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Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

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Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#141

Post by Veen »

frabbit wrote: post #116
laumars wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whataboutism is usually done to defend something by making it look better in comparison but what the OP was arguing is that we should be pursuing end to end encrypted solutions exclusively because it’s not just the Chinese government who are doing the snooping. ie he’s not defending Zoom nor the Chinese government but suggesting the complaint against Zoom/China doesn’t go far enough

Exactly. Assume that governments and large companies can and will spy on you and act accordingly. Do not get suckered into some simplistic nationalistic narrative in which "our" side is good.

There's two problems with that line of thought. First, "our side" is not good but it is better. Notwithstanding the current unpleasantness, the US government isn't locking up and "reeducating" hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Second, good or bad, it is our side and the CCP is the other side: only an ethically and intellectually challenged person offers tacit support for the "other side" because their own side fails some specious purity test.

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#142

Post by 11235813213455 »

mushufasa wrote: post #121
nvahalik wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution. However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.

I've tried Google Meet, Jitsi, and some other things, but Zoom is the only service that my 6+ year old laptop can handle for more than 5 min without nosediving into 100% CPU usage and freezing up. Does anyone have other suggestions? Either for other services or for troubleshooting Jitsi?

agreed that google meet is a CPU killer

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#143

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

cutemonster wrote: post #124
chongli wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem for China is that Xi Jinping has essentially installed himself as dictator-for-life. He now rides to and fro on a tiger from which he dare not dismount. The CCP witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and instead of opening up to a peaceful transition to democracy they chose to double down on top-down authoritarian policies. At the same time, they’ve sought to leverage markets for economic growth. The…

> he dare not dismount Sounds as if you think he wants to dismount

Tiggers can be hard to ride.

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#144

Post by gnud »

mushufasa wrote: post #121
nvahalik wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution. However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.

I've tried Google Meet, Jitsi, and some other things, but Zoom is the only service that my 6+ year old laptop can handle for more than 5 min without nosediving into 100% CPU usage and freezing up. Does anyone have other suggestions? Either for other services or for troubleshooting Jitsi?

You could give Whereby [1] a try. I really liked it when it was named "appear.in" (that's now a completely different company), and used it for a bit, until my work switched to Teams.

Whereby is, as far as I can tell, completely owned by a Norwegian registered company.

1: https://whereby.com

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#145

Post by miles »

shacrw wrote: post #129
miles wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally share a smattering of links like these: Zoom banned from New York City schools due to privacy and security flaws https://www.fastcompany.com/90486586/zoom-banned-from-new-yo... Google Told Its Workers That They Can’t Use Zoom On Their Laptops Anymore https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/google-bans... Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-…

The above China concern is legit but a lot of the issues in the above links have been fixed in the updates ~2 months back.

Yes, it merely establishes their long-running problems and history of disregarding user privacy and security.

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#146

Post by bagacrap »

Aunche wrote: post #136

In typical internet activist fashion, always assume malice. Zoom has 300 million participants a day. Even if they accidentally bans a Chinese activist with the same probability as any other person, the media will only report those instances because Zoom happens to have a Chinese American CEO.

well, we'll quickly see if this was an accident. So far it doesn't look that way.

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#147

Post by frabbit »

Veen wrote: post #141
frabbit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Assume that governments and large companies can and will spy on you and act accordingly. Do not get suckered into some simplistic nationalistic narrative in which "our" side is good.

There's two problems with that line of thought. First, "our side" is not good but it is better. Notwithstanding the current unpleasantness, the US government isn't locking up and "reeducating" hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Second, good or bad, it is our side and the CCP is the other side: only an ethically and intellectually challenged person offers tacit support for the "other side" because their own si…

the US government isn't locking up and "reeducating" hundreds of thousands of its own citizens.

Discuss.

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#148

Post by [deleted] »

WilTimSon wrote: post #5
ordinaryradical wrote: post #4

Aiding in the Chinese media's censorship is not good for China nor the world. When a government destroys the ability for it to be criticized it becomes untethered from consensus reality; megalomaniacs can take the reins and a kind of national hubris forms that can lead to devastating conflict and oppression. All governments need open dissent and criticism to keep from going down this path. Zoom should not be aiding a…

Well, this presumes that it's a government acting in good faith. Sure, something like the UK or a EU country should have dissent and criticism to keep democracy healthy. However, countries like China, Russia, and NK, have no interest in fostering a healthy dialogue and it wouldn't be very conducive to their government's interests.

[deleted]

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#149

Post by Veen »

frabbit wrote: post #147
Veen wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two problems with that line of thought. First, "our side" is not good but it is better. Notwithstanding the current unpleasantness, the US government isn't locking up and "reeducating" hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Second, good or bad, it is our side and the CCP is the other side: only an ethically and intellectually challenged person offers tacit support for the "other side" because their own si…

the US government isn't locking up and "reeducating" hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Discuss.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps

> As of 2018, it was estimated that the Chinese authorities may have detained hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic Turkic Muslims, Christians as well as some foreign citizens such as Kazakhstanis, who are being held in these secretive internment camps which are located throughout the region. In May 2018, Randall Schriver of the United States Department of Defense repeated claims that "at least a million but likely closer to three million citizens" were imprisoned in detention centers in a strong condemnation of the "concentration camps"

Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event

#150

Post by bagacrap »

crazygringo wrote: post #107

I'd just like to see more evidence and information before making judgment here. There's no response from Zoom whatsoever, which is odd. Could this have been other users maliciously reporting the account as abuse, and it was closed automatically? Or something else similar? Or if China is putting pressure on Zoom, then how exactly? If Zoom, an American company, really did intentionally close the account of someone livi…

How is that outrageous? US companies cow tow to CCP all the time, e.g. the NBA. If you're trying not to get blacklisted by the world's second largest market then it makes plenty of sense.
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