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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

#301

Post by HenryBemis »

ciarannolan wrote: post #8

I feel like the good faith presumption for this company has to have shifted by now. Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Documenting participants (face, voice, language, location, etc.), recording content, etc. We're talking about the data of 200M+ users. I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time. >The company has acknowledged that much of its product…

> surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Documenting participants (face, voice, language, location, etc.),

The first time I read that Zoom is the shell (in the USA) while the majority of work is being done in China, I thought the exact same thing. That China has everyone's face 3D scanned by now (multiple photos from multiple angles), everyone's voiceprint, everyone's IP, transcripts of what was said and by who...

Now they are trying to rebuild their shattered rep, while still handing anything and everything to their patrons.

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

#302

Post by modeless »

at_a_remove wrote: post #35

I wonder if we'll hear the "they're a private company, they can do what they want, it is only censorship if the government does it" routine. I remember about a decade ago when certain parties were so concerned with voices being silenced and "erasure." The same people are now cheering when Facebook, Twitter, and the like shut down certain kinds of speech, with great discretion as to how the "rules" are implemented. Th…

It's not a violation of the free speech guarantees of the constitution, which is what people are usually discussing when that line comes out. I don't think what Zoom did should be illegal. That said...

There have recently been a whole lot of apologists saying "yes their founder is from China and their developers are in China but that doesn't make them a Chinese company". Fair enough, but when that company further starts intentionally enforcing Chinese law on US customers, I have no problem calling it a Chinese company. And I will not use a Chinese company's communication product unless forced to.

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

#303

Post by rubyfan »

ljm wrote: post #273
ciarannolan wrote: post #8

I feel like the good faith presumption for this company has to have shifted by now. Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom calls en masse? Documenting participants (face, voice, language, location, etc.), recording content, etc. We're talking about the data of 200M+ users. I see people on HN defending Zoom all the time. >The company has acknowledged that much of its product…

In my workplace and from my perspective, I don't know how Zoom became trustworthy in the first place except through growth hacking and selling iPads with their software on it under the 'Zoom Rooms' name. Besides that, why defend a company or a corporation in the first place? It's a damn shame that people are more enervated by corporate strife than by the suffering of our fellow beings.

it’s trusted because it actually works vs terrible solutions like Microsoft Skype, Webex, etc.

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

#304

Post by milofeynman »

DominikPeters wrote: post #292

Article has been updated with a statement from Zoom: > Update: A Zoom spokesperson confirmed to Axios that the account had been closed "to comply with local law" and said it had now been re-activated. > “Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate. When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comp…

It seems that this would imply that the Chinese government knew the contents of his call(s)?

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

#305

Post by RussianCow »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #281
ljm wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my workplace and from my perspective, I don't know how Zoom became trustworthy in the first place except through growth hacking and selling iPads with their software on it under the 'Zoom Rooms' name. Besides that, why defend a company or a corporation in the first place? It's a damn shame that people are more enervated by corporate strife than by the suffering of our fellow beings.

To be fair, Zoom is the best video conference software I've ever used. It's so much better than Skype or anything created by Google, Facebook, etc. When I first started using it at work 5 years ago, I was blown away at how stable it was, and how many people could connect at the same time. It just worked.

You're getting downvoted, but they really do have a solid product. A lot of their growth does come from their aggressive sales and marketing, but their video conferencing solution is by far the best I have used—it Just Works™ in a way that none of their competition seem to be able to match. (And I've used most of their competitors.)

Which is a shame given issues like the OP and all of the security/privacy problems they have had recently.

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

#306

Post by ljm »

bigyikes wrote: post #280
ljm wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my workplace and from my perspective, I don't know how Zoom became trustworthy in the first place except through growth hacking and selling iPads with their software on it under the 'Zoom Rooms' name. Besides that, why defend a company or a corporation in the first place? It's a damn shame that people are more enervated by corporate strife than by the suffering of our fellow beings.

Aw man, I didn’t know those iPads were a Zoom product. For some stupid reason I was under the illusion that my company made a home-grown Zoom meeting room solution.

It never really worked properly for us, but what worked a little too perfectly was the camera control.

I had so much fun pointing the camera towards the open door and zooming in so far that we could all lip-read a conversation happening across the office. Or, due to a lack of forethought, creating the official CrotchCam(tm) by letting the camera auto-focus and then zooming in to the unfortunate victim's midriff.

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

#307

Post by YarickR2 »

lame-robot-hoax wrote: post #299
ican1 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This xkcd comic didn't age well: https://xkcd.com/1357/ . Liberals used to cheerfully link to this whenever a conservative was deplatformed. I don't think they'll trot out this xkcd anymore when their favored people are being censored.

There’s a difference between a private company doing that on their own accord, and bowing to the CCP.

Private company does not reduce their client base by itself . Either way it's outside pressure, by vocal minority , in case of youtube/twitter , or powerful minority, in case of zoom. Either way it's bad

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

#308

Post by alexland »

ican1 wrote: post #264
brnt wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going after bigots on your platform does not equal going after activists. Please do not intentionally confuse the two.

Is there an objective way of distinguishing between an activist and a bigot? The CCP can just say that they consider this activist to be a bigot. Internet platforms should never have been in the business of censorship. Unfortunately, liberals encouraged them to censor their political opponents for short term gain. The result is sad but predictable. Any speech that offends someone powerful is now subject to possible c…

The easiest distinction between activism and bigotry is to tolerate everything except intolerance itself. Activists mostly fight for more rights/freedom, and bigots mostly look to prevent that. It's not a perfect boundary, but I've found it works well for the significant majority of cases.

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

#309

Post by a1369209993 »

kelnos wrote: post #154
odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand this. I am not American so may have a different perspective, but if by being private, you are ok with censoring, then you are ok with anyone banning blacks from their businesses, or not hiring gays, or only allowing women to go up the corporate ladder if they sleep around. After all, it is their private company, so why should I care about sexual harassment, blocking people, etc as long I am…

I can anticipate the counter-argument to this: "well, discrimination based on race and gender is illegal, so they can't do that". Which is true, but kinda misses the point: it amounts to a position that discrimination and censorship is ok as long as it doesn't run afoul of local laws. If local laws reflect the totality of ethical and moral positions, that would be fine, but I think we all know that laws tend to fall…

> Would you then call Zoom out as somehow evil for shutting down accounts that broadcast child porn live?

Yes? Obviously? They should report the account-holder to the police - or, if the police refuse to do their jobs, to armed vigilantees - for arrest and prosecution (repectively lynching); if such people want to broadcast video evidence of their crimes, lets make sure to deliver their Darwin award ASAP.

> So then it's impossible to hold a "no censorship at all" position, at least not without being a hypocrite.

I'm a hypocrite about plenty of things, but this isn't one of them.

Edit: to be a bit more explicit, laws against posession (rather than production) of child sexual abuse material are a mechanism to protect child molestors by making it dangerous to posess evidence of their crimes. (And also a mechanism to attack fine upstanding file-sharing websites by uploading such material and then reporting them to the FBI or equivalent.)

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

#310

Post by YarickR2 »

thePunisher wrote: post #140
kdamica wrote: post #39

I remember the good old days when we all thought that tech would help export democracy and free speech...

That's why I keep calling for a NEW Internet to be created based on HORNET technology. HORNET is basically the same as the Tor network, but with speeds similar to the current internet. Sites can't be traced or blocked and neither can its users. There will be free speech, along with all its excesses (terrorism, child porn, illegal content sharing etc.). If everyone migrates towards the HORNET internet authoritarian re…

Well, authoritarian regimes wouldn't be first to shut this down. Western corporations will, because of illegal content sharing, no enforceable DMCA, and all this
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