Zoom’s statement confirms they acted under pressure from Beijing to close my account and other accounts following our Tiananmen Commemoration events. The company should be held responsible for their negligence of the free speech and security of their clients, both in China and internationally. By shutting down and limiting memorials of an event as tragic and traumatic as the Tiananmen Massacre, Zoom collaborates with the oppressive CCP by extending their rules of censorship to international audiences. 

Humanitarian China believes technology and progress, both in life and liberty, must proceed together. As new technologies emerge and develop, so too should opportunities for citizens around the world to better their lives, resist oppression, and break down barriers. Companies must understand that creating progress with their technology is directly in their best interest: the best consumer is free and informed.

Zoom was an essential platform for our conferencing. Humanitarian China used Zoom for our commemoration conference because it was commercially tested and unblocked from China. There is huge potential for these platforms, but only with unfettered access.

Recent events cause us grave concern for the security of Zoom users and our conference attendees in China. For many Chinese attendees, this was their first and only opportunity to learn about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, to contact and listen to the stories of inspirational activists, to be moved to tears by their stories of courage and sacrifice. Exercising their right to free information and speech is a crime punishable by ostracization and imprisonment for many of these attendees. Zoom endangered the lives of these attendees by hiding the hidden influence of the CCP from them, and they continue to do so by failing to reveal from which agency they receive orders or to whom they report their consumers’ information. 

Zoom’s intended response is a dangerous disguise to violate free speech. By developing the capability to “block individual participants by country”, Zoom is working directly for the Chinese government to develop software to directly stymie free and open access to their own product, enabling it to be turned into a more sophisticated tool of identifying, surveilling, and censoring those curious accounts who do seek voices outside Communist propaganda.

Humanitarian China believes in order for an international company to claim they “promote the open exchange of ideas”, then this ideal of open exchange must be promoted worldwide regardless of country as an essential human right.  Companies like Zoom should be bringing people and information together, not creating software to separate them. It is a pity evenAmerican-based companies like Zoom are so susceptible to CCP influence. 

Events like this reveal Beijing is setting the rules on information technology. Instead of creating an open internet of fair access to information, we are allowing the web we build to be controlled and walled off by the censors’ tyrannical governments. The international community and the American government must confront this reality. Removing the Great Fire Wall that cuts off more than 1 billion people from the free exchange of formation should be a pre-condition for trade with China.

Please help by spreading awareness of the conference itself.

Do not let these stories be forgotten. Remember the sacrifices of countless citizens, that of this woman: a Tiananmen mother who lost her son, only a high school student.