Apple & Zoom Bow Down To Communist China
Both Apple and Zoom appear to have bowed down to Communist China’s Government demands, Apple by removing a podcast service and Zoom who simply closed down the account of an organisation that criticised the Government and wanted to participate in Tiananmen commemorations.
Apple removed podcast apps Pocket Casts and Castro from its App Store in China at the request of the Cyberspace Administration of China a communist government department.
“We believe podcasting is and should remain an open medium, free of government censorship,” Pocket Casts responded.
Zoom a major sponsor of the South Sydney NRL team the Rabbitoh’s cut the San Francisco-based Humanitarian China group off. Days later they were forced to reactivate the account.
The Group said when it tried to access the platform Sunday, it found the account had been closed without notification or explanation from the videoconferencing platform. Zoom quietly reactivated the account last night after the news organization Axios reported on the shutdown, said Zhou Fengsuo, president of Humanitarian China.
“This is a very big setback,” said Mr. Zhou, a Tiananmen veteran based in Newark, N.J. He explained that many other videoconferencing platforms, such as Google Meet, are blocked in mainland China, home base for many participants in the Tiananmen commemoration.
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment on Thursday. The company has said in the past that it follows local laws in the countries where it operates.
