
Zoom closes account of U.S.-based Chinese activist after Tiananmen event - surajama
https://www.axios.com/zoom-closes-chinese-user-account-tiananmen-square-f218fed1-69af-4bdd-aac4-7eaf67f34084.html
======
ciarannolan
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.

~~~
sp332
> 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.

This is incorrect. They don't offer end-to-end encryption, but it is encrypted
between each client and the Zoom servers, and they have promised there's no
way for a Zoom employee to spy on a conversation without visibly joining the
meeting.
[https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408](https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1268061790954385408)

~~~
Ntrails
Either it is E2E encrypted, or it is unencrypted on zoom servers and the only
claim that they can reasonably make is that they haven't _provided_ their
employees with the tools to observe a call invisibly.

~~~
virgilp
This is addressed in the Alex Stamos twitter thread.

It _is_ E2E encrypted. And from what I understand the "promise" is a
technological promise, not a process promise; you can check the exact terms of
the promise in the paper.

~~~
brians
The paper’s ideas are not yet implemented. Right now, it’s encrypted to
whatever keys Zoom likes, including the PRC’s. Same system as Apple’s or
Google’s

~~~
virgilp
OK, but if we were to take this stance it than literally the whole thread is
pointless debate, right? It started with this:

> 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.

The entire debate is about the not-yet-implemented E2E encryption (that's
where Zoom "does not encrypt free calls"). And the Alex Stamos thread explains
very well both why that is a sensible choice, and how they will implement E2E
encryption& what are the limitations.

If we're discussing about current implementation, it doesn't make sense to be
outraged that "Zoom doesn't offer encryption for free calls" \- if we talk
about E2E encryption, it doesn't offer it for anyone; and if we talk just
about HTTPS, it offers it to everyone. So in fact we must've been discussing
the future implementation not the current one - right?

------
fossuser
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
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?

~~~
fossuser
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 abandoned for years until many other multi-billion dollar
companies rose up and took the space.

\- I've anecdotally heard Meet had worse video/audio quality from friends.

\- I tend to try and avoid Google chat products since they're usually a mess
and often killed.

Of all of these, the first and last are really the only valid reasons.

Google Meet does have its own scummy practices though (adding itself to
meetings without asking which confuses participants and is extremely annoying,
Benedict Evans tweeted/wrote about this).

Maybe Jitsi works well enough to actually use? I already have a Matrix server,
I could try getting friends to use that instead (realistically probably will
be difficult).

~~~
matwood
> I've anecdotally heard Meet had worse video/audio quality from friends.

The best part of Zoom taking off is suddenly Meet appears to be getting new
features almost daily. It's like a product Google suddenly cares about again.
Audio and video quality have also greatly improved. It's really like a
completely different product from 6 months ago.

~~~
disillusioned
I think the pandemic has brought into harsh relief how critical some of those
quality of life features were, and advanced their urgency within Google.
They're adding so many millions of users per day, and already had a strong
initial base product, that building these additional zoom-competitive features
is a no-brainer.

And Google Meet is able to bring to bear some of their absolutely amazing
advances with ML for things like predictive sound for dropped packets and the
new denoiser function they've launched, along with live captioning and some
other just incredible features.

There are a few little things that bug me with Google Meet: their newly
introduced grid view doesn't display yourself as one of the tiles, for some
reason. I don't want to pay $25/mo/user for an enterprise account _just_ for
the video recording feature, which I will have to do come September, if they
don't extend the current offer to make that available to all GSuite tiers. And
I wish it recorded the transcription. But overall, it's a pretty great
product, and its tight integration with Google Calendar and Slack, along with
its frankly fantastic meeting room hardware has made it our software of choice
for some time now for conferencing.

Plus, it's a sunk cost for GSuite users. Aside from a licensing fee for the
meeting rooms, I'm not paying an _additional_ per-user monthly fee, which for
a small consultancy like mine, matters.

------
at_a_remove
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
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
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
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
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.

~~~
kelnos
> _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?_

No, and that's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Perhaps I'm doing a bad
job of it.

> _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._

And that's where I think you and I fundamentally differ in our beliefs. I
think, absent a law either way, companies may -- and perhaps should -- feel
free to exercise their own judgment about what they're comfortable
broadcasting from their platform.

And again, why is "the law" so revered here? The law (at least in the US) is
filled with racist and racist-enabling garbage. Why do we hold it as some
final word on morality? I don't think we should. Changing the law takes time,
effort, and money. Companies refusing to broadcast certain types of speech can
be a part of activism and lobbying in order to change laws. And if ultimately
the will of society is that this refusal is wrong, there are remedies (legal
and economic) for that, too.

I believe I do understand your point of view; I just don't agree with it.

------
DominikPeters
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
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
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
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.

~~~
vezycash
> Zoom accidentally deactivated a US-based account, and fixed it when they
> found out.

This is why I downvoted your comment.

~~~
crazygringo
Do you care to explain why? Because what I said is factual.

They stated they aim to "limit the actions we take to those necessary to
comply with local law", in this case their action went beyond that limit, and
now that they're aware, they fixed it.

And I see no evidence otherwise -- this is not something they've shown any
pattern of behavior in. It appears to be a one-off.

Any conspiracy-mongering that Zoom is nefariously in cahoots with the Chinese
government to _intentionally_ try to sneak in an extra blocked account just
begs credulity.

~~~
vezycash
>Because what I said is factual.

The company has been caught lying at least 3 times.

1\. Lying about their daily active users.
[https://thenextweb.com/apps/2020/04/30/zoom-daily-active-
use...](https://thenextweb.com/apps/2020/04/30/zoom-daily-active-users-
lie-300m/)

2\. Lying that they used 256 bit encryption (it was 128 bit)

3\. Lying about using end to end encryption

4\. Lying about separating Chinese users from the rest of the network
[https://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2020/04/07/zoom-
lied-f...](https://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2020/04/07/zoom-lied-faces-
criticism-for-newly-discovered-lax-security-practices/)

I'm not the only one who was waiting for the cover up lie for this incidence.

"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)."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23481177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23481177)

It's also not the first time an American company would lockup a non-chinese
user's account for saying/doing something china doesn't like.

A famous example is Blizzard's banning of a Hong Kong protester's account,
seizing his earnings and backtracked after the story went viral.

------
JumpCrisscross
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.

------
crazygringo
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
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.

~~~
pyrophane
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.

------
staycoolboy
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
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-
yo...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90486586/zoom-banned-from-new-york-city-
schools-due-to-privacy-and-security-flaws)

Google Told Its Workers That They Can’t Use Zoom On Their Laptops Anymore
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/google-
bans...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/google-bans-zoom)

Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-zoom-video-
commn/e...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-zoom-video-commn/elon-
musks-spacex-bans-zoom-over-privacy-concerns-memo-idUSKBN21J71H)

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/...](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)

Security and Privacy Implications of Zoom
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/04/security_and_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/04/security_and_pr_1.html)

‘Zoom is malware’: why experts worry about the video conferencing platform
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-
tech...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-technology-
security-coronavirus-video-conferencing)

Ex-NSA hacker drops new zero-day doom for Zoom
[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-nsa-hacker-drops-
zero-1400...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-nsa-hacker-drops-
zero-140020837.html)

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/unpat...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2020/04/unpatched-zoom-bug-lets-attackers-steal-windows-
credentials-with-no-warning/)

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-
cr...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdqgv/hackers-selling-critical-
zoom-zero-day-exploit-for-500000)

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-da...](https://www.businessinsider.com/500000-zoom-accounts-
sale-dark-web-2020-4)

~~~
orsenthil
I relied on Mozilla's guide and they seem to be perfectly OK with recommending
Zoom as a video conferencing app

[https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categor...](https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/video-
call-apps/)

~~~
staycoolboy
This is very interesting. I do trust mozilla. However many of the security
concerns stem from the dubious thing the Zoom installer does, which Mozilla's
scorecard does not cover. I feel a little more at east with a Mozilla
recommendation, however.

------
threatofrain
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.

~~~
cosmodisk
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.

------
john_moscow
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.

~~~
jedberg
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.

~~~
john_moscow
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
monetization and a monopoly on social media. These monopolies are sustained
through network effects and lack the feedback loop.

Edit: I would even say, they have a wrong type of feedback loop, since they
are directly incentivized to censor the opinions that go against the vocal
social groups, since that could result in decreasing profits.

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. Would it make them more
democratic or change anything for the end users?

I think, the distinction between private and government is a technicality.
What is more important, is how many independent parties are making the
censorship decisions, and whether they report to a single vs. distributed
source of power. From that angle, the government-dominated Chinese web is very
similar to Silicon Valley-dominated western web.

~~~
jedberg
> 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.

~~~
john_moscow
In theory, yes. In practice, since Google and Facebook are free to end users,
outcompeting them would require raising enormous amounts of capital. So you
would depend on the approval of a rather small (and mind you, non-elected)
group of individuals.

I really don't think it's about the wording you put on the decision maker's
badge. It's about who's interests they represent and the structure of their
incentives.

Government-drivern censorship is bad, because their incentive would become to
stay in power no matter what. Monopolies act the same way.

------
xenonite
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
> 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
The Verge: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21279355/zoom-end-
encrypti...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/3/21279355/zoom-end-encryption-
calls-fbi-police-free-users)

~~~
vinay427
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
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.

------
AdmiralAsshat
> 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.

~~~
kodablah
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
> Zoom is forced to apologize by China

Why would China want them to apologize? (Or there's a typo?)

Didn't zoom do what C wanted already

~~~
OJFord
Cf. the Marriott apology in GP's link - it would be further to the action
already taken, rather than retracting or apologising for it.

~~~
cutemonster
Ok thanks for explaining

------
kdamica
I remember the good old days when we all thought that tech would help export
democracy and free speech...

~~~
thePunisher
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.

~~~
YarickR2
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
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.

------
sonicggg
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.

------
orsenthil
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/12DM3ccTe70yzqCDPu9uXlCD7...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12DM3ccTe70yzqCDPu9uXlCD7WmfJq-
yzvKdKBH0oppc/edit)

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.

------
ordinaryradical
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.

~~~
deathgrips
You're not considering the real and terrifying strengths that dictatorship has
over democracy. In true democracies the politicians never undertake a plan
that lasts longer than one election term because they have no incentive to do
so. In China they feel free to undertake 20 year plans with large upfront
investments because the party does not care about winning an election every
2-4 years. Why do you automatically assume that elections provide a reality
check? Would you say that the Democrats and Republicans in the USA are tightly
coupled to reality given their frequent elections? On the contrary I believe
that elections merely tie legislative actions towards what voters perceive as
electable. It doesn't matter what the PATRIOT act does as long as a political
ad can sell the idea of "safety" to you. Politics in democracies have devolved
to little more than entertainment.

On the other hand, China has achieved something very close to a technocracy
where rules are based on expert opinion. The economy is controlled by
economists, health policy is controlled by epidemiologists, and media
censorship is controlled by political and social scientists. You are more
likely to advance based on competence in Chinese politics than you are in the
USA, where elections are just a high school popularity contest. The Chinese
government has plenty of terrifyingly competent bureaucrats.

~~~
koheripbal
This is why a successful democracy is one where only well educated and
thoughtful people vote. Making it easier and easier to vote is a losing
formula.

~~~
ryantgtg
I know you are trolling. But, what country are you using as an example? And
what is the “this” in the comment you are replying to (I think you are
attempting to make a point rather than actually responding to the content)?
And finally, investing in education is a better solution than suppressing the
vote.

------
paulcarroty
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.

------
CarbyAu
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.

------
mberning
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.

------
zenit-mf-1
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/...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zoom-video-commn-privacy/u-s-
lawmakers-ask-zoom-to-clarify-china-ties-after-it-suspends-accounts-
idUSKBN23I3GP)

------
annoyingnoob
How can anything good come from a move like this? I do my best to avoid Zoom
anyway.

------
anonu
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
Try Google Meet. Different can of privacy worms, but at least they aren't
connected so directly to China.

------
mc32
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.

------
orky56
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.

------
ngcc_hk
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.

------
jtdev
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”.

------
ceohockey60
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-
trade...](https://interconnected.blog/zoom-china-fud-performance-tradeoff-
open-source/)

This development just made the company much less defensible...

------
strogonoff
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
Blizzard

------
dangjc
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
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.

------
baby
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.

------
ketamine__
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
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.

------
dvtrn
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.

------
trashburger
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?

------
rotbart
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.

------
TwoBit
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.

------
mkbkn
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.

~~~
ernsheong
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.

------
nix23
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...

------
locusm
I tried IPVideoTalk the other day and was pleasantly surprised how good it
was. They just upgraded their free plan too with more features.

------
jariel
It's 2020 - why is it so hard for someone to do basic video conferencing? How
is this not a commodity?

------
myrandomcomment
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

------
ascotan
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.

------
Aunche
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.

~~~
catalogia
> _Zoom happens to have a Chinese CEO._

You are understating the nature of Zoom's relationship to China.

------
imapluralistyep
All the more reason to use alternatives like jitsi meet.

------
themantra514
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.

------
xtat
weird that zoom has the same orbit of regular ugliness with a handful of well
meaning apologists as facebook

------
Novukus
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.

~~~
robocat
I mostly agree with what you are trying to say, but being snarky is against
the hn guidelines. Edit: “against” is too strong a word - it isn’t a hard rule
but I often see the hn community react negatively to sarcasm and snarkiness
even though the content may be worthwhile.

~~~
dang
It is a hard rule!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
robocat
I thought the the word “guidelines” usually implied something more flexible.
Thank you for the clarification (I certainly appreciate the limited snarkyness
and toxic sarcasm within the hn community).

~~~
pvg
"I got your hard rule right here" would have been a perfectly fine reply, I
think, so your initial impression is probably not that far off the mark in
practice.

------
safeworld2
why not create a device like a mask which can encrypt voice before put it to
the internet?

------
bigpumpkin
Here's a secure open-source Zoom alternative:

[https://meet.jit.si/](https://meet.jit.si/)

------
chasebank
EDIT: Deleted. Not relevant.

~~~
stingraycharles
I feel I should be careful believing this until I see a source reference of
some kind.

~~~
chasebank
I'll pry and see what I can get. If it's true, I imagine it will be out
shortly.

------
systematical
Also, Zoom sucked. I hope I never have to hear someone say lets zoom again.
Die with the pandemic please.

------
str33t_punk
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'

------
coronadisaster
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
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”

~~~
laumars
Whataboutism is usually done to defend something by making it look better in
comparison but what the OP was arguing is that we should be pursuing end to
end encrypted solutions exclusively because it’s not just the Chinese
government who are doing the snooping. ie he’s not defending Zoom nor the
Chinese government but suggesting the complaint against Zoom/China doesn’t go
far enough

~~~
frabbit
Exactly. Assume that governments and large companies can and will spy on you
and act accordingly. Do not get suckered into some simplistic nationalistic
narrative in which "our" side is good.

~~~
Veen
There's two problems with that line of thought. First, "our side" is not good
but it is better. Notwithstanding the current unpleasantness, the US
government isn't locking up and "reeducating" hundreds of thousands of its own
citizens. Second, good or bad, it is our side and the CCP is the other side:
only an ethically and intellectually challenged person offers tacit support
for the "other side" because their own side fails some specious purity test.

~~~
frabbit
_the US government isn 't locking up and "reeducating" hundreds of thousands
of its own citizens._

Discuss.

~~~
Veen
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-
education_camps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps)

> As of 2018, it was estimated that the Chinese authorities may have detained
> hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other
> ethnic Turkic Muslims, Christians as well as some foreign citizens such as
> Kazakhstanis, who are being held in these secretive internment camps which
> are located throughout the region. In May 2018, Randall Schriver of the
> United States Department of Defense repeated claims that "at least a million
> but likely closer to three million citizens" were imprisoned in detention
> centers in a strong condemnation of the "concentration camps"

~~~
frabbit
[https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/06/we-know-lot-less-we-
thi...](https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/06/we-know-lot-less-we-think-about-
world-which-explains-allure-simplism)

~~~
Veen
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot)

------
DeonPenny
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
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.

------
stevedekorte
Bitcoin fixes this.

------
Vysero
I am confused.. are we supposed to be surprised by this?

------
YarickR2
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
Don't you see the difference between state-sponsored outlets like RT and the
individual activists Zoom banned?

~~~
catalogia
If it happened to be the case that the ROC was sponsoring this activist, that
would not change how I feel about it.

------
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).

~~~
vikramkr
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
> 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
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.

------
ericjang
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)

------
737min
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.

------
onetimemanytime
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.)

------
setgree
> "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!

------
shaan1
Has anyone noticed, if you mention chinese, you actively get your point
decreased by one point.

~~~
dang
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
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553325#23553594](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23553325#23553594)

