Chinese interference in the video conferencing company's operations is a stark lesson that governments need to get involved in countering Beijing's influence.
Illustration by Pete Ryan
On the evening of June 8, 2020, four days after the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, I received a message from Zhou Fengsuo, a student leader during the 1989 pro-democracy movement who now lives in New Jersey.
“Hi, Bethany, our Zoom account was closed with no explanation,” he wrote. “We have emailed Zoom asking for the reason, but we haven’t received a response.”
He wasn’t the only one affected. Numerous other Chinese pro-democracy activists in both the U.S. and Hong Kong had seen their accounts closed and their virtual Tiananmen memorials disrupted, with no response from the video conferencing company.
Zhou Fengsuo at a 2022 rally in Flushing, marking the 33rd anniversary of the June 4 massacre. Credit: Zhou Fengsuo via Twitter
Zhou and I had known each other for several years through his work in the Chinese pro-democracy movement and the reporting I had done on human rights issues in China. He is gentle and soft-spoken, but he has a wil
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