Zoom says that it has blocked users in China for sharting Tiananmen pictures. The company said that it suspended user accounts and ended meetings linked to the anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The brand says that it took the step following the Chinese government order. The company says it blocked three activists’ accounts and ended meetings of Cheuk-yan, Wang Dan, and Zhou Fengsuo. However, the company has said that it has reinstated the accounts. As per the company, in May and early June, it was notified by the Chinese government about four large, public June 4th commemoration meetings on Zoom that were being published on social media, including meeting details. “The Chinese government informed us that this activity is illegal in China and demanded that Zoom terminate the meetings and host accounts,” the company said in a statement.
Zoom said that it did not provide any user information or meeting content to the Chinese government. The brand says that out of four meetings, two meetings were blocked as it contained people from mainland China. One meeting was not banned as the metadata showed that it did not have any participants from mainland China.
“Zoom does not currently have the ability to remove specific participants from a meeting or block participants from a certain country from joining a meeting. As such, we made the decision to end three of the four meetings and suspended or terminated the host accounts associated with the three meetings,” the company said in a blog post.
The company has said that it is developing technology that will enable the company to remove or block the participant based on geography. The company said it is improving its global policy to respond to these types of requests.