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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

#111

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

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…

There is an immediate answer: comply with local laws.

If you don’t like them then lobby to change them.

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

#112

Post by unishark »

pnako wrote: post #85
deathgrips wrote: post #69

Earlier 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.

> And which country would that be?

With your apparent standard for freedom of speech, isn't pretty much every country excluded? So now everyone is the same as an authoritarian one-party state that outlaws opposition parties and actively censors all internet websites.

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

#113

Post by cm2187 »

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.

Though frustrating, the rest of the world has had to deal with the extra-territoriality of US laws for decades now, particularly in finance. I don't think it's good. But at least it is recriprocal.

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

#114

Post by monokh »

mkhpalm wrote: post #63
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…

While emotionally I agree with everything you said. Realistically I wonder what anybody who talks like this would do when somebody with a very official legal document shows up on your doorstep. Its not as simple as it seems and most people want as little to do with problems like this. Who are we really mad at here? Zoom or the CCP for essentially forcing their will on helpless entities?

Zoom can either

a) Keep their moral code and be happy in the idea that they will probably be cut off from that market (China)

or

b) Drop their morals, appease to the local laws as unjust as they may be in the hope that their business there continues.

They chose the latter and still want to pretend they are doing both. That's a problem.

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

#115

Post by usaar333 »

gonehome wrote: post #52
modeless wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US companies may enforce US law but they're not hiding the fact that they're US companies. Zoom claimed not to be a Chinese company while enforcing Chinese law for US users.

Yeah, but this is the mistake they’re acknowledging with a promise to build out the system to only suppress the mainland China citizens specifically. My point is that this is not acceptable either.

It's not really a "mistake". They were aware they lacked functionality to region block meetings and rather than reply to the Chinese government that such a request will not be possible to comply with for x days until feature is developed, they opted to suppress US users. That sets a bad precedent for future ambiguous issues.

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

#116

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

lukevdp wrote: post #102
gonehome wrote: post #66

Earlier 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…

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.

I’ve been spouting the same rhetoric, but it isn’t strictly true.

It shouldn’t be difficult to recall at least a handful of recently examples in the US. Uber and Apple come to mind.

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

#117

Post by blackoil »

baybal2 wrote: post #97
monocasa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Say a 21 year old Indian goes to London and drinks some whiskey, is it a crime? because, it is a crime in India!

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

#118

Post by throwaway0613 »

Bear in mind that Zoom is a Chinese company — the founding team is Chinese; the core engineering and ops teams are largely in Suzhou and Hangzhou.

So, while they are incorporated in the US and have significant presence in their HQ, their ties to China are stronger than the more-commonly-discussed outsourced-engineering sort of relationship.

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

#119

Post by gonehome »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #79
gonehome wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People use this to rationalize continued involvement (often when it also happens to be profitable). People can basically rationalize any bad behavior - it really seems like a skill that has no limits up to and including genocide. In practice, I think the negative impact of helping to enable censorship for an authoritarian country outweighs whatever (likely zero) influence you’d believe you’d have. Sometimes to be on…

While I’d like to agree, if all the good people walk away what are we left with? You might be right though.

I don't think the good people have to do nothing, they can work to help users circumvent the firewall via things like tor.

It's really tempting to think that you're the good person helping in a messy situation (especially when it's also the easiest option to choose), but ultimately I think it's just rationalizing bad behavior.

I think most people believe they're 'good', even those doing the censorship in China do it under some belief that they're keeping stability and unity to prevent Trump like stupidity and western influence - or the rise of religious extremism. They're regular people doing regular jobs for something they think is good.

I think the actions matter, when you're doing bad things for some ambiguous influence I'm not sure how good you really are.

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

#120

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

gonehome wrote: post #105
threatofrain wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Surely it doesn’t come as a surprise to you that there exist in this world who no only don’t think like you...

There are people in this world who are happy to write cigs than can be weaponised against those they disagree with.

So in that sense, I’d suggest you’re wrong.

Software Developers are not a homogeneous while who do or should think like you.

Whether or not we agree that way of being is reprehensible is a different matter, in which I tend to agree it is.

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