Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 562 posts

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

#251

Post by ketamine__ »

setgree wrote: post #244

> "We are outraged by this act from Zoom, a U.S company," Zhou and other organizers told Axios in a statement. "As the most commercially popular meeting software worldwide, Zoom is essential as an unbanned outreach to Chinese audiences remembering and commemorating Tiananmen Massacre during the coronavirus pandemic." I understand the sentiment, but I don't agree that Zoom is essential. Jitsi is a fine alternative. It…

I would not describe Zoom as polished. The video quality is horrible and the interface could be from 10 years ago.

I had a difficult time getting Jitsi to work with a friend. Also, despite using more bandwidth the video was inferior compared to FaceTime.

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

#252

Post by jedberg »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #233
jedberg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s worth keeping in mind that even though security and ease of use tend to inversely correlate with each other, they are not by default mutually exclusive. I actually disagree with you. I think security and ease of use are mutually exclusive. I can't think of a single counterexample where security did not have an effect on usability. Now to be clear, I absolutely believe we should have a lot more security than we…

It's not hard to think of examples... 1. HTTPS everywhere has zero impact on the usability of a website, but makes visiting those sites much more secure. 2. Apple's App Store model for installing applications improves security and is also easier to use for the average user. 3. 1Password with Touch/Face ID can actually be easier these days than entering emails and passwords manually. 4. And more… Security doesn't alwa…

> 1. HTTPS everywhere has zero impact on the usability of a website, but makes visiting those sites much more secure.

You have to install a plugin on every browser and device. That's not user friendly. Also some sites break and you have to understand why.

> 2. Apple's App Store model for installing applications improves security and is also easier to use for the average user.

You have to have an account on the app store. You can't log into the same account on more than five machines. You have to put your password in every time you install an app.

That's all a lot harder than clicking on a link in an email.

> 3. 1Password with Touch/Face ID can actually be easier these days than entering emails and passwords manually.

You have to install 1password on all your devices. You have to mange your passwords with 1password. I'm an expert and even I have a hard time getting it to catch every update and every password field. 1password is a usability nightmare. Having the same password everywhere is a lot easier (and obviously less secure).

You're looking at one aspect after the initial setup and ignoring maintenance.

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

#253

Post by frequentnapper »

staycoolboy wrote: post #64

Is anyone here boycotting use of Zoom? I have a few clients that ask me to use it and I'm trying to think up a good response as to why I don't have it installed. For those of you that have rejected it on principle, what are you all saying?

I don't use it because development team is based in China.

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

#254

Post by einpoklum »

vikramkr wrote: post #67
einpoklum wrote: post #56

It is enough for the title to say just: "Zoom closes account". That is already a horrendous misfeature of a communications application. It should not have a central authority which controls accounts (or even knows about all valid accounts).

Might be required for enforcement against illegal activity, either by law or by desire to avoid ending up as one of those platforms that endorses pure freedom of speech and ends up being labeled by society as a haven of crime and extremism. Would be hard to keep control of that without centralized control.

> those platforms that endorses pure freedom of speech and ends up being labeled by society as a haven of crime and extremism

Oh, You mean like physical conversations between people?

> Might be required for enforcement against illegal activity

"required"? You mean, it would _help_ governments enforce laws. If enforcing the law is a supreme consideration, then it's required. For me - it is not.

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

#255

Post by pyrophane »

bagacrap wrote: post #150
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.

I don't think this compares directly to the now-commonplace kowtowing that you are referring to. That would be more akin to Zoom, for example, retracting and apologizing for some public statement that it made in recognition of the Tiananmen Square protests.

Instead, this is a US-based communications platform, barring its US-based users from discussing something that is offensive to a foreign regime, and doing so outside of any official rules that they have made public.

Now, of course, you are correct, this has nothing to do with any kind of deeply held values. It is merely about money. I don't think that makes it better.

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

#256

Post by odinho »

tlear wrote: post #238
gnud wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I really liked it, then they broke it on Safari. I still use it on Firefox, but it is annoying to switch just for using it

We have used a lot of time making it work on Safari. And we continue to use quite substantial resources on it. Their webrtc implementation is quite new, and not as stable as Chrome and Firefox. And with new code comes new bugs.

There is currently a bug with audio, where it'll crash in Safari, -- and we have had some issues reconnects that was more our fault (though Firefox and Chrome is much more forgiving). We have a workaround for the first, and will be doing a fix for the second once we're reasonably sure it won't regress other browsers.

Is it any of those issues you talk about? Or is it something else? (I'm not personally familiar with the Safari issues, btw, since I'm a Linux user, but I keep an eye on Firefox and Chromium-based browsers)

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

#257

Post by kryptiskt »

bagacrap wrote: post #150
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.

But that's why we constantly have to remind these companies that such sycophancy will cost them dearly in the world's largest market.
Post reply on HN