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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

#431

Post by knolax »

jessaustin wrote: post #426
knolax wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh and nice job implying that Chinese dissidents have the duty of "proving" to the world that the Chinese government surveils them. Chinese dissidents didn't make the claim that the Chinese government is surveilling Zoom, you are. They're not your rhetorical shield. > I only said that it is safer to assume surveillance. This thread was started by: > Is there any reason not to assume that the Chinese government is s…

They're not your rhetorical shield. That's handy because you're the one who brought them up only to imply that they aren't as worthy of our sympathy as Snowden. This thread was started by... ...someone with the good sense to ignore your verbal incontinence. Eventually I'll learn the lesson; downvote and move on.

> That's handy because you're the one who brought them up.

There's a difference between bringing up the fact that somebody exists and putting words in their mouths to help your point.

> ...someone with the good sense to ignore your verbal incontinence. Eventually I'll learn the lesson; downvote and move on.

You're getting unreasonably mad right now. Please calm down.

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

#432

Post by psexec »

close04 wrote: post #320
rubyfan wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

At least Skype and Webex don't accidentally route your calls through China. I don't really like Skype but Webex shines compared to either Zoom or Skype. And I'm talking meetings with triple digit attendance, meetings with dozens of simultaneous breakout sessions and screen sharing, etc. By far a better experience than Zoom. The thing that Zoom really has going for it is that it's free and heavily marketed. This made…

Except that Skype non-accidentally routes your calls through Microsoft's servers, and it was originally a P2P application. End-to-end encryption too started being "complicated", "unfeasible" and "unnecessary" after they acquired the company. Thanks, but no thanks.

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

#433

Post by azinman2 »

odinho wrote: post #256
tlear wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you have a good repro please send to https://bugreport.apple.com or contact Apple Developer Support.

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

#434

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #84
Twixes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I don't like consolidation of tech, I've had really good experiences with Google Meet. No scummy practices like forcing users to pretend that the app installer doesn't download just to connect from the browser either. What are Zoom's advantages?

I haven't personally used Google Meet, but part of what drew me to Zoom: - General preference for non-ad supported business model. - Google Meet wasn't an option until very recently. - I really dislike hangouts and how it leaks chat all over Gmail (among other things), and this has biased me against their other products. - Similarly, I was a huge fan of Google Voice which was way ahead of its time and which they aban…

[deleted]

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

#435

Post by ajmurmann »

Twixes wrote: post #25
gonehome wrote: post #7

This 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.

As much as I don't like consolidation of tech, I've had really good experiences with Google Meet. No scummy practices like forcing users to pretend that the app installer doesn't download just to connect from the browser either. What are Zoom's advantages?

Not being bound to the browser can be a huge advantage. I usually use at least two Zoom windows. One with a panel view of all meeting participants and a second with either a shared screen or the speaker view. In some cases I split the chat out as well. I find it super important to not only see what's being shared, but also be able to watch people's reactions.

Zoom makes it also easy to see who has noise coming from their microphone, what audio and video up and down bandwidth is looking like. Lots of little things like this that matter if you spend most of your day in remote meetings.

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

#436

Post by ajmurmann »

agakshat wrote: post #243
jedberg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason I liked Zoom was because it was so easy to install. I've had zooms with non-technical people over 70, and not one of them needed help installing it. The same cannot be said of Google. Heck, as a technical person I have trouble getting Google Meet to work consistently. That was Zoom's main advantage -- their ease of setup and use, and "it just works". We now know that part of the reason that is the cas…

Am I the only one who finds Zoom more difficult to use than Google Meet? I am not a regular user of Zoom, and do not want to install the app on my computer, but Zoom apparently requires the meeting organizer to go into their settings and enable a "Join from your browser" link for participants [0]. This is quite user unfriendly, and if I have to watch some seminar on Zoom I can't be asking the organizer to enable this…

I think you are right that Google Meet in general is easier to use. However, I think that's at least in part because Zoom is so full of options. I mostly realize this when playing games via Zoom with friends. "your laptop that has no video on is making it so that we cannot see you iPad's video!" - "just turn on 'hide non-video participants'". "you need to get closer together or move the iPad further away because the edges of your video get cut off" - "Just double click the video and it will stop cropping". "Can you stop sharing your screen? I'd much rather see participants" - "Just click the icon in the top right to swap video and shared screen. You could also turn on dual monitor support".

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

#437

Post by microcolonel »

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…

I think Zoom is probably best used for hangouts-on-air type things, where you are literally publishing the contents of the call to the world in realtime anyway; for anything else it's off my list.

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

#438

Post by redis_mlc »

close04 wrote: post #313
pfarnsworth wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then again talking about videoconferencing solutions and immediately comparing to Google or Facebook, and not mentioning something like Cisco Webex is like talking about mail and immediately comparing to Yahoo. And before you say "but Zoom is free", obviously it's not. From the carefully orchestrated lie about "end to end encryption", to the routing of calls through China, and to the topic of this article. At every s…

Yahoo Mail is one of the best web email clients today. Any gmail user that I've talked to who has tried Yahoo Mail prefers the Yahoo UI overall.

Having said that, the US government installed a linux kernel module (approved by Marissa Mayer) that sniffs traffic on Yahoo Mail servers, so don't send anything you don't want recorded.

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

#439

Post by TimTheTinker »

aikinai wrote: post #349
trilinearnz wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed. The thing I think contributes most to this impression is how local voice is recorded at all times on the client, and then replayed at a higher speed to the other participants if the connection drops briefly. This enables others to hear what was said, without having to listen to the speech at the original pace, which would result in a delay. Genuis!

This has been standard practice with video calling products for many years. I know at least FaceTime and Duo do it. It might even be built into WebRTC?

MS Skype for Business and Teams also do this, just to give two more examples that I’m aware of.

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

#440

Post by Aperocky »

petergatsby wrote: post #430
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's time for western companies to stop pretending it's possible to be economically successful in China whilst remaining true to their purported western values.

They are pretending alright, but the order is reversed.
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