The company is creating a system that’ll enable Zoom to block a video meeting participant based on geography in order to comply with Chinese government censorship requests.
(Photo by Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images)
To comply with China’s censorship demands, Zoom is creating a system that’ll let a government authority file a request to prevent their citizens from accessing the video conferencing service.
The system, which will launch in the next several days, will enable Zoom “to remove or block” a video meeting participant “based on geography,” the company said in a Thursday blog post.
Zoom announced the plan as it’s facing criticism for shutting down the paid account of a Chinese activist group located in California. On May 31, the group, Humanitarian China, hosted a video meeting to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. But a week later Zoom terminated the account on an order from the Chinese government, which learned of the video meeting by monitoring social media.
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The controversy raises questions over whether Zoom — a US-based company — will continue to block users from accessing the service if the Chinese government demands it.
In the blog post, Zoom said the company made a misstep in shutting down not just one, but three accounts belonging to Chinese activists. All three are based in the US and Hong Kong, which lie outside the direct jurisdiction of the Chinese government. So in response, the company has reinstated the accounts.
