrong to offload that ethical responsibility entirely to others.
Things get better because we want them to be better, as people that build these things we have to care.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#106Earlier 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.
I don’t think you can say it’s objectively better. Whether you think they’re better or not depends on your values.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think that’s an excuse at all. As an American, it’s fully within my rights to critique the CCP to as many mainlanders I want to, including holding meetings with mainlanders. They should have been never blocked.
As an american you don't have the right while in mainland china to criticize the CCP. While there is no simple way to apply sovereignty to the internet, the decision to follow the laws of the participants countries seems relatively reasonable.
You certainly have the right, all humans do, even PRC citizens. It's the natural right of free speech. That some governments (the PRC, for example) have passed laws abridging that natural right means you'll suffer consequences for exercising that right anywhere CCP cronies can get their hands on you.
I think it's an important distinction. Might doesn't make right.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#108Earlier 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 work at a FAANG and we implemented GDPR for everyone because it was 1) cheaper to have only one code path and 2) less liability if we fuck up identifying an EU user
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Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#109Earlier 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.
I agree that this is better to have no arrest for crime thought, no censorship, and no (government covered mass) murder.
It doesn't mean that we are objective on this regard. On the contrary, at least for me, it comes from the subjective feeling that as I dislike the sentiment of being oppressed and I do feel empathy for other people, I wish them not to be oppressed either. This is all subjectivly grounded, and it's fine - to my mind at least.
Let's not pretend that something is objective just because it's deeply rooted into the best part of our hearts.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#110Earlier 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.
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 it was not so obvious. Even in modern times there are people that argue communism was implemented prematurely and would be able to thrive during "end-stage capitalism". You also have plenty of people who while disagreeing with a complete communist revolution would still support nationalisation of key companies or even the more radical "workers being in control of the means of production".
Free speech is even less clear. With america winning the cold war there was a recognition of the american way including the strong support of freedom of speech being the superior system. However lately, especially after 2016 the west seems to have lost confidence in the absolute freedom of speech. Challenging the supremacy of the freedom of speech is the idea that citizens are not capable of judging speech on it's own merit and "misinformation" "speech glorifying violence" etc should be banned. It's not really a clear cut issue, you can for example argue that limiting free speech leads to a more harmonious society (the position taken by China, and also lately the reason given by New Zealand for their decision to ban the Christchurch manifesto)