I don't see how this isn't just discriminating based on national origin.
It'd be one thing if there are actually some nefarious ties between Eric and CCP, but all we are going by is he's originally from China and there could be influence by CCP on people from China. It's not bad to point out a connection, it's bad to point out a possible connection based on nothing more than where the guy is from.
There is plenty of evidence suggesting that Zoom collaborates with the CCP without it, there was undue pressure to terminate activists without users from China.
It is best to focus on these sorts of links rather than someone merely being from China.
That I'm fine with. If there is evidence that suggest Zoom is doing something unsavory then we should call them out on it. But suggesting Zoom isn't trustworthy simply because the CEO is Chinese is distasteful.
I'm disgusted that in 2020, Americans continue to use the same racist, unfounded smears againts people based on their ethnicity just as they did when they were throwing Japanese-Americans into internment camps.
There are plenty of HN users who won't (or wouldn't, in an ideal world) use any US-based software because of NSA interference.
The issue is national origin, not ethnicity. Japanese Americans were thrown into camps for the same reason, but we're not talking about jailing anyone here. We're talking about avoiding a specific product.
Another difference is that Japanese Americans were put into camps regardless of how many generations removed from being Japanese they were. No one is arguing that CCP has control over Chinese Americans whose ancestors immigrated here in the 1800s. It's about people who literally grew up in China and/or still have close family there for CCP to threaten.
There is a difference between US based software (e.g. servers located in the US), vs a CEO that's from the US (or China in this case). If the argument is that Zoom the company has routes traffic to China etc then fine I can get behind that. But if the argument is the CEO is from China I find that problematic. I mean it's not like internment of Japanese Americans is ok if it's limited to only first gen.
EDIT: Also sounds like you're saying that it's ok to avoid doing business with someone based on national origin, which I also find problematic.
> Also sounds like you're saying that it's ok to avoid doing business with someone based on national origin, which I also find problematic.
Sure, it can be problematic. I've seen articles about how Russian people in the software industry are having a very hard time because of what Putin's regime does. It's not fair for the people who have nothing to do with Putin and no exposure to him.
But what is the alternative? Putin and Kim have assassinated dissidents in Western countries. Do we assume people can't be coerced just because they left the borders of the authoritarian country?
Should the US government also remove its nationality restrictions for security clearances?
The alternative is to not discriminate based on national origin? Which is a protected class by the way. Nationality is also very different from national origin. Eric is an American citizen as far as I aware. You can point to the requirement to be bore in the US to run for presidency, but 1) that’s an edge case and 2) where is the line? Is it ok to discriminate again foreign born Americans but not against native born? What about native born Americans with relatives in China / Russian / North Korea.
I mean overall you really don’t find it an issue to blankedly judge an entire class of people based on what some people within that population does or could do?
> The alternative is to not discriminate based on national origin?
It absolutely is not a protected class. There are no protected classes when I am deciding whom I trust with my personal data. I can discriminate for any reason, including national origin.
> I mean overall you really don’t find it an issue to blankedly judge an entire class of people based on what some people within that population does or could do?
I would find that an issue if anyone (including me) were proposing it. We are not. You're attacking a straw man.
Here are the facts, regardless of Yuan's citizenship, race, etc:
1. Yuan grew up in China. He still has Zoom employees and family there.
2. China is controlled by a regime that has no qualms about using physical threats and violence to maintain control.
That's it. That's all I need to decide that I don't trust Zoom, if all of their extreme dishonesty and malware installations weren't enough. They haven't shown good judgment, and even if they did, it would be easy for CCP to put pressure on Yuan (or any other employee living in mainland China).
If Yuan had no family in China, no employees, and enough bravery to speak against CCP, I would not feel this way. I am not judging an "entire class" of people.
By the way, every firm that requires security clearance does judge entire classes of people as security risks. The question I asked, which you didn't answer, is whether you think that's also inappropriate.
Yes you're free to make personal choices based on whatever factor you like. You can decide based on vendor's national origin, race, sex whatever. I just don't think it's right on those factors alone.
You listed 2 things. First is where he's from, the second is the politics of the country. You are then basing your judgement (at least in this comment) purely on those factors. The implication here is you wouldn't trust your data to anyone that was born, grew up and has family and / or employees in China. I mean most of the large tech companies have some employees in China. How is this not judging an entire class (or group if you'd like) of people?
As far as security clearance, they are at least in theory assessed based on established facts about a particular person. e.g. being born in China doesn't automatically disqualify you as far as I'm aware. If you know otherwise or can point to examples, I'm open to being corrected.
I mean if it's been established that Eric has connections to the CPP then that's a different matter and we can look at that. My objection is with "Eric is a Chinese-American billionaire businessman so we shouldn't trust him".
> Japanese Americans were thrown into camps for the same reason, but we're not talking about jailing anyone here.
Yet.
At the risk of a slippery slope fallacy, institutional xenophobia ain't controlled by an on/off switch. Dehumanization is a gradual process, and establishing an attitude that people associated with an enemy are aligned with that enemy is part of that process. At first those associations might seem reasonable, going for officials and other important figures, and then perhaps their family, and so might the actions against them, like added scrutiny and surveillance of their communications and travels. The problem is that both ends of that are prone to scope creep - the target set broadens ever so slowly (citizens, ex-citizens, descendants of (ex-)citizens, their descendants, and so on, almost always excused with "well we need to be sure that $CURRENT_TARGET is not part of $PREVIOUS_TARGET"), while the actions worsen ever so slowly (surveillance, profiling, travel restrictions, property confiscation, imprisonment, sterilization, execution) as the rhetoric heats up from "we just want to make sure these people aren't the enemy" to "these people are the enemy and shall be treated as such".
Personally, I'd prefer to nip that in the bud rather than watch 1800's-era sinophobia reenact itself at the expense of my Chinese-American friends and colleagues. I also have enough self-awareness to know that if I would be upset by people writing me off as "will probably help oppress minorities and political dissidents if his government tells him to do so" simply because I happen to be a citizen of a country with a track record for oppressing minorities and political dissidents, then I should refrain from doing so to a citizen (let alone ex-citizen) of a different country with those same tendencies, even if those tendencies are, in my opinion, much stronger.
> The issue is national origin, not ethnicity. Japanese Americans were thrown into camps for the same reason
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Of 127,000 Japanese Americans living in the continental United States at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, 112,000 resided on the West Coast.[9] About 80,000 were Nisei (literal translation: "second generation"; American-born Japanese with U.S. citizenship) and Sansei ("third generation"; the children of Nisei). The rest were Issei ("first generation") immigrants born in Japan who were ineligible for U.S. citizenship under U.S. law.[10]
```
Should there be a upper limit on the generations to be considered not originated from a nation state? According to what happened to WWII Japanese ethnic Americans, that number seems have to be > 3?
And remember that what happened in WWII Japanese internment camp is an evidence that "national origin" as an association was plainly wrong, from the same wiki page:
```
In 1980, under mounting pressure from the Japanese American Citizens League and redress organizations,[30] President Jimmy Carter opened an investigation to determine whether the decision to put Japanese Americans into concentration camps had been justified by the government. He appointed the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) to investigate the camps. The Commission's report, titled Personal Justice Denied, found little evidence of Japanese disloyalty at the time and concluded that the incarceration had been the product of racism
```
Emphasis on the last statement: `the incarceration had been the product of racism`.
It explicitly argues that he's evil because he has a Chinese name and Wikipedia describes him as Chinese-American. There's no equivocating about the software being China-based, or him having close family in China for the CCP to threaten.
And discriminating against people for national origin is considered so bigoted it was explicitly included in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Your reasoning is sound, but you should seriously reconsider your basic ethical principles.
I see your point about a person's family still living in China, and hence giving leverage to CCP to put pressure on them. However, the argument that where people grow up gives them inherent alignment with the government of that country, and they can only be "cleansed" through generations is at best bogus, and at worst ammunition for racism.
Not to justify atrocities happening in China or getting into Whataboutism, but just to give an analogy, would it be fair to consider any US expat an accomplice in or a proponent of separating migrant children from their families at the border?
