US charges China-based Zoom executive with disrupting Tiananmen video commemorations
19 December, 2020
US prosecutors on Friday (Dec 18) charged a China-based executive at Zoom with involvement in a scheme to disrupt video meetings commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in China.
Xinjiang Jin, the business's main liaison with Chinese police and intelligence services, conspired since January 2019 to use his company's systems to censor speech at the direction of China's government, the US Department of Justice said.
Prosecutors said Jin helped terminate at least four meetings in May and June, including some involving dissidents who survived the protests in 1989, and fabricated violations of Zoom's conditions of service to justify his actions to his superiors.
In addition they said Jin's accomplices created fake email accounts and Zoom accounts, including in dissidents' names, to create it appear the meetings' participants supported terrorism, violence or the distribution of child pornography.
Zoom was not named in court papers filed in Brooklyn federal court, but its identity was confirmed by a person near to the matter. The papers said Jin's employer is situated in San Jose, California, which is where Zoom is headquartered.
A spokesman for Zoom said the business is reviewing the complaint. Jin is not in US custody and a attorney for him cannot immediately be identified.
"Jin willingly committed crimes, and sought to mislead others at the business, to help (Chinese) authorities censor and punish US users' core political speech merely for exercising their rights to free expression," Acting US Attorney Seth DuCharme in Brooklyn said in a statement.
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