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Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
31–40 of 397 posts
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#32I'm not sure I agree with Zoom's strategy here. Adtech can get away with compromising user's privacy because users aren't customers, they're eyeballs for advertisers. Zoom by contrast does primarily B2B sales, and calls do need to have some semblance of privacy. If a Western-based multinational corporation competes with a China-based company, Zoom suddenly looks a lot scarier. People sometimes say nothing came of the…
> When the NSA mentioned connections between datacenters were tapped, I believe FAANG immediately end-to-end encrypted links between datacenters...
This is correct, at least for Google. I worked at Google when the Snowden leaks happened and there was an immediate company-wide push to encrypt all server-to-server traffic.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#33“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…
You can choose not to abide by local laws and likely be shutdown entirely.
That way you’ll have effectively zero ability to influence local legislation / promote the interests of users.
Do you mean to imply you believe this would be a more optimal approach to the problem?
There’s perfect, and then there’s the dirty, mean, savage, brutal, beautiful world.
Edit to add:
> The company said it would no longer block accounts outside of mainland China at Beijing's request
Blocking accounts of non-Chinese at China’s request seem like an incredibly dumb move in the first instance.
I wonder what motivated them to comply with that request. Aren’t a lot of the Zoom devs based in China? It’d seem fairly trivial then for China to demand compliance via those employees based there.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#34“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…
I don’t want to justify zoom but I do want to point out that we shouldn’t be ok with judging a country to the point of saying they have “bad laws”. Maybe it’s because I am Italian and have seen what happens when discussions go head to head like this (II world war for instance). If we would stand by “no acceptance of bad laws”, we’d isolate those countries even more. I think it’s far better to accept that’s how they o…
> I think it’s far better to accept that’s how they operate today BUT also engage with them in conversations that matter to us like democracy and human rights.
That's a nice idea, but China's approach is to deplatform those conversations.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#35Following the local laws of countries where a company operates in is a fundamental condition necessary for globalization.
The idea that the americans know best and don't need to follow local laws is really just another form of imperialism.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#36“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.
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 based in. I'm curious if you know of counterexamples.
I'm not necessarily saying that US and Chinese laws are equivalent in this sense, but it does seem like something of a double standard.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#37Human rights are more important than corporate rights. But where does that leave us in the situation, whereas others have said Apple cuts off apps like the one in Hong Kong, and they use the excuse of local laws. Apple and zoom both need to stop enforcing Chinese law, or stop seeing the benefits of being an American company. The ability to complain about your government, to point out injustice, it's a human right, not an American right. I'm safe and sound in the US so I'm not subject to this. But the people of the world should not have their right to public expression taken away by profit driven American companies.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#38Following the local laws of countries where a company operates in is a fundamental condition necessary for globalization. The idea that the americans know best and don't need to follow local laws is really just another form of imperialism.
Yup, even google does the best thing it can here.
I find it incredibly hypocritical for any american to compalin about china, ya'll fucking made it what it is today.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#39Following the local laws of countries where a company operates in is a fundamental condition necessary for globalization. The idea that the americans know best and don't need to follow local laws is really just another form of imperialism.
It depends on the law. At a certain point local laws transgress international norms and it’s justified for countries and companies that have the power to get away with it to flout them: https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-xpm-2013-12-15-ct.... More broadly, it’s akin to how courts in the US will generally enforce judgments of foreign courts, but not if those judgments are based on laws that deviate too far what US courts consider to be the basic norms.
> Many companies adopted the Sullivan Principles, prepared by the Rev. Leon Sullivan, a board member of General Motors. The Sullivan Principles asked its signatories to treat all workers equally, in effect calling on U.S. corporations to violate South African law, but only a few acted.
> IBM became the first company in South Africa to appoint a black as a supervisor of white employees. On the other hand, IBM's largest client was the South African government, and its computers were used primarily by the military.
Re: Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
#40I mean our Twitter and Facebook have been shutting down accounts from elected offices of NATO "targets" like Venezuela and Iran for a while now https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/12/us-pressure-social-media-... . I don't see people up in arms saying "legality is irrelevant".
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