Video-conferencing company Zoom has apologized for placating the Chinese government and promised that it will develop the technology to placate the Chinese government more effectively in the future.
The company closed the host accounts for three meeting calls commemorating the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. “The Chinese government informed us that this activity is illegal in China and demanded that Zoom terminate the meetings and host accounts,” the company said, acknowledging that China told them to jump and that they asked how high. Zoom shut down three of the four calls because they had participants from mainland China.
Zoom has now promised that it has a new feature that would allow them to vet meeting participants based on their location. “Going forward, Zoom will not allow requests from the Chinese government to impact anyone outside of mainland China,” the company said. Zoom is content to help Chinese Communist Party censorship of its own people, and Zoom is only sorry that it immediately clamped down on activists in the United States and Hong Kong in its eagerness to appease the CCP.
Zoom is just the latest proof that U.S. companies will gladly debase themselves for access to the Chinese market. From Apple to Nike to Disney to the NBA, company after company has decided that it will do whatever it takes to stay in the good graces of the world’s worst human rights abuser. Zoom actually owes a lot of its success to China; the company has seen its stock skyrocket this year as schools and businesses have turned to it for meetings thanks to a global pandemic the Chinese government helped spread around the world by initially covering it up.
The only way for companies such as Zoom to get the message on China is for it to hit the pocketbooks. If Zoom is so willing to play by China’s rules, let it do it without the support of U.S. schools and office spaces. It’s time for U.S. companies to remember where they are and to act like it.
