EDIT: Deleted. Not relevant.
In response to this specific event, or as a general bonus? I would love to hear any more details you can share.
Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
41–50 of 562 posts
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#42EDIT: Deleted. Not relevant.
how many US employees? any way of knowing?
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#43Here's a secure open-source Zoom alternative: https://meet.jit.si/
[deleted]
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#44So everybody is cool with youtube removing videos and banning channels of RT, Sputnik and pro-Russia accounts; but Zoom doing just the same for the very same reason somehow makes everyone feel bad for Zoom .
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#45Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#46It is ironic how the western public generally frowns upon the silencing of dissident throught in China, and at the same time welcomes precisely the same behavior for "sensitive topics" back home.
There is a vast difference between letting the government suppress speech, which is what China does, and letting private companies suppress speech, which is what happens in America. When the government does it, you can't express that idea anywhere. When private companies do it, you can still express those ideas somewhere else.
I would agree if there were multiple competing private companies with comparable market shares, representing the opinions of different social groups. This way, if certain companies started applying censorship that wouldn't reflect the interests of the users, they would lose the market share and would have to listen more to what people want.
Instead, we have an effective monopoly on online search, monopoly on content monetization and a monopoly on social media. These monopolies are sustained through network effects and lack the feedback loop.
Edit: I would even say, they have a wrong type of feedback loop, since they are directly incentivized to censor the opinions that go against the vocal social groups, since that could result in decreasing profits.
China could technically spin off their censorship functions to a privately owned company that would wholly depend on the state-issued license to operate and would keep doing exactly the same thing. Would it make them more democratic or change anything for the end users?
I think, the distinction between private and government is a technicality. What is more important, is how many independent parties are making the censorship decisions, and whether they report to a single vs. distributed source of power. From that angle, the government-dominated Chinese web is very similar to Silicon Valley-dominated western web.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> wind up with a leader who truly "drinks the koolaid," who assumes the state propaganda to be reality There possibbly is no leader in history who drank the state propaganda koolaid as deeply as Chairman Mao. He accidentally murdered tens of millions when the propaganda turned out to be incongruent with reality. Meanwhile he stayed in power by butchering millions of potential opposition members, and by having nukes a…
What's going to happen when he's gone? Does the next leader understand well enough? How about the next? It's the same reason we're seeing so much strife in the US. In the US, societal opinion and legislative action hardly follow the same path. In fact, IIRC, public opinion has almost no impact on legislation. Wonder why everyone here feels like we're going down the wrong track?
...when he's gone?
Wishful thinking is a temptation, but it doesn't lead to reasonable analysis. Xi is in fine health at the age of 66. His father lived to the ripe age of 88. His mother is still alive, at 93. We can expect him to receive better medical care than they did, since he is leader of China and they spent several decades getting purged, imprisoned, overworked, and starved by the party. If the Chinese people look for a change in leadership, they had best look somewhere besides the calendar.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#48It is ironic how the western public generally frowns upon the silencing of dissident throught in China, and at the same time welcomes precisely the same behavior for "sensitive topics" back home.
It isn't, because you are wrong. Do not compare (I assume) the warnings around Trump's lies to be comparable to blocking human rights activists from a platform outright.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#49Guys, guys, it's fine. According to everybody on HN who's so eagerly embraced Zoom and continued to use it even after the security issues, the only thing that matters is that Zoom is the best UX experience for video conferencing. Forget about the human rights, suppression of free speech or the fact that the company is wholly subservient to the CCP (not like anybody could've ever foreseen anything like this ever happening). Just focus on what's important: Zoom is a great product, far better than all the US NSA-ridden ones. So everybody should keep using it, no matter what Zoom or the CCP does.
Re: Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event
#50EDIT: Deleted. Not relevant.
[deleted]