U.S. Charges China-based Zoom Executive With Disrupting Tiananmen Crackdown Commemorations (reuters.com) 56
U.S. prosecutors on Friday charged a China-based executive at Zoom Video Communications with disrupting video meetings commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown at the request of the Chinese government. From a report: Xinjiang Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiring since January 2019 to use his company's systems to censor speech, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Zoom was not named in court papers, but its identity was confirmed by a person close to the matter. Papers filed in federal court in Brooklyn said Jin's employer is based in San Jose, California, where Zoom is headquartered. Prosecutors said Jin, a software engineer and his employer's main liaison with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence, helped terminate at least four video meetings in May and June, including some involving dissidents who survived the June 4, 1989, student protests. Jin allegedly fabricated violations of Zoom's terms of service to justify his actions to his superiors.
Setting precedent (Score:3)
Re:Setting precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
It is also re-demonstrating the pattern that Chinese-led companies (for instance Huawei) cannot be trusted to supply secure, non-political infrastructure as they are all beholden to report to their government anything it might be interested in.
Re:Setting precedent (Score:4, Informative)
Sadly, most companies will kowtow to external pressure willingly. We've just seen CD Projekt / GoG pull a Taiwanese horror game from their store hours after announcement, claiming that "gamers" (*snort*) were unhappy with the decision, and so they caved and removed it. Literally *hours*, is all it took. The economic muscle of the Chinese market is a frightening menace to free expression at this point. Soon, you won't ever see a videogame that is critical towards China on any mainstream videogame platform. Maybe this is now the tipping point. This has LONG been the case for Hollywood-created movies.
I'm not sure why we'd be surprised when non-entertainment products like video streaming products pull the exact same shit. This is disgusting, and frankly, a black mark on all western democracies who mouth platitudes about noble ideals, but seem to have no compunction with financially enriching brutal authoritarian regimes that gleefully stomp all over human rights.
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Which game was it that GOG pulled? I have about a thousand purchases on GOG, but I am more than willing to leave them behind if they pulled a game from a Taiwanese company. I love Taiwan a great deal. I love free speech even more.
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The game is called "Devotion". Previous Slashdot story: https://games.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]
Related media coverage: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Article doesn't say what the actual charges are (Score:2)
Re:Article doesn't say what the actual charges are (Score:5, Interesting)
Xinjiang Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiring since January 2019 to use his companyâ(TM)s systems to censor speech, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
I'm guessing it has something to do with promoting China's interests over U.S. interests. If that's the case, though, that would mean that many of the world's large gaming companies should also be on trial for the same thing. Most of them get their marching orders from Tencent:
Riot Games
Epic Games
Bluehole
Ubisoft
Activision Blizzard
Grinding Gear Games
And others.
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Xinjiang Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of conspiring since January 2019 to use his companyâ(TM)s systems to censor speech, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
I'm guessing it has something to do with promoting China's interests over U.S. interests.
I think it has mostly to due with the fact that the Zoom session included US users.
Note that the complaint is entirely targeted at this one Chinese engineer and not at all at the company.
I wasn't aware of federal laws against conspiracy to censor speech. I wonder how Facebook, Google, and other US media companies would fare under tight scrutiny based on the same standards.
Re:Article doesn't say what the actual charges are (Score:5, Informative)
The news article got the charges completely wrong.
https://www.nytimes.com/intera... [nytimes.com]
According to the complaint the charge is "Conspiracy to commit interstate harassment", Title 18, United States Code, Section 2261A(2)(B). (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2261A)
The law cited "(B) causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to a person described in clause (i), (ii), or (iii) of paragraph (1)(A),"
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Interesting. So Facebook, Google, Twitter and more would then fall under the same thing too when they censor content if that censoring causes distress?
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"I wonder how Facebook, Google, and other US media companies would fare under tight scrutiny based on the same standards."
Probably, not well and in many cases they also are obeying the likes of China and the political party they sponsor in the US.
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but I'd bet money it's not "conspiring to censor". That's not a thing.
The actual charges seem to be "charges of conspiracy to commit interstate harassment and unlawful conspiracy to transfer a means of identification."
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It all depends upon who likes who. Trump was buddies with Xi Jinping for awhile, he seemed almost jealous that all those autocrats were able to just do things without getting congressional approval. But now he's not on good terms with Winnie the Pooh (moron) and started a trade war when his amazing deal making didn't work out.
So China is no longer a friend so do whatever it takes to hurt them. If they were still friends, a bit of good natured censorship would certainly have been tolerated.
A slightly different charge than the headline says (Score:2)
Chinese Exec Charged With Disrupting U.S. Video Calls About Tiananmen Massacre.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have charged a China-based executive working for a U.S. telecommunications company with disrupting video meetings commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre at the request of Chinese authorities and providing information about meeting participants. Xinjiang Jin, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit interst
Re:Setting precedent (Score:4, Informative)
It seems the article was wrong [fbi.gov]. What he actually did:
"Jin was charged with conspiracy to commit interstate harassment and unlawful conspiracy to transfer means of identification."
Apparently he was making fake accounts trying to tie people to child porn. So while his purpose was censorship, that is not where he broke the law.
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Jin was charged with conspiracy to commit interstate harassment 18 USC 2261A, a form of stalking, not with censoring speech.
I guess Lucas might have been right (Score:2)
I wonder if this will actually escalate from a bunch of trade disputes [youtu.be].
Re:Under what legal basis? (Score:4, Interesting)
He was making false accusations of terrorism and child pornography, and was acting as a foreign agent to suppress freedom of speech in the United States. This is no different from espionage.
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He stopped being a private citizen when he started taking orders from Lesser Taiwan to enforce their will on private citizens in another country.
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It is different.
He is a chinese citizen, in China, following chinese law.
If we don't like it, maybe we shouldn't use chinese software platforms?
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acting as an agent of a foreign government
Proof? He might be patriotic and find his beliefs to be in line with those of the CCP. Not a crime.
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Here's the details on Justice.gov: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr... [justice.gov]
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OK. But that's a press release. It reads pretty well. But I can't find anything in out Federal Code of Regulations prohibiting "Faustian bargains".
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That and a few quid will get you a cup of coffee, but not anyone to listen to you.
Unless, of course, you have some actual evidence to back any of that statement up.
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Hooo boy. You need some serious schooling on Asian history. They have thousands of years of beating the crap out of, murdering, raping, and so on to each other.
No lies or cover ups needed. They've all done it, as has every nation that's been around long enough.
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Also, General Tso never cooked a single chicken in his life.
The rape of Nanking was documented by a Nazi. (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It was also photographed by happy Imperial Japanese Army participants, but feel free to remain stupid.
Poor guy Xinjiang Jin ... (Score:2)
He did as he was asked by his government and attacked by the USA DoJ. If he had not done this he would have been attacked by the Chinese government. There was no way that he could win.
Crackdown? Seriously? (Score:3, Interesting)
When did Reuters start bowing to the Chinese government? Tiananmen Square was a massacre, not a crackdown, not an "incident," it was a massacre and has been called that since it happened. Why are we supposed to suddenly call it a "Crackdown" instead of what it actually was?
Is Reuters scared of China now too?
Re: (Score:2)
Shh, you might disturb Overton.
Freedom of speech? Nah. (Score:2)
After all, the President can falsely accuse companies of voter fraud without anybody giving a peep.
this is worth ten in the slammer? (Score:2)
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Because he was making accusations of terrorism and CP distribution (both serious crimes, so this comes under libel, slander, and wasting police time) and was acting on behalf of a foreign government at the time. It's almost as if Lesser Taiwan wants a war.
Oppression (Score:2)
Corruption, collusion, ignorance, apathy, the element that rot civilisation from within.
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Except for the apathy, just like the the Republican Party.
They seem pretty apathetic about Trumps recent election shenanigans.
If they can do this... (Score:1)
So, if they can charge someone in China with a crime for cancelling or suppressing someone's account on a privately-owned service in order t achieve censorship, why can't that apply to Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube?
Massacre (Score:1)