News

Zoom Blocked Tienanmen Accounts

By |

Zoom says it acted on Tiananmen accounts after China demand

US video-conference company says accounts were briefly suspended because it could not block individual participants.11 Jun 2020

[File: Bloomberg]

MORE ABOUT PRIVACY & SURVEILLANCE

Privacy fears over COVID apps by Bahrain, Kuwait, NorwaytodayPolice in the US take surveillance to the skytodayUS law enforcement surveilled protests with drones, spy planes4 days agoJoe Biden’s Muslim state of exceptionlast week

Zoom Video Communications admitted on Thursday that it suspended user accounts and ended meetings linked to the anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown on its platform after the Chinese government demanded it do so. Zoom, which has seen its global popularity as a video conferencing tool soar during the COVID-19 pandemic, said it did not provide any user information or meeting content to the Chinese government, adding it would not allow further requests from China to affect users outside the country in the future. The company’s statement comes after it temporarily shut three accounts belonging to activists, one of whom is based in Hong Kong and two of whom are in the United States. Humanitarian China founder Zhou Fengsuo, who is based in the US, said his account was suspended after holding a Zoom event to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the brutal military crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Viewers from mainland China, where Tiananmen has been all but erased, joined the event.

News

Zoom is Not Safe

By |

Zoom Is Not Safe

In January 2020, Zoom had over 2,500 employees, 1,396 are in the United States and 1,136 are in their international locations. The problem lies in Zoom’s additional 700 employees hired within a subsidiary that work in mainland communist China and develop Zoom software. Eric S. Yuan is a Chinese-American billionaire businessman, and the CEO founder of Zoom Video Communications. Following his successful IPO, he now owns 22% of Zoom (Wikipedia). Eric was born in 1970 (currently 50), in Tai’an, China.

News

Never Forget Tiananmen Square

By |

We Must Never Forget the Tiananmen Square Massacre

by Arielle Del TurcoJune 4, 2020

Tiananmen Square Tank Man, One man can change the world. Every year for the past 30 years, crowds have gathered in Hong Kong on June 4th to light candles, hear from former Chinese pro-democracy activists, and mourn the infamous massacre of student demonstrators by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 1989. This year, no legal vigil was permitted, but that didn’t stop thousands from bringing white candles to a Hong Kong park to remember the tragedy that came to be known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Hong Kong authorities refused to allow the annual public remembrance to be held this year, claiming to be concerned about the coronavirus, but such displays are always banned on the mainland. Many of the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong—who had long identified with those who called for freedom in Tiananmen Square—now fear the Chinese government is silencing Hong Kong dissenters much like they did in 1989.            

Beijing suppresses these annual memorials.

News

Christians Heavily Persecuted in China

By |

Christians Are Heavily Persecuted Today in China

by Arielle Del Turco & Lela Gilbert, 6/9/20

Pastor Wang Yi & his wife in CHENGDU – In this 2000 photo provided by ChinaAid, pastor Wang Yi, left, poses with his wife Jiang Rong at the study room of their home in Chengdu, China. China on Monday, Dec. 30, 2019, sentenced the prominent pastor who operated outside the Communist Party-recognized Protestant organization to nine years in prison. The People’s Intermediate Court in the southwestern city of Chengdu said Wang Yi was also convicted of illegal business operations, fined and had his personal assets seized. (ChinaAid via AP)

Formerly an acclaimed legal scholar, Pastor Wang Yi led Chengdu’s Early Rain Covenant Church — one of the most influential churches in China’s vast underground Christian movement — for more than a decade.

News

Taiwan Needs Nuclear Weapons

By |

Ian Easton On Taiwan: Taiwan’s Nuclear Weapons Problem

Taipei faces a potentially frightful future. The leaders of the People’s Republic of China (PRC, China) are building up their nuclear forces with an offensive war against Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) and the United States in mind. According to the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s 2019 China Military Power Report, Beijing is developing a stealth bomber capable of delivering nuclear attacks. When it comes online, the new bomber will “provide China with its first credible nuclear triad of delivery systems dispersed across land, sea, and air.”

China’s nuclear weapons expansion is dangerous and destabilizing. The more nuclear warheads and delivery systems China has in its arsenal, the more likely it becomes that Beijing could use them in a premeditated strike, or lose control over them in the chaos of a future crisis.