Zoom Developing Ability to Block Users Based on Geography After Chinese Issue

Zoom is building technology that can remove or block users based on country after the company shut down Chinese activist accounts after pressure from the Chinese government.

Per media reports and Zoom’s own blog, the company shut down accounts belonging to Chinese civil rights groups that were planning to commemorate the 1989 protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The Chinese government forbids citizens from observing that event.

According to the Zoom blog published Thursday, the company was notified about four large, public June 4 meetings that were being publicized on social media. China demanded that Zoom terminated the meetings and accounts.

No user information or meeting content was provided to Chinese officials, and the company chose to keep one meeting undisturbed because no participants were from mainland China.

In two of the meetings, Zoom confirmed a significant amount of participants from mainland China. Chinese officials showed Zoom a social media invitation for another meeting and notified the company of a prior meeting with the same account, and mainland China participants were confirmed.

Since the company didn’t have the ability to remove or block participants by country, the company ended three of the four meetings and terminated the host accounts associated with those meetings. The accounts have since been restored.

Those two actions were mistakes, the company admits. Two of those host accounts were based in the U.S. and another was in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Now, the company is developing technology that can remove or block participants based on geography.

“This will enable us to comply with requests from local authorities when they determine activity on our platform is illegal within their borders; however, we will also be able to protect these conversations for participants outside of those borders where the activity is allowed,” Zoom said.

Zoom also says it won’t allow requests from the Chinese government to impact anyone outside of mainland China. A revised global policy will be outlined as part of the company’s transparency report to be published by June 30.

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