Zoom took down a U.S.-based Chinese activists' account after they celebrated the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. According to Los Angeles Times' latest report, the videoconferencing provider, Zoom, confirmed it closed a U.S-based account of the group of prominent Chinese activists after discovering they held an event using the video platform commemorate the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
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Zoom briefly shuts account of activists who met to mark the anniversary of China's crackdown in Tiananmen Square, raising alarm over free speech https://t.co/G2UDY0j2nO pic.twitter.com/ap2OHKO2WE — AFP news agency (@AFP) June 11, 2020
The event was held on a paid Zoom account, associated with Humanitarian China, by the founder of U.S. based nonprofit Humanitarian China Zhou Fengsou on May 31, as reported in a statement of Zoom acquired by Axios. Zhou participated in the historic protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square as one of the student leaders.
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The anniversary event was joined by about 250 people, including the parents of protesters who were killed and other protest organizers. A notice stating that it had been shut down was received by the U.S.-based Zoom account associated with Humanitarian China.
The U.S.-Based account of Chinese activists was closed
According to Axios' latest report, a spokesperson of the Zoom video platform confirmed that the account was shut down to comply with local law, but it had now been re-activated.
"Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate. When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws," the spokesperson said.
"We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters. We have re-activated the US-based account," Zoom added.
Zoom confirmed that the Chinese activists' account was already re-activated on Wednesday, June 10. Although Zhou confirmed the account's reactivation, Humanitarian China said that it had not heard the confirmation directly from Zoom, saying that the video platform company refused to respond to the repeated request for an explanation.
"This is not acceptable. How many accounts are targeted during this anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre? We want answers," Zhou wrote in an email.
Axios reported that Zoom announced that Chinese-based users will no longer be provided with free accounts starting in May. Zoom became popular when corporate meetings, in-person social gatherings, conferences, and religious services were halted because of the global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus.
