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I don't see why this is such a big deal. Company with operations in China gets order from Chinese government to suspend accounts of people the Chinese governmen

by lmz 6y ago

I don't see why this is such a big deal. Company with operations in China gets order from Chinese government to suspend accounts of people the Chinese government don't like. Company with operations in the US gets order not to trade with people from US embargoed countries [1]. What's the difference? [1]: e.g. https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/07/19/gcp-move-update/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2018/07/19/gcp-move-update/

082349872349872 6y ago
In the old days, this game used to be played with passports and visas[1]. I was surprised to hear a recording of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River" in Moscow, with the lines Show a little grit And you land in jail Someone must've narced on him for showing a little grit: he didn't land in jail, but his economic livelihood (from touring internationally) was effectively destroyed when his passport was pulled. "Yes, Minister" introduced me to conjugations of the form: I am an activist You are a troll He is a bot To be perfectly clear: I am in favor of free exchange of ideas (what day of Eternal September[2] is today?); just trying to point out that repression at the hands of the state can take many forms, some more obvious than others. [1] why do US visa authorities harvest VK and Youku accounts, anyway? [2] that was too cynical; we're actually living in one of the easiest times for ordinary people to communicate, with other ordinary people in other cultures, ever. Not only do we have an internet (so timezone is more of a barrier than location), machine translation is no longer "invisible, insane."
summerlight 6y ago
This case can be framed more like "an american company suspended an american account of an american citizen to comply with Chinese local law." Operating in China doesn't necessarily expand its jurisdiction into the US. What Zoom should have done is blocking participants in China from the meeting created by Zhou and Wang rather than suspending a US citizen's account. For the case of Gitlab, Google and Gitlab are both US based companies so it makes sense to comply with the US law.
- lmz 6y ago
  Do they not have a local Chinese subsidiary that hires their employees there?
  - summerlight 6y ago
    Almost every multinational companies have some level of presence in China, even Google has offices there. If we apply your logic, China should be allowed to order search and seizure warrants to those companies for any user information that might related to their national security. Of course, this is absolutely non-sense.
    - lmz 6y ago
      Well isn't it just a matter of what penalties China can enforce on the presence there if they refuse to comply? If the majority of their tech team is there it gets hard to argue that they have no access. Maybe they just threatened someone with the access and with not enough time to speak to legal?
      - summerlight 6y ago
        I already told you how to appropriately handle the situation without provoking PRC that much, which is supposed to be just a common sense to multi-national companies. And even PRC probably doesn't want it to get this level of Western media attentions given the political landscape. Even a mere software engineer myself know this; but Zoom just simply messed it up by deciding not to do so.

by lmz 6y ago

082349872349872 6y ago

In the old days, this game used to be played with passports and visas[1]. I was surprised to hear a recording of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River" in Moscow, with the lines Show a little grit And you land in jail Someone must've narced on him for showing a little grit: he didn't land in jail, but his economic livelihood (from touring internationally) was effectively destroyed when his passport was pulled. "Yes, Minister" introduced me to conjugations of the form: I am an activist You are a troll He is a bot To be perfectly clear: I am in favor of free exchange of ideas (what day of Eternal September[2] is today?); just trying to point out that repression at the hands of the state can take many forms, some more obvious than others. [1] why do US visa authorities harvest VK and Youku accounts, anyway? [2] that was too cynical; we're actually living in one of the easiest times for ordinary people to communicate, with other ordinary people in other cultures, ever. Not only do we have an internet (so timezone is more of a barrier than location), machine translation is no longer "invisible, insane."

summerlight 6y ago

This case can be framed more like "an american company suspended an american account of an american citizen to comply with Chinese local law." Operating in China doesn't necessarily expand its jurisdiction into the US. What Zoom should have done is blocking participants in China from the meeting created by Zhou and Wang rather than suspending a US citizen's account. For the case of Gitlab, Google and Gitlab are both US based companies so it makes sense to comply with the US law.

lmz 6y ago
Do they not have a local Chinese subsidiary that hires their employees there?
- summerlight 6y ago
  Almost every multinational companies have some level of presence in China, even Google has offices there. If we apply your logic, China should be allowed to order search and seizure warrants to those companies for any user information that might related to their national security. Of course, this is absolutely non-sense.
  - lmz 6y ago
    Well isn't it just a matter of what penalties China can enforce on the presence there if they refuse to comply? If the majority of their tech team is there it gets hard to argue that they have no access. Maybe they just threatened someone with the access and with not enough time to speak to legal?
    - summerlight 6y ago
      I already told you how to appropriately handle the situation without provoking PRC that much, which is supposed to be just a common sense to multi-national companies. And even PRC probably doesn't want it to get this level of Western media attentions given the political landscape. Even a mere software engineer myself know this; but Zoom just simply messed it up by deciding not to do so.