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

• JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  This requires oversight. The U.S. government has no business telling Zoom what it must or must not host. But it can prohibit federal procurement of Zoom, prohibit contractors from using Zoom in connection with government work, keep a close eye on Zoom and its employees as potential intelligence threats, and prohibit Zoom from accessing federal benefits. It should require pre-emptive disclosure by of foreign ownership, control and influence; as well as public disclosure of government censorship requests and fulfillments by publicly-traded companies.
• at_a_remove 6y ago
  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. These parties have been quiet, so much so, over China. Down we slide along the slippery slope!
  • vikramkr 6y ago
    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.
    • odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
      I really don't understand this. I am not American so may have a different perspective, but if by being private, you are ok with censoring, then you are ok with anyone banning blacks from their businesses, or not hiring gays, or only allowing women to go up the corporate ladder if they sleep around. After all, it is their private company, so why should I care about sexual harassment, blocking people, etc as long I am not the target? Heck, lets have white-men only private schools again, let's leave those blacks/gypsies/whatever out, after all, it is a private school so it should be able to discriminate against anyone.
      • kelnos 6y ago
        I can anticipate the counter-argument to this: "well, discrimination based on race and gender is illegal, so they can't do that". Which is true, but kinda misses the point: it amounts to a position that discrimination and censorship is ok as long as it doesn't run afoul of local laws. If local laws reflect the totality of ethical and moral positions, that would be fine, but I think we all know that laws tend to fall far short on that metric. But I'm also sympathetic to the overall thrust of this. Let's say for a minute that hosting/distributing child porn wasn't illegal. Would you then call Zoom out as somehow evil for shutting down accounts that broadcast child porn live? I'll assume that people would be happy with Zoom shutting down something like that, and are also generally fine that there are laws banning child porn. So then it's impossible to hold a "no censorship at all" position, at least not without being a hypocrite. It's really "I don't like censorship, but it's appropriate in some narrowly-defined cases". Once we agree on that -- which we kinda have to, because that's the reality of the situation -- then it just becomes a matter of agreeing on what those "narrowly-defined cases" are, and of course I'd expect there to be disagreement. For example, I'm fine with a private company deciding they don't want to be used as a platform to distribute racist hate speech. But I'm not ok with a private company shutting down the account of someone organizing events around the Tiananmen massacre. But as long as people (including myself) are willing to say "well, none of the other videoconferencing solutions are good enough for my needs, so I'll look the other way", they can get away with whatever they want.
        • odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
          The thing is, imo, we need to stand up for our values. Segregation ended because people raised up. Sexual Harassment laws the same. But seems now, if it is a Tech company, people judge them differently. Wether Facebook or Twitter or Zoom, 'oh I can vote with my feet'. But if that was the case 30-40-60 years ago, we wouldn't have the 'progress' we see now. And while I am opposed to child porn, if it is legal, I am not in favour of having private companies doing the censorship, but I would ask for people to be active on changing that law. Since that is opening a door I am not comfortable opening. We had YouTube/Twitter banning/blocking content that went against WHO guidelines, but we also had WHO guidelines being retracted one day after they were published. We had for days/weeks recommendations from the WHO that were just flat wrong, and we shouldn't let private companies censor information based on 3rd parties that are not 'innocent'. And as your point stands, you are ok with shutting and account based on child porn (Assuming in this context it was legal), but would you be also for someone being banned documenting Police brutality in the BLM protests? Both are(in hypothetical) sense legal, so the only thing we have here is your own morality doing that judgement. And different cultures/religions will have different views on all that, thus I believe as long as it is legal, private companies should never have the right to censor 3rd party speech if they provide a platform for that speech.
    • bigphishy 6y ago
      A counter argument to this would be to acknowledge that in actuality a free market is regulated. It has to be regulated in order to be free. That's because there are bad-actors who lie, manipulate the market, deceit the public, with no discrepancy and with complete impunity.
    • hrktb 6y ago
      This is the recipe used by some agencies to avoid scrutiny: have private companies do the job for them. Your argument’s end point looks like your freedom to only use video conferencing tools that respect your ideals. Would I do that, I’d have to leave my job and stop talking to pretty much anyone.
  • addicted 6y ago
    At least you recognize your slippery slope fallacy when you make it!
    • at_a_remove 6y ago
      I have stopped regarding it as a fallacy. It seems to be something of a predictive measure at this point.
      • smolder 6y ago
        It's a fallacy to say that with a "slope" of states A B and C, with C implying B has been reached, that moving from A to B means you'll necessarily go to C next. The fallacy doesn't mean we can't go from B to C or that it isn't easier to get to C from B than A.
        • CamperBob2 6y ago
          Which is why it's called the "Slippery Slope," not the "Sheer Cliff" or the "Trap Door" or the "Gravity Well." Whatever ancient neckbeard decided it was a fallacy clearly didn't get out much.
    • CamperBob2 6y ago
      The slippery slope is a logical fallacy. But people aren't logical entities for the most part, and the real world doesn't even vaguely resemble a philosophy classroom.
  • sdinsn 6y ago
    > 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. Perhaps that applies, perhaps it doesn't. Did they remove the account due to pressure from the CCP?
  • brnt 6y ago
    Going after bigots on your platform does not equal going after activists. Please do not intentionally confuse the two.
    • throwaway8879 6y ago
      One man's activist is another man's bigot.
      • bananabreakfast 6y ago
        There is a world of difference between being for something and against something and you are being very disingenuous (read: trolling) to conflate the two, Mr. throwaway account
        • read_if_gay_ 6y ago
          > There is a world of difference between being for something and against something They are the same. If you are for something, you're also against not something.
    • ican1 6y ago
      Is there an objective way of distinguishing between an activist and a bigot? The CCP can just say that they consider this activist to be a bigot. Internet platforms should never have been in the business of censorship. Unfortunately, liberals encouraged them to censor their political opponents for short term gain. The result is sad but predictable. Any speech that offends someone powerful is now subject to possible censorship.
      • alexland 6y ago
        The easiest distinction between activism and bigotry is to tolerate everything except intolerance itself. Activists mostly fight for more rights/freedom, and bigots mostly look to prevent that. It's not a perfect boundary, but I've found it works well for the significant majority of cases.
  • gameswithgo 6y ago
    i notice you say “certain kinds of speech” instead of speech promoting violence and racism. im not aware of twitter et al banning any reasonable political activism.
    • SeeTheTruth 6y ago
      They want to dump on platforms for taking action against hate speech and instigating violence because "someone else censored political activism". It's a disgusting point of view.
  • beager 6y ago
    I have to be internally consistent and agree that it's at Zoom's discretion as a private-sector company whether to host specific content or provide services to specific people and viewpoints, just as it is for Facebook/Twitter etc. Two things are additional considerations that may change how this sort of action ends up for Zoom: 1. Zoom will be judged in the court of public opinion for their decision to align their moderation of access to their service with the CCP. This is likely a different degree of backlash than you'd see with, say, shutting down the accounts of US-based hate groups. 2. Zoom may come under scrutiny—without concrete evidence—for introspecting the content of communications through its platform that would otherwise be presumed to be private. This is different from Facebook/Twitter etc., for which much of the content that drives moderation decisions is public. Zoom is not abridging anyone's constitutional right to free speech, nor would they be able to. How they are judged for their specific actions, though, is entirely at the discretion of their user base and public opinion.
  • gruez 6y ago
    >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. The implication here is that they did it under pressure from the CCP, presumably because most (all?) of their programmers are from China. Blizzard got raked over the coals as well over a similar incident (search "blizzard blitzchung").
  • ican1 6y ago
    This xkcd comic didn't age well: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/. Liberals used to cheerfully link to this whenever a conservative was deplatformed. I don't think they'll trot out this xkcd anymore when their favored people are being censored.
    • lame-robot-hoax 6y ago
      There’s a difference between a private company doing that on their own accord, and bowing to the CCP.
      • YarickR2 6y ago
        Private company does not reduce their client base by itself . Either way it's outside pressure, by vocal minority , in case of youtube/twitter , or powerful minority, in case of zoom. Either way it's bad
    • BLKNSLVR 6y ago
      Nope, it's still a great illustrative comic. The people that disagree with the censorship are the ones showing Zoom the door. It's all individual choice, from Zoom and from those who agree / disagree. I don't agree with Zoom's censorship because I don't agree with China's laws. But I'm not in China, so I have the luxury of expressing my opinion about pretty much anything. Zoom, having operations in China, chose their path. Fine with me, it just means Zoom are lower down my list. That's precisely the scenario depicted in the comic.
    • AllegedAlec 6y ago
      This has always been a really stupid comic. I like most of Randal Munroe's work, but this one has always rubbed me the wrong way. But then again, Americans are always conflating the principe of free speech with your first amendment. Exluding private companies from free speech discussions has no real use when they have monopolies or oligopolies, and your websites keep getting shit down because people are complaining to your ISP about content, or when payment services such as Visa and Mastercard refuse to do business with you.
  • modeless 6y ago
    It's not a violation of the free speech guarantees of the constitution, which is what people are usually discussing when that line comes out. I don't think what Zoom did should be illegal. That said... There have recently been a whole lot of apologists saying "yes their founder is from China and their developers are in China but that doesn't make them a Chinese company". Fair enough, but when that company further starts intentionally enforcing Chinese law on US customers, I have no problem calling it a Chinese company. And I will not use a Chinese company's communication product unless forced to.
  • dgellow 6y ago
    > The same people are now cheering when Facebook, Twitter, and the like shut down certain kinds of speech How do you know they are the same people?
  • kabacha 6y ago
    Is censoring hate speach really the same as censoring discussion of genocides? Really?
  • mr_toad 6y ago
    > it is only censorship if the government does it Or if a government forces a private company to do it.
  • intopieces 6y ago
    Are Zoom events like the one in the article public, such that any person who logs into Zoom can access as part of their interface, with out looking for it, the event in question? Does the content of the event persist in a way that makes it easily sharable, with comments? If the answer to both of these is “no,” I contend that the communications on these platforms is “private” and should be regulated by the US Government against censorship (though I have no hope that it will be). My reasoning is this: (1) Zoom has no expectation that private communications will harm their business. In the same way Ma Bell never took responsibility for the zillions or drug deals and kidnappings that got coordinated over their system. (2) Lack of viral potential means the possibility of inciting violence, cyber bullying, and other negative consequences of mass internet communication is diminished. Both of these points have a correlating contention about censorship on Twitter, Facebook, etc: they (not the government) ought to censor content that has the potential for negative outcomes like those I mentioned. Is it difficult? Absolutely. Will there be disagreements? For sure. But, they can afford to figure it out, and our society can’t afford for them to not to. NB: We need nuance and reasoning here. Falling back on first principles and calling it a day is not enough; those principles were articulated at a time where speech replication depended on industrial machines and were limited by how fast a pony could run. We’re talking the ability to beam information practically into every child’s brain 24/7 anywhere on the planet using psychological tricks to engage them.
  • pas 6y ago
    Isn't the base argument is tolerance/inclusivity good, intolerance bad. (Intolerance like inciting violence, suppressing criticism, homophobia, xenophobia, bigotry, the usual.) And simply taking steps that make make the world better according to this base argument is also good? This of course can become slippery and slope-y eventually, if a propaganda machine takes over as the tolerance authority, but I don't think that's a real problem compared to what the other problems the argument is trying to address.
• DeonPenny 6y ago
  This is what everyone was afraid of with zoom. That like many other companies out of communist countries they aren't independent and will actively subvert democracy.
  • dredmorbius 6y ago
    Plenty of companies elsewhere seem perfectly happy to do likewise. Offered as neither a defense of Zoom nor the CCP, but as calling out a tired strawman argument.
• sonicggg 6y ago
  Zoom seems to be botching this unique opportunity that the pandemic has presented to them. They are getting dragged way too deep into a geopolitical crisis. I know several companies in N. America that are already transitioning from them. That's all what their competitors wanted to see.
• chasebank 6y ago
  EDIT: Deleted. Not relevant.
  • stingraycharles 6y ago
    I feel I should be careful believing this until I see a source reference of some kind.
    • chasebank 6y ago
      I'll pry and see what I can get. If it's true, I imagine it will be out shortly.
  • jaredtn 6y ago
    In response to this specific event, or as a general bonus? I would love to hear any more details you can share.
  • mmhsieh 6y ago
    how many US employees? any way of knowing?
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • vikramkr 6y ago
    Might want to put the edit at the top of your message for people skimming through...
• threatofrain 6y ago
  Not just Zoom; China has effective means to pressure. > In 2019, LinkedIn blocked Zhou's account from being visible in China, telling him in a message it was because of "specific content on your profile." LinkedIn restored his account after media attention.
  • _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
    But, in a way, that's not news. It's not like anyone suspected MS of being trustworthy.
  • cosmodisk 6y ago
    But what this means is that someone from Chinese government gives a call to to MS or LinkedIn management and ask for these things, suggesting that any other option would result in less purchases of their office licenses and etc.
• AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
  > Zoom did not respond to a request for comment. When you can't say anything that won't get you into deeper trouble, say nothing at all.
  • vmception 6y ago
    eh they probably just can't be bothered. how many other accounts have they closed? what other normal company things is the company doing on a day to day basis, journalists can't expect to circumvent the whole company calendar for something they latched on to as controversial. this is a misaligned expectation from the journalists and everyone swayed by what the media, and thats true without making any opinion on the particular issue at hand you have to assume this is going to harm the company for their lack of defensive response to mean anything. but maybe they are still converting customers into paying ones, maybe there is still enough liquidity for a secondary offering, maybe there are partnerships in the works that are more important and lucrative that don't care about the media frenzy
  • fouric 6y ago
    Furthermore, if they make an excuse after this story blows up, I think it's reasonable to consider their justification "retconned" and not actually the real reason they closed the account (which can be reasonably inferred to be CCP-aligned censorship).
  • cosmodisk 6y ago
    Maybe the journalist forgot to email them a meeting ID.
  • kodablah 6y ago
    A similar silence occurred when Marriott fired the guy over the tweet about Tibet. In fact, they were forced to apologize [0]. I kinda hope Zoom is forced to apologize by China as well to at least clarify the type of company they are. 0 - https://twitter.com/MarriottBonvoy/status/951344031405084673 https://twitter.com/MarriottBonvoy/status/951344031405084673
    • cutemonster 6y ago
• ordinaryradical 6y ago
  Aiding in the Chinese media's censorship is not good for China nor the world. When a government destroys the ability for it to be criticized it becomes untethered from consensus reality; megalomaniacs can take the reins and a kind of national hubris forms that can lead to devastating conflict and oppression. All governments need open dissent and criticism to keep from going down this path. Zoom should not be aiding and abetting the regime in this way.
  • WilTimSon 6y ago
    Well, this presumes that it's a government acting in good faith. Sure, something like the UK or a EU country should have dissent and criticism to keep democracy healthy. However, countries like China, Russia, and NK, have no interest in fostering a healthy dialogue and it wouldn't be very conducive to their government's interests.
    • ordinaryradical 6y ago
      > it wouldn't be very conducive to their government's interests. It depends on your timeline. If you eliminate dissent you may be able to push through short-term aims or develop a facsimile of national unity, but you will naturally eliminate nuance from your geopolitics. Even one or two generations into this experiment, you can wind up with a leader who truly "drinks the koolaid," who assumes the state propaganda to be reality. At that point, the regime is doomed.
      • umvi 6y ago
        Is the regime doomed? The people are screwed, sure, but once a government turns into a self-serving dictatorship, it can stay that way for a long time. Usually the first thing dictators do is disarm civilians and beef up the military, so the only way out is via a military coup (which usually just trades one regime for an equivalent one). In just 2 decades, North Korea will have had a dictatorship for a century.
        • cutemonster 6y ago
• fossuser 6y ago
  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 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.
  • Twixes 6y ago
    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?
    • jedberg 6y ago
      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.
      • strogonoff 6y ago
        > Security and ease of use are always a tradeoff. Security and ease of use are not by default mutually exclusive. Depending on circumstances satisfying both may be a challenge, but it’s not a blanket impossibility and we could probably hold certain companies up to a standard that corresponds to their multi-billion valuations. A virtual “slider” on which you can only dial up security by hurting usability is only a useful map, not the territory.
        • 6y ago
• ciarannolan 6y ago
  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 development has been based in China, and that some Zoom calls were accidentally routed through Chinese servers. >The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said it found serious concerns over Zoom's security protocols, and said the company's large workforce in China left it "responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities." >The government of Taiwan banned official use of Zoom due to security concerns, as have New York State schools, the U.S. Senate, and the German ministry of foreign affairs. >Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in early June that the company has chosen not to encrypt free calls in order to cooperate with law enforcement.
  • nvahalik 6y ago
    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.
    • mushufasa 6y ago
      I've tried Google Meet, Jitsi, and some other things, but Zoom is the only service that my 6+ year old laptop can handle for more than 5 min without nosediving into 100% CPU usage and freezing up. Does anyone have other suggestions? Either for other services or for troubleshooting Jitsi?
      • 11235813213455 6y ago
        agreed that google meet is a CPU killer
      • gnud 6y ago
        You could give Whereby [1] a try. I really liked it when it was named "appear.in" (that's now a completely different company), and used it for a bit, until my work switched to Teams. Whereby is, as far as I can tell, completely owned by a Norwegian registered company. 1: https://whereby.com https://whereby.com
• john_moscow 6y ago
  It 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.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • ciarannolan 6y ago
    > Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
    • jlawson 6y ago
      Not applicable because no attempt was made to "discredit an opponent's position". GP is clearly not saying that "... therefore, Chinese oppression is okay." My takeaway would be that we have work to do with China, and that in observing the flaws in their society from without, we can gain perspective on what's going wrong here as well and work on that too.
    • john_moscow 6y ago
      Just to get it straight, I don't like what China is doing to public speech, and I don't like what the West is doing either. I grew up in a country (Soviet Union) that took it to the extreme, and I don't like where this road is going. I strongly believe that the key to building a long-term stable society is a culture where people of opposing beliefs are still able to peacefully debate with each other, and respect the other's opinion even if they don't agree with it. Just like the professional boxers that would let out their worst at the ring, but would find it inconceivable to try and hurt their opponent's private life or family.
    • dang 6y ago
      Please keep this and other canned arguments off HN. They're typically used as reflexes to try to stop discussion, which isn't in the spirit of intellectual curiosity. If a comment is bad, explain specifically what's bad about it, or downvote/flag as appropriate. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20canned&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... "Whataboutism" is a strange case because the name is catchy and sounds convincing, but it's a fallacy. Comparables are relevant. Humans evaluate things by comparing them. Pointing out inconsistencies is also relevant because it adds context to an argument. The same thing can appear completely different depending on the context it's surrounded by. Negotiating context (what's included vs. excluded) is a critical aspect of debate, not something that can be shut down with just a word. Adding information can be perfectly legitimate, or it can be distracting or misleading. In the latter case the proper response is to explain specifically why, not play a wild card like "whataboutism" which basically says "I determine the context and you're not allowed to change it." That amounts to power to control an entire discussion. Previous explanations at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20338307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20338307 and links back from there. I particularly like the analogy to programming languages, because it illustrates the issue in a non-political context (though static vs. dynamic is about as intense a flamewar topic is it gets in programming discussions). https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20whataboutism&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
• mberning 6y ago
  We have seen high profile cases with gamers and athletes being influenced to limit what they say about China. This case seems to be with a much less notable person, but I wonder how often this happens and is never seen. Many tech companies publish metadata about requests they receive from governments (such as DMCA, search warrants, etc.) It would be nice to see some transparency on requests to censor.
• bigpumpkin 6y ago
  Here's a secure open-source Zoom alternative: https://meet.jit.si/ https://meet.jit.si/
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• annoyingnoob 6y ago
  How can anything good come from a move like this? I do my best to avoid Zoom anyway.
• kdamica 6y ago
  I remember the good old days when we all thought that tech would help export democracy and free speech...
  • duxup 6y ago
    This is a bit of a rabbit hole but my misunderstanding in the early days of the internet was HOW people might choose to relate to one another via the internet, and I dramatically underestimated the amount of negative interactions there would be... Tech itself was always a yin and yang to me.
  • thePunisher 6y ago
    That's why I keep calling for a NEW Internet to be created based on HORNET technology. HORNET is basically the same as the Tor network, but with speeds similar to the current internet. Sites can't be traced or blocked and neither can its users. There will be free speech, along with all its excesses (terrorism, child porn, illegal content sharing etc.). If everyone migrates towards the HORNET internet authoritarian regimes will either have the choice to block the entire internet (causing massive economic damage) or allowing free speech.
    • kdamica 6y ago
      https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*crxdmz7o9297jz0L1RkbAw.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*crxdmz7o9297jz0L1...
    • YarickR2 6y ago
      Well, authoritarian regimes wouldn't be first to shut this down. Western corporations will, because of illegal content sharing, no enforceable DMCA, and all this
      • thePunisher 6y ago
        It will be technically infeasible to do so. Or do you mean telecoms? That might be possible, but they'll risk losing customers. IIRC when the internet was young, there were many closed computer networks such as The Source and America Online. These tried to sandbox the internet, but people just fled to providers which would give them unfettered internet access. The same scenario will play out with HORNET.
• YarickR2 6y ago
  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 .
  • hughw 6y ago
    Don't you see the difference between state-sponsored outlets like RT and the individual activists Zoom banned?
    • YarickR2 6y ago
      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 ?
    • catalogia 6y ago
      If it happened to be the case that the ROC was sponsoring this activist, that would not change how I feel about it.
  • YuriNiyazov 6y ago
    Yea. "Youtube is a son of a b, but he's our son of a b"
  • einpoklum 6y ago
    The thing is, it's much simpler for you and the person your talking to to switch from Zoom to SomeOtherApp. But with Youtube - you can take your own videos off of it, but you can't take the ones you want to watch off.
  • kelnos 6y ago
    Ultimately it boils down to a value judgment. RT and Sputnik spread misinformation and have coordinated efforts to influence another country's elections. The activist in question was providing a forum for people affected by the Tiananmen massacre to memorialize their loved ones and ensure people remember what happened. I'm fine with the first ban, but not the second, and I don't think it's at all weird or hypocritical to hold that position. "Spreading lies with the goal of sowing geopolitical discord" is not the same as "memorializing a historical event that China would rather sweep under the rug". (And before you say "but the US influences elections all the time", yes, I agree that the US does do that, and I wish it wouldn't, but that's not material to this particular discussion.)
• Novukus 6y ago
  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 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.
  • vikramkr 6y ago
    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.
    • Novukus 6y ago
      China stealing IP was a concerning issue in the past 2 decades and it's still an ongoing issue. Yet now we have companies willingly handing over data to a CCP-controlled entity. I'm not sure whether to cry or to laugh.
      • robocat 6y ago
        > China stealing IP Is that relevant to Zoom? In this situation Zoom is competing an open market, and I find it interesting to see multiple world-class apps be innovated in China that compete worldwide. I also find the common over-reaction to being beaten in a “fair“ competition leads to some odd rationalisations from many in the US. As a software developer in New Zealand, I find the IP laws relating to software within the US and the attempts at projecting those laws worldwide to be rent seeking behaviour at a national level. The US had an analogous issue a while back with the British.
• einpoklum 6y ago
  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).
  • vikramkr 6y ago
    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.
    • einpoklum 6y ago
      > those platforms that endorses pure freedom of speech and ends up being labeled by society as a haven of crime and extremism Oh, You mean like physical conversations between people? > Might be required for enforcement against illegal activity "required"? You mean, it would _help_ governments enforce laws. If enforcing the law is a supreme consideration, then it's required. For me - it is not.
      • vikramkr 6y ago
        Physical Conversations isn't a brand of a company that would be negatively affected by bad publicity (although physical locations/neighborhoods with bad reputations that have trouble attracting investment etc are certainly good examples of this effect). You're not gonna say "avoid physical conversations, that's where criminals hang out." But people can say "avoid that neighborhood/avoid Zoom, that's where all the criminals hang out." So the neighborhood and zoom have incentives to police conduct occurring within their borders.
• ycombonator 6y ago
  Zoom is owned by a Chinese expat with a development shop in China. Enough said.
  • justicezyx 6y ago
    You just give the legitimacy to all the hostile behaviors of CCP towards foreign companies. Not the most effective argument IMHO.
• coronadisaster 6y ago
  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) 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.
  • ethanbond 6y ago
    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”
    • frabbit 6y ago
      S/he is not saying all governments are equal in all respects. As far as we know only the Chinese, Russians and the 5-Eyes have the technical capacity to monitor us all and have been caught out doing it. So yes, you are correct: not all governments are equal, but the US and Chinese are similar in their practical totalitarian capacities.
      • IAmWorried 6y ago
        In the US system you are free to criticize the government. In the Chinese and Russian systems you are not. That alone tells me all I need to know about who I want scooping up my data.
        • frabbit 6y ago
          Freedom from surveillance facilitates criticism of the government. Do away with that and you end up with something like Russia or China.
        • YarickR2 6y ago
          Have you tried to criticize government in Russia ? Have you tried to criticize it in the US ? If not , then how could you compare these cases ?
• staycoolboy 6y ago
  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?
  • miles 6y ago
    I generally share a smattering of links like these: Zoom banned from New York City schools due to privacy and security flaws https://www.fastcompany.com/90486586/zoom-banned-from-new-york-city-schools-due-to-privacy-and-security-flaws https://www.fastcompany.com/90486586/zoom-banned-from-new-yo... Google Told Its Workers That They Can’t Use Zoom On Their Laptops Anymore https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/google-bans-zoom https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/google-bans... Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-zoom-video-commn/elon-musks-spacex-bans-zoom-over-privacy-concerns-memo-idUSKBN21J71H https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-zoom-video-commn/e... Beware of ‘ZoomBombing:’ screensharing filth to video calls https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/zoombombing/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/zoombombing/ Zoom needs to clean up its privacy act https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2020/03/27/zoom/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2020/03/27/zoom/ Zoom security issues: Here's everything that's gone wrong (so far https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes Mass move to work from home in coronavirus crisis creates opening for hackers: cyber experts https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-cyber/mass-move-to-work-from-home-in-coronavirus-crisis-creates-opening-for-hackers-cyber-experts-idUSKBN2153YC https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-cyber/... Security and Privacy Implications of Zoom https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/04/security_and_pr_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/04/security_and_... ‘Zoom is malware’: why experts worry about the video conferencing platform https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-technology-security-coronavirus-video-conferencing https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-tech... Ex-NSA hacker drops new zero-day doom for Zoom https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-nsa-hacker-drops-zero-140020837.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-nsa-hacker-drops-zero-1400... Maybe we shouldn’t use Zoom after all https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/31/zoom-at-your-own-risk/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/31/zoom-at-your-own-risk/ Attackers can use Zoom to steal users’ Windows credentials with no warning https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/unpatched-zoom-bug-lets-attackers-steal-windows-credentials-with-no-warning/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/unpat... The Zoom Privacy Backlash Is Only Getting Started https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-backlash-zero-days/ https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-backlash-zero-days/ Hackers Are Selling a Critical Zoom Zero-Day Exploit for $500,000 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdqgv/hackers-selling-critical-zoom-zero-day-exploit-for-500000 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdqgv/hackers-selling-cr... Researchers found and bought more than 500,000 Zoom passwords on the dark web for less than a cent each https://www.businessinsider.com/500000-zoom-accounts-sale-dark-web-2020-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/500000-zoom-accounts-sale-da...
• mc32 6y ago
  Let’s see where “but it’s a private company and they have the right to ban any user the want”, “it’s not censorship if it’s not the government doing it” Well I hope this illustrates why that argument isn’t a good argument to make.
• onetimemanytime 6y ago
  Let's face it: if they have assets in China and are a Chinese company, assume the worst. They almost certainly don't have a choice (And no there is no moral equivalence with Twitter or FB removing an, say, Al Qaeda account.)
• stevedekorte 6y ago
  Bitcoin fixes this.
• thePunisher 6y ago
  Zoom is not a U.S. company but an infiltration by China. The entire company should be broken up and all ties with China cut. Its founder and CEO should also be investigated for illegal ties with China.
  • dang 6y ago
    We ban accounts that do nationalistic flamewar on HN, so please stop doing that. No, I'm not a communist agent. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • thePunisher 6y ago
      Then stop posting political content. If you post political content you're gonna get political discussions.
      • dang 6y ago
        There are political discussions and political discussions. We want one kind and not another. The site rules don't cease to apply when a topic becomes political—they apply more: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If you want a more in-depth explanation of how we approach the question of politics on HN, I've written about it many times: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20political%20overlap&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, which shows how far back political discussion goes on HN, as well as the argument about politics on HN. If you or anyone takes a look at those past explanations and has a question that isn't answered there, I'd like to know what it is. But please make sure you've familiarized yourself with the material first, because if it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just allow everything", I've answered many times already why it won't work.
• crazygringo 6y ago
  I'd just like to see more evidence and information before making judgment here. There's no response from Zoom whatsoever, which is odd. Could this have been other users maliciously reporting the account as abuse, and it was closed automatically? Or something else similar? Or if China is putting pressure on Zoom, then how exactly? If Zoom, an American company, really did intentionally close the account of someone living in the US, because the Chinese government asked them to for political reasons, that does sound outrageous. But it's so outrageous that I actually have a hard time believing it's true. It feels like business suicide. I want to hear Zoom's side here first -- which I expect we will soon, since this story broke only 2 hours ago.
  • bagacrap 6y ago
    How is that outrageous? US companies cow tow to CCP all the time, e.g. the NBA. If you're trying not to get blacklisted by the world's second largest market then it makes plenty of sense.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • pyrophane 6y ago
      I don't think this compares directly to the now-commonplace kowtowing that you are referring to. That would be more akin to Zoom, for example, retracting and apologizing for some public statement that it made in recognition of the Tiananmen Square protests. Instead, this is a US-based communications platform, barring its US-based users from discussing something that is offensive to a foreign regime, and doing so outside of any official rules that they have made public. Now, of course, you are correct, this has nothing to do with any kind of deeply held values. It is merely about money. I don't think that makes it better.
    • kryptiskt 6y ago
      But that's why we constantly have to remind these companies that such sycophancy will cost them dearly in the world's largest market.
  • 6y ago
• xtat 6y ago
  weird that zoom has the same orbit of regular ugliness with a handful of well meaning apologists as facebook
• Vysero 6y ago
  I am confused.. are we supposed to be surprised by this?
• xenonite 6y ago
  Only last week, it was announced by Zoom's CEO that free accounts are unencrypted, to enable law enforcement agencies. Now we read that PAID accounts are suspended for their contents. Hence, the encryption is obviously a farce.
  • whycombagator 6y ago
    > Only last week, it was announced by Zoom's CEO that free accounts are unencrypted, to enable law enforcement agencies. I missed that one, do you have a source?
    • kup0 6y ago
      The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21279355/zoom-end-encryption-calls-fbi-police-free-users https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21279355/zoom-end-encrypti...
      • vinay427 6y ago
        That source doesn't support the GP comment. End-to-end encryption 1. doesn't exist yet for any user, and 2. does not mean free user calls will be less encrypted than they are today with server-client encryption. Zoom is not claiming that paid calls today are E2E encrypted.
        • kup0 6y ago
          Yes but Zoom was saying that E2E is something they want to offer for their paid users, but that they will not offer it for free users. I think it's relevant to the parent comment in that they were asking for more information about what Zoom said concerning encryption on free vs paid users. I think most people mean E2E when they say encryption, because server-client encryption is almost a given now, and does nothing to stop companies from helping law enforcement.
  • vinay427 6y ago
    The E2E encryption hasn't been released yet. Currently and in the future, according to their announcement, all calls will at least be server-client encrypted. Paid ones will apparently be optionally E2E encrypted. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21279355/zoom-end-encryption-calls-fbi-police-free-users https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21279355/zoom-end-encrypti...
• Aunche 6y ago
  In typical internet activist fashion, always assume malice. Zoom has 300 million participants a day. Even if they accidentally bans a Chinese activist with the same probability as any other person, the media will only report those instances because Zoom happens to have a Chinese American CEO.
  • bagacrap 6y ago
    well, we'll quickly see if this was an accident. So far it doesn't look that way.
  • catalogia 6y ago
    > Zoom happens to have a Chinese CEO. You are understating the nature of Zoom's relationship to China.
• orky56 6y ago
  I'm trying to understand the justifications for this is the activist is US-based. If CCP has an issue with someone within their own country, that is one thing but this is something totally different.
• safeworld2 6y ago
  Stop! Most USA company bow to China, isn't it?
• newbie578 6y ago
  Seems like even on HN people are walking on eggshells and won't address the elephant in the room. Very well, I will. FUCK ZOOM and FUCK CCP. I am dreaming of a unified world where we boycott China until they change their ways. A man can only dream.
  • dang 6y ago
    Would you please stop posting fulminating rhetoric to HN? No doubt your strong feelings are justified but the discussion this leads to is tedious, predictable, and nasty. The idea here is to have thoughtful comments and curious conversation. "FUCK ONE THING and FUCK OTHER THING" is...not that. Also, can you please not use allcaps for emphasis? maybe it would be a good moment to review the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
    • newbie578 6y ago
      Please do tell what should a curious conversation be about a U.S-based company which does a foreign country's bidding (China), and blatantly censors people and won't even let mothers of students who were killed in Tiananmen Square speak in a private online meeting.. This should be nothing short of condemnation and public shaming. As you said, unfortunately I may have come across as a little strong and nasty, but these are situations where one cannot sid idly by, especially since stuff like this has been happening for years now (Regarding China, not only Zoom)
      • a1369209993 6y ago
        I don't know about you, but I'm curious about how best to go about destroying Zoom (the company) and eliminating all use of Zoom (the software tool) even among people who don't recognize the threat posed by corporate censorship. Maybe you could start a conversation about that?
• strogonoff 6y ago
  Is there a comprehensive list of all CCP-favoring [self-]censorship incidents involving major entities outside of China? Leica, Mariott cases come to mind.
  • screye 6y ago
    Blizzard
• orsenthil 6y ago
  This is REAL! Here are more details shared by Humanitarian China with links to the video recordings and the photos of Zoom blockage. https://docs.google.com/document/d/12DM3ccTe70yzqCDPu9uXlCD7WmfJq-yzvKdKBH0oppc/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/12DM3ccTe70yzqCDPu9uXlCD7... If Zoom cannot comment on this incident. a) Either issue an apology and revert the stance. OR b) Or Explain why it was done Its usage needs to be met with serious skepticism.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• khana 6y ago
  US needs to wake up to this unacceptable action on Zoom's behalf. What a shame.
• ericjang 6y ago
  I hope I'm not drawing too tenuous of a connection to current events, but I can't help but notice the irony of so many Silicon Valley companies coming out in vocal (and financial!) support of the BLM movement [1], while turning right around and supporting a totalitarian regime in China. It strikes me as deeply inauthentic that people can be so passionate about some social issues and utterly indifferent or complicit to others. I understand that people can prioritize different issues at different times, and some people say that it's even possible to care about one issue without the expense of another. Nonetheless, that statement is not substantiated by the level of concern U.S. citizens and woke-minded folks around the world devote to issues like the soft economic power China wields over SouthEast asian countries, the oppression of Uyghur minorities in China, or the political status of pro-democracy countries like Taiwan (to name a few). Do people only care about a political issue if people threaten to cancel them on Twitter? [1] https://twitter.com/zoom_us/status/1266877451646283776?s=20 https://twitter.com/zoom_us/status/1266877451646283776?s=20
• themantra514 6y ago
  SMH I am done with Zoom. If you value your privacy and freedoms I suggest you drop them too. There are very good alternatives by great teams that actually respect & protect your privacy.
• setgree 6y ago
  > "We are outraged by this act from Zoom, a U.S company," Zhou and other organizers told Axios in a statement. "As the most commercially popular meeting software worldwide, Zoom is essential as an unbanned outreach to Chinese audiences remembering and commemorating Tiananmen Massacre during the coronavirus pandemic." I understand the sentiment, but I don't agree that Zoom is essential. Jitsi is a fine alternative. It's perhaps not as polished Zoom, but that's a fair tradeoff here, I think!
  • ketamine__ 6y ago
    I would not describe Zoom as polished. The video quality is horrible and the interface could be from 10 years ago. I had a difficult time getting Jitsi to work with a friend. Also, despite using more bandwidth the video was inferior compared to FaceTime.
• Medicalidiot 6y ago
  I've always been sketchy of Zoom after finding out it was started by a Chinese national when this is one of the top recruitment avenues for Chinese espionage agencies.
• shaan1 6y ago
  It's chinese. lol
• ketamine__ 6y ago
  Just curious if anyone has tried creating rooms or logins (or passwords) that reference Tiananmen and had their accounts closed? I'm imagining that doing this on a company account could be a painful revenue destroying form of protest.
  • christophilus 6y ago
    Perth Tolle who runs the FRDM ETF also had her account knocked offline. She is a human rights advocate who has been outspoken about the HK situation. It’s looking pretty bad for Zoom.
• shaan1 6y ago
  Why aren't all the liberals talking about human rights abuses in china ?
• shaan1 6y ago
  Has anyone noticed, if you mention chinese, you actively get your point decreased by one point.
  • dang 6y ago
    Please stop breaking the site guidelines. Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome here. Insinuations of brigading and other abuses are not ok (because the vast majority of the time, people are simply making them up to explain something they noticed and disliked). Going on about downvotes is also against the rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • shaan1 6y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553325#23553594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553325#23553594
  • vectorrain 6y ago
    Yes, I agree. It seems each Chinese company has a secret relationship with the Chinese government. But what they didn't notice is that the American embassy would censor your social account and content when you apply for Visa. American is the biggest surveillance country but takes it for granted.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 6y ago
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• DominikPeters 6y ago
  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 comply with their respective local laws. We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters. We have reactivated the US-based account.” > — Zoom statement > Between the lines: This suggests Zoom closed the account due to concerns in China, which forbids free discussion of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement.
  • crazygringo 6y ago
    Yes, it seems like this was ultimately a bit of a nothingburger. As much as we may not like it (and I certainly personally don't), China has the authority to censor the internet within its borders. Zoom literally has no choice but to follow China's law within China's borders, if it is to provide its product there at all. Zoom accidentally deactivated a US-based account, and fixed it when they found out. At worst, in this instance, they seem to simply be guilty of an administrative mistake and slow customer support.
    • loceng 6y ago
      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?
      • crazygringo 6y ago
        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.
• ceohockey60 6y ago
  I've certainly stuck my own neck out to defend Zoom against some of the FUD around it from a more technical, E2EE performance trade off angle: https://interconnected.blog/zoom-china-fud-performance-tradeoff-open-source/ https://interconnected.blog/zoom-china-fud-performance-trade... This development just made the company much less defensible...
• imapluralistyep 6y ago
  All the more reason to use alternatives like jitsi meet.
• ascotan 6y ago
  It's the perennial thorn in the side of big tech companies. If you want to do business in China, you have to abide by the rules (as you would in any country). However, in China this means that you have to engage in political censorship in order to do business there. Hopefully this is will be a lesson learned.
• locusm 6y ago
  I tried IPVideoTalk the other day and was pleasantly surprised how good it was. They just upgraded their free plan too with more features.
• reaganjohnwayne 6y ago
  Good, get those damn commies out. No commies on my servers. Iwork at AWS and I regularly (on the sly) kick out non free-market supporting [excuse my language] a holes. This is America,, land of the Free and the Brave.
• 737min 6y ago
  War is coming. Any company doing business with China - and complying with the demands of the CCP’s security apparatus - needs to examine it’s choices no less rigorously than what we’ve seen in other human rights vs technology conflicts this week amd this year.
• rotbart 6y ago
  This just prompted me to cancel my Zoom subscription... I could live with all the security flaws (which were patched quite rapidly) but not with this kind of unethical behaviour.
• ngcc_hk 6y ago
  The law in China mandated this and hence any firm based in China cannot be trusted for content. To be honest, it seems like fair if one respect that when traffic going in. But for that we start to have 2 commerical worlds. One China+world and one China. Hence, China can profit from the world but no one can touch China. With that, due to the weight of that market, gradually you will have self-sanction. Good luck humanity, if you think basic human rights have a world and a China standard. China standard will rule you ultimately.
• systematical 6y ago
  Also, Zoom sucked. I hope I never have to hear someone say lets zoom again. Die with the pandemic please.
• CarbyAu 6y ago
  I set up a Jitsi Meet server at home. It's main resource use is bandwidth. CPU/RAM use for the server is minimal. I used: - VMWare Workstation:1CPU/2Core, 6GB RAM(I have RAM to burn) - Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop default install (so I could use the base snapshot for other things) - Hardware: i7 2600(yea it is old!), 32Gb RAM, generic gaming desktop with updated GPU. - To Install Jitsi itself:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KR0AhDZF2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KR0AhDZF2A No end-to-end encryption? Don't care, it is coming to MY home and it DOES have SSL for client to server encryption. I boot from known good snapshot when I want to use it. Turn it off otherwise. I guess I should figure out accounts etc but it hasn't been an issue to just let it run free for anyone to use while I am using it. For those HN people who have all the tech-know, just build a Jitsi VPS somewhere with super decent bandwidth. Hell, I would expect some HN people to be able to automate that shit and give me a website with a nominal price to have my own personal Jitsi Meet server, complete with Domain Name and Jitsi account management.
• dangjc 6y ago
  Why doesn’t the US just pass a countervailing law against censorship? When China tells a company to censor its employees or users, the company could just point to the US law saying it can’t. Then China has no leverage over it because the company’s hands are tied.
  • woutr_be 6y ago
    I don't understand this reasoning; the leverage is that China will ban the entire company from doing business in China, how would this law help anything? I also don't think US laws applies in China, so if a company wants to do business in China, it has to follow Chinese regulations. Just like a company doing business in the US having the follow US regulations.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• str33t_punk 6y ago
  It is funny that Alex Stamos works there. After all his morale handwringing about working for Facebook, he is now working for Zoom, a Chinese Communist Party spy operation. Not only does he work for them, his job is to shill them so that people trust them. He should feel ashamed of himself and really makes his whole situation with Facebook seem quite silly. He is now actually working for the 'bad guys'
• anonu 6y ago
  I want to stop using zoom. But the experience is far higher quality than anything else I've used. Maybe part of that is the strong suggestion and herding towards using the desktop app and not the browser.
  • everfree 6y ago
    Try Google Meet. Different can of privacy worms, but at least they aren't connected so directly to China.
• jtdev 6y ago
  I’m no longer using Zoom due to the numerous security issues and infractions in addition to Zoom appearing to be a Chinese state controlled organization. I’ve also started to inform my less technical friends/family that Zoom should be avoided at all cost. On a related note: Has anyone else noticed that non-technical people have started calling any and all video conferencing “zoom”? I keep hearing the phrases: “...have to get on a zoom” or “they’re doing a zoom”.
• myrandomcomment 6y ago
  I just sent email to my company's e-staff (which I am on) saying I will not join another Zoom call. As an American free speech above all is my default. I do understand the Chinese governments worry on having social harmony given the fact that their revolution was driven by the disharmony and they worry about another revolution. Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." — From Problems of War and Strategy - Mao Zedong
• dvtrn 6y ago
  Curiosity cat: Has anyone had success motioning their org away from Zoom? I’ve pondered it, considering the enterprise is heavily O365 anyway, as are multiple partners who host weekly touchpoints via Teams.
• mkbkn 6y ago
  Is there any alternative where my invitees don't have to "download" any software? It should work out-of-the-box in most browsers, including on mobile.
  • dqpb 6y ago
    Google meet
  • ernsheong 6y ago
    No solution is able to perform very well on mobile browsers. Meet is great for desktop browsers, on mobile apps are available for Google Meet.
• baby 6y ago
  Oh gosh :/ I was really happy for keybase, and I really like keybase product, and I’ve been defending zoom to colleagues and infosec people and... I’m super disappointed to hear this. Really really disappointed... Zoom’s management has no spine.
• paulcarroty 6y ago
  Yet another service affiliated with China. It's just shame for tons of Zoom users. https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/31/zoom-at-your-own-risk/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/31/zoom-at-your-own-risk/ - this article contains facts and easily explain why using Zoom isn't secure, send it to your friends/coworkers/non-tech people/etc.
• jariel 6y ago
  It's 2020 - why is it so hard for someone to do basic video conferencing? How is this not a commodity?
• TwoBit 6y ago
  Why the hell would any company that cares about security have anything to do with the Chinese? There are fo many other countries they could be working with instead.
• trashburger 6y ago
  At this point, is _any_ company not bowing down to the Chinese government? Is there ANY platform where I can talk about the aforementioned event without getting my account deleted?
• nix23 6y ago
  Does anyone know that Zoom took over Keybase? It's crazy, no encryption for non-paid Videoconferencing, but buying Keybase? Leaves a really bad taste in my mouth, and now that...
• girriPal 6y ago
  I
• girriPal 6y ago
  It's time to carefully consider whether using Zoom is safe.
• thePunisher 6y ago
  OTOH I find it incomprehensible that the Tienanmen Square student leaders would risk holding an online meeting through a Chinese controlled video messaging platform. I mean, there are loads of other options. Why would they choose Zoom, knowing that it's being controlled (directly or indirectly) by China?
• safeworld2 6y ago
  why not create a device like a mask which can encrypt voice before put it to the internet?
• zenit-mf-1 6y ago
  Recent update: U.S. lawmakers ask Zoom to clarify China ties after it suspends accounts https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zoom-video-commn-privacy/u-s-lawmakers-ask-zoom-to-clarify-china-ties-after-it-suspends-accounts-idUSKBN23I3GP https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zoom-video-commn-privacy/...