[ipnon]

As alleged, the defendant was an active agent of the CCP and PRC intelligence[a] working inside an American company to deny the rights of freedom of speech and religion to residents of America.[b] The PRC is willfully breaking American law to disenfranchise Americans of their constitutional rights.

[a] “The allegations in the complaint lay bare the Faustian bargain that the PRC government demands of U.S. technology companies doing business within the PRC’s borders, and the insider threat that those companies face from their own employees in the PRC,” said Acting United States Attorney Seth D. DuCharme. “As alleged, Jin worked closely with the PRC government and members of PRC intelligence services to help the PRC government silence the political and religious speech of users of the platform of a U.S. technology company. Jin willingly committed crimes, and sought to mislead others at the company, to help PRC authorities censor and punish U.S. users’ core political speech merely for exercising their rights to free expression."

[b] "As this complaint alleges, that freedom was directly infringed upon by the pernicious activities of Communist China’s Intelligence Services, in support of a regime that neither reflects nor upholds our democratic values,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Americans should understand that the Chinese Government will not hesitate to exploit companies operating in China to further their international agenda, including repression of free speech.”

[kemitchell]

Those are the allegations, or at least quotes from the press release announcing the charges. But nothing has been proved yet. Jin's innocent until proven otherwise, though they may yet prove otherwise.

I don't mean to pick on you. As someone who works in legal---albeit not in criminal law---citing a complaint as fact, when it's essentially one side's declaration of what they intend to prove, does bother me.

[ipnon]

I edited my comment to make it clear these are allegations.

[pstrateman]

Zoom is materially a Chinese company.

CEO is Chinese, staff are mostly Chinese.

[cwwc]

Interestingly, the number of CCP members employed is way over the baseline quota demanded by Beijing (where usually companies like Jet.com and alibaba will struggle to retain and meet this quota, Zoom has never seemed to has this issue...)

[largbae]

How would one validate the number of CCP members employed at one of these companies, or the quota?

[true_religion]

The CCP knows who is in the party and they can easily see who is employed within China. They do publish who is and who isn’t within violation.

[ipnon]

CEO is an American citizen[0], Zoom is headquartered in San Jose[1] and listed on NASDAQ.[2]

[0] https://blog.zoom.us/navigating-a-new-chapter-for-zoom/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Video_Communications

[2] https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/zm

[pstrateman]

If you think someone born in China who hires Chinese people in China to do all the engineering work isn't still Chinese then you haven't been paying much attention to how the CCP operates.

[throwaway554322]

I guess that makes Tesla a South African company. Should AMD and Nvidia be Taiwanese companies?

[webmaven]

> I guess that makes Tesla a South African company.

Does Tesla mostly employ South Africans?

[spoonjim]

Clearly Zoom is on paper American but functions as a party organ of the CCP. That should make you curious about what other companies, or individuals working at companies, might be analogous.

[ipnon]

They are not clearly a party organ. Ask a random person on the street if Zoom is a party organ of the CCP. They will tell you, "no, I'm pretty sure it's an American company, right?" I agree with you that this is a considerable problem. Zoom is practically a Chinese company in American clothing.

[bigbubba]

> They are not clearly a party organ. Ask a random person on the street if Zoom is a party organ of the CCP. They will tell you, "no, I'm pretty sure it's an American company, right?

Is your point is that something can't be clear if ignorant people are ignorant of it? That's inane. 'Clear' does not mean 'common knowledge.'