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Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
361–370 of 562 posts
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
> find another solution Have you tried Jitsi?
Jitsi is great! If they can figure out a good webinar solution it could be an absolute killer. As it stands, it's (in my opinion) really just useful for small scale interactive meetings at this point, not 100+ participant events. It's really great as a face-to-face solution though, where Zoom and many others are actually kind of overkill.
BigBlueButton may be better for that scale. It's interesting this desire for a one size fits all video conference.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume you're getting downvoted because you don't seem to take issue with censorship of free speech ultimately being a problem, and why people take stand against tyrants?
I've got no idea. I literally said I don't personally like it, so obviously I do take issue. But there's no scandal with Zoom in this particular case. And this certainly isn't anything new about China. Why people are downvoting something so factual is beyond me. You'll have to ask them.
The issue is that events like this break the fourth wall and remind us that companies are willing to bend over to make profits in countries controlled by tyrannical structures like the CCP, meanwhile we then are indirectly supporting the same behaviour of bad actors.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#364Earlier 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.
Uhh, yes it is? Primarily urban black males.
> only an ethically and intellectually challenged person offers tacit support for [one side] because [the other] side fails some specious purity test.
This is very true though. Both sides are very evil, and laumars[0] has the right of it: we need to not trust either of them.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason I'm not using Google Meet is because there's no guarantee about the continuity of the service a few years down the road. I think it's a reasonable fear about every Google product (except for search, gmail, and YT). I don't wanna rely on a service that gets discontinued by Google just like their other popular products e.g. Reader, Plus, Glass, etc.
what does that matter now? its not that there is a high cost of switching...
Strongly agree. It seems every few months or years the tide shifts and we all move to something else. And one may use different choices for different groups or larger or smaller audiences.
No need to emotionally invest.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#366This kind of thing is the exact reason why I was disturbed by the Keybase.io sale to Zoom and abandoned my account. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23105253 ) I've been currently using Zoom during the pandemic because as a product it's still the best (and I signed up for a discounted year of pro), but I won't give them any money again.
Tesla canceled Zoom due to these privacy concerns expressed in this article. We use Microsoft Teams now and it's much better. Everyone already used it as an instant messenger before this and since it's part of the Outlook ecosystem i've found that it's much better. It's also saved a ton of useless meetings that run really long because i can just call someone straight through Teams instead of setting a meeting.
I'm not sure whether Microsoft is an ethical improvement over Zoom.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#367Earlier 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…
> 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. Sticking with the "mutually exclusive" criterion, wouldn't ssh vs. rsh serve as a counterexample? How about https vs. http? Both replacements brought us greatly improved security, with no effect on usability in the vast majority of time I've spent with them.
> https vs. http
Https is worse from a usability standpoint because of the need for trust stores and keeping them up to date. While it's mostly taken care of by the browser, it can still cause problems when you don't have anything in your truststore that can verify the other certificate.
Ssh vs rsh suffers a similar problem. If the certificate on the other side changes, you have to update your local config to allow the new certificate and will either be blocked or have warnings until you do so.
Pretty much with anything that requires certificates, usability is worse because you have to maintain the trust store in some way.
In both cases you mentioned the effects are very negligible and certainly worth the tradeoff, but strictly speaking, the usability is worse.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#368This kind of thing is the exact reason why I was disturbed by the Keybase.io sale to Zoom and abandoned my account. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23105253 ) I've been currently using Zoom during the pandemic because as a product it's still the best (and I signed up for a discounted year of pro), but I won't give them any money again.
Wow, looks like I have been living under the rock for a little bit. The monetization strategy was not clear to me, but I though that eventually having premium accounts would make sense. The launch of Stellar was a little confusing.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is Google really any better? They may simply be better at hiding their surveillance apparatus. We need to decentralize, i.e. destroy large non-decentralized organizations.
Absolutely, don't be ridiculous. Google is not and will never be complicit to Chinese censorship in America. This is classic whataboutism and we don't benefit from such hyperbole.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
US citizens have a significant better chance at fighting a warrant. Personally, we've been using Jitsi for video. It's not amazing, but it is free in many senses of the word.
Two comments recommending Jitsi. Suspicious.
If you find a better one that is not absolutely arcane and frustrating to use, let me know.
Until then, Jitsi is "good enough", even if it's still pretty rough in certain parts.