Senator Josh Hawley's Open Letter to Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom | Hacker News Reader

Senator Josh Hawley's Open Letter to Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom

hawley.senate.gov

84 pointsbaylearn57 comments

Explicitly difficult to serve both China and US interests without pissing off one side or the other (or both). Zoom clearly built a system based on an MVP idea, not imagining that security and being able to block internationally was important, yet it is. Having worked for a bit on a game that had to have Chinese government restrictions in it, I know how hard it is to make their government happy. Even worse is it can change at any time. Zoom should have had someone there who had worked in a similar type of Chinese environment; perhaps they did and no one listened.

Or maybe it should have not, and should've just cut off the whole China, how ever offensive to capitalist sensibilities it is.

Let the free market come up with another alternative for massacre-silencing needs.

Why not just license the software to a local company?

Or incorporate in Europe and then license it local providers around the world. Let the local providers deal with it.

> Even worse is it can change at any time.

There have been some good public quotes about how capricious the censors can be when it comes to movies in China. Big budget movies made in China suddenly can't be shown because ... well sometimes they don't even know. Filmmakers have been pretty open about saying that they don't know what the rules are and they think they're playing it safe and then their film is blacklisted because they think a censor thought that a scene might seem 'sympathetic' to an event barely mentioned in the film, and maybe recently someone in power decided that moment in history was 'wrong'.

You can partition the two platforms and setup your business structures to legally support both.

Note: I couldn't fit the entire title in HN's title character limit, so replaced it with what it is.

Original title:

Senator Hawley to Zoom: “Pick A Side: American Principles and Free-Speech, or Short-Term Global Profits and Censorship”

I'm surprised that he even has to ask. Profits it is! Or else you better prepare for a lawsuit from your shareholders.

Or the Chinese Communist Party which can make him obsolete as they have done with other Chinese billionaires who don’t two their line.

Examples?

Liu Han might be an example

Thanks

Yuan is a US citizen billionaire.

Or perhaps shareholders will be more interested in long term profits and start a lawsuit when the short term profits dry up as their paying customers leave them due to censorship and security concerns.

Given Hawley's position on 230, this is quite obviously a pure exercise in china bashing.

Has an American company ever been sued by their shareholders for refusing to cooperate with the CCP?

Kinda funny that it's ok for zoom to become a platform for US to monitor it's own civilians but then complain that it's cooperating with Chinese law. Seems to me senator wants zoom to pick sides alright, but it has nothing to do with values or principles

Speaking as someone who isn't American or Chinese, is it too much to ask for both sides to stop spying on the rest of us?

This is too idealistic. It would never happen. You either build it yourself or choose your spy.

I think there is a great deal more nuance than "ok to monitor".

But those are two different issues. One is about national security, and the other is about civil liberties. Sure it would be nice if both of those were strong, but the consequences of having compromised national security are more likely to result in wide scale disaster than this particular case of weakened civil liberties are.

This is because we have some semblance of checks and balances within the country, but much less outside of it.

The only function of national security is to preserve life, libery, and the pursuit of happines. it is not a goal in itself.

Right, that is why I said bad national security can lead to wide scale disaster.

Have there been any info shared by Zoom explicitly about this decision?

And are there any HNers who work at Zoom, or know someone who works at Zoom, who can speak to how this situation is perceived internally?

Zoom blogged about it... https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/06/11/improving-our-poli...

It's unreasonable to expect any single company to act alone in this. Some pundit (Scott Galloway?) recently made the point that USA flag corporations need the US Government to make this law. I'd be fine if FAANG et al presented model legislation.

Senator Hawley also introduced legislation that could be used to block efforts to implement end-to-end encryption, so maybe this is more about American nationalism than American Principles.

"Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has slammed the bill as a 'Trojan horse to give Attorney General Barr and Donald Trump the power to control online speech and require government access to every aspect of Americans' lives.'" [1]

[1] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/487372-bill-to-protect... [2] https://morningconsult.com/opinions/a-backdoor-attempt-to-re...

> company to choose a side: American principles and free-speech, or short-term global profits and censorship

Or both. Like most other companies.

Senator Hawley has evidently not criticized Zoom alone, but other companies as well.

> "One week ago today, I sent a letter to American companies like yours, asking them to put American principles and free nations around the world first."

And which companies, specifically, did he criticize?

One week ago he sent a letter[1] to "American Companies in China". I didn't notice an uptick in paper stocks, so I assume he didn't actually send this letter to all "American companies in China" but instead just put this out there on his website like a fart in the wind.

Very brave.

1. https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Ha...

Whether or not paper vs digital communication is a matter of bravery of cowardice (I'm a bit confused by the supposed connection between these concepts..) seems irrelevant.

The joke was that there are so many American companies in China that to send a physical letter to them would cause paper stocks to rise.

And, because there are so many, addressing no company in particular is futile - it’s like a fart in the wind. Nobody will hear it.

Or both.

You're assuming there was ever a dichotomy to being with. Many have demonstrated that a company can have "American principles" and short-term global profits and censorship at the same time. Companies have been doing it since China "opened up" in the 70s and 80s.

I would also request that the Senator from Missouri give me a specific list of what constitutes "American principles". I'll bet his list is at least slightly different than my list. But there I go, assuming that a solution was being sought and not just posturing.

> I would also request that the Senator from Missouri give me a specific list of what constitutes "American principles"

You can get a great picture of his (parties) principals by his press releases. Yada yada relgious freedom, police are good, "radical left" is bad, planned parenthood is the devil etc.

1. https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases

I was being ever so slightly facetious (I'm sure a MO Republican's views differ greatly from those of my West Coast Liberal(tm) arse), but thanks for the list as it solidifies what I was merely guessing at. :-)

Do open letters from legislators really accomplish anything other than negative media attention?

Looking at the cases of the NBA and Blizzard, no.

Next step will be hours of Congressional hearings where politicians invoke fiery rhetorics and company executives use verbal jiu jitsu to dodge out of any legal liabilities.

Is he going to be writing a similar letter to Apple?

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/28/17055088/apple-chinese-ic...

https://sneak.berlin/20200604/if-zoom-is-wrong-so-is-apple/

Choose American principles and free-speech or face cease and desist

Oddly enough Im fairly confident its an American Principle to make as much money as possible as a fiduciary responsibility. So. Pick one.

That's a complete myth.

I just don't understand how US government officials can criticize private companies for kowtowing to China because of its importance in the world, when the US government unequivocally does the same thing every day to a much greater degree.

I think Senator Hawley addresses your criticism head-on. China and the United States both have requirements for domestic companies to be in alignment with certain domestic goals. The Chinese and United State domestic goals are absolutely incompatible. A lot of companies think they can find a balance between these two sets of requirements, but Hawley is pointing out that increasingly this is impossible.

Relevant XKCD - https://xkcd.com/1357/

Lesson learned: change your chinese name when your company goes public.

That has nothing to do with it. Similar letters were written when Activision/Blizzard punished a Hearthstone player for supporting the Honk Kong protests.

I don't think this kind of comment should be on HN

Suppose Zoom exits China (1.39B potential users) in response. This would almost certainly constitute a breach of fiduciary duty.

Censorship is legal. Failing to act in the best interest of shareholders is not.

Perhaps legislators should stick to writing laws?

>This would almost certainly constitute a breach of fiduciary duty.

Would it? I'm not sure simply operating in a big market or not operating it would qualify as 'breach of fiduciary duty'.

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