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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

#61
post #53

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?

What sponsorship has to do with any of this ? Do you know who's sponsoring this specific Chinese activist ? Any other banned channels and persons ?

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

#62

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…

They can do whatever they want as a private company. I can do whatever I want as well. Including leaving zoom. They should have the right to enforce whatever standards they want, and we have the right to disagree and leave.

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

#63
governments monitor all major companies... including the US government (PRISM is pretty old now, so we can assume that they monitor others by now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) ). So if the traffic is not end-to-end encrypted, assume that they can view your traffic. Sometime they play on words and say that end-to-end means from customer to cloud... but the cloud should not have the key.

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

#64
Is anyone here boycotting use of Zoom? I have a few clients that ask me to use it and I'm trying to think up a good response as to why I don't have it installed. For those of you that have rejected it on principle, what are you all saying?

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

#65

governments monitor all major companies... including the US government (PRISM is pretty old now, so we can assume that they monitor others by now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) ). So if the traffic is not end-to-end encrypted, assume that they can view your traffic. Sometime they play on words and say that end-to-end means from customer to cloud... but the cloud should not have the key.

Not all governments are equal. Cut out this whaddaboutism.

Edit: When I replied, OP was simply “governments monitor all major companies... including the US government”

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

#66

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.

> Zoom is a company I have loved so far

Do you love the company, its leadership, its product, or its pricing?

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

#67

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).

Might be required for enforcement against illegal activity, either by law or by desire to avoid ending up as one of those platforms that endorses pure freedom of speech and ends up being labeled by society as a haven of crime and extremism. Would be hard to keep control of that without centralized control.

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

#68

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…

At least you recognize your slippery slope fallacy when you make it!

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

#69
post #25
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?

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 case is because they do some very unorthodox things that are security nightmares.

Security and ease of use are always a tradeoff. Zoom has always been on the very far end towards ease of use and away from security.

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

#70
post #25
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?

No idea. We're on Meet at my company, and I'm very happy with it. Works well in the browser, connects to Google calendar without any fuss, and I haven't had any issues with dropped calls or low quality.
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