Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 562 posts

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

#51

Post by nvahalik »

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…

Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution.

However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.

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

#52

Post by hanniabu »

nvahalik wrote: post #51
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…

Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution. However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.

> find another solution

Have you tried Jitsi?

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

#53

Post by hughw »

YarickR2 wrote: post #44

So 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 .

Don't you see the difference between state-sponsored outlets like RT and the individual activists Zoom banned?

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

#54

Post by jedberg »

john_moscow wrote: post #46
jedberg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

If the private company requires a state-issued license, and that license is dependent on the content on the site, then it's still government censorship.

In America, you can still start a competing private company and allow any opinion you want. In China you can't do that.

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

#55

Post by vikramkr »

Novukus wrote: post #49

Guys, 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 happe…

This matters to me and might be enough to get me to switch away (as a former zoom defender). On the other hand, for the average person using Zoom for video calling their families, or for companies forced into WFH that finally set up a Zoom subscription and would have to go through self-imposed bureaucratic hell to swap platforms? I think the usability of the platform and simple convenience far outweighs any desire to switch right now. I wonder how sticky their consumer base actually is.

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

#56

Post by einpoklum »

It is enough for the title to say just: "Zoom closes account".

That is already a horrendous misfeature of a communications application. It should not have a central authority which controls accounts (or even knows about all valid accounts).

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

#57

Post by YuriNiyazov »

YarickR2 wrote: post #44

So 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 .

Yea. "Youtube is a son of a b, but he's our son of a b"

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

#59

Post by einpoklum »

hanniabu wrote: post #52
nvahalik wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom is a company I have loved so far, but a lot of this is starting to really rub me the wrong way and I really don't want to have to go find another solution. However, without some sort of reversal, this is enough for me to deal with the mess of doing that.

> find another solution Have you tried Jitsi?

It's a bit difficult to understand what exactly that means.

There's Jitsi Meet, Jitsi Desktop, there's a browser extension, a server-which-isn't-just-a-server etc. It's a bit confusing.

Post reply on HN