By Ainsley Harris

安斯利·哈里斯(Ainsley Harris)

This story may sound familiar: A tech company, basking in the glow of viral user growth, becomes an investor darling. Over the span of just a few months, the company’s valuation doubles. More than that, it becomes a cultural phenomenon, beloved by users of all ages and flooded with examples of feel-good creativity.

这个故事听起来很耳熟：一家依靠病毒式用户增长的技术公司成为投资者的宠儿。 在短短几个月内，该公司的估值翻了一番。 不仅如此，它还成为一种文化现象，受到各年龄层用户的喜爱，并充满了良好创造力的例子。

But there is a dark underside to this company. It has a child abuse problem. And a porn problem. And a privacy problem. Does anyone care?

但是，这家公司的底蕴是阴暗的。 它有虐待儿童的问题 。 还有色情问题 。 还有一个隐私问题 。 有人在乎吗？

Today, the problem platform is Zoom, but there’s a reason this narrative feels like déjà vu. It’s because we’ve seen it before with YouTube, Facebook, and every other Silicon Valley platform that has spent the past decade monetizing users while evading regulation. Moreover, we’ll see it with every platform that follows, unless we finally make policy changes that protect users and hold platforms accountable.

如今，问题平台是Zoom，但这种叙述有一个像déjàvu的原因。 这是因为我们过去在YouTube，Facebook和其他所有硅谷平台上都曾见过这种情况，过去十年来，它一直在规避监管的同时通过用户获利。 而且，除非最终做出政策更改以保护用户并追究平台责任，否则我们将在随后的每个平台中看到它。

There were problems with Zoom well before our current moment. A lifetime ago, way back in 2015, Pennsylvania courts sent a man to prison for broadcasting his rape of a 6-year-old boy to viewers on Zoom. Federal prosecutor Austin Berry referred to Zoom as “the Netflix of child pornography” in his closing remarks, according to The New York Times.

在当前时刻之前，Zoom存在问题。 一辈子以前，早在2015年，宾夕法尼亚州法院就因将6岁男孩的强奸转播给Zoom上的观众而被判入狱。 据《纽约时报》报道 ，联邦检察官奥斯汀·贝里(Austin Berry)在闭幕词中将Zoom称为“儿童色情的Netflix ” 。

Zoom says it has improved its ability to police such content. But over the last several weeks, as people self-isolating at home have flocked to the service, many are seeing their happy hours and discussion groups “Zoombombed” by users broadcasting graphic pornography.

Zoom表示已经提高了管理此类内容的能力。 但是在过去的几周中，由于在家中自我隔离的人们蜂拥而至，许多人看到了他们的快乐时光，并通过广播色情图片的用户“ Zoombombed”讨论组。

For adults, such disruptions can be a mostly laughing matter. But for children — one of Zoom’s fastest-growing constituencies, as schools and daycares shut down — the ramifications are far different. Will teachers powering up the video service for the first time realize that the onus is on them to switch on Zoom’s troll-prevention setting?

对于成年人来说，这种干扰可能是一件大笑的事。 但是，对于儿童来说-这是Zoom成长最快的选区之一，随着学校和日托的关闭，其后果是截然不同的。 老师第一次为视频服务加电是否会意识到他们有责任开启Zoom的防止巨魔设置？

It’s also possible that Zoom has been violating the protections children are due by sending data from its iOS app to third parties including Facebook, as Vice previously reported. Zoom has since deleted the lines of code that sent data to Facebook, but during the weeks when schools were starting to experiment with Zoom, the company was passing along each user’s time zone and the identifier used by advertisers to target ads, among other information. (Mashable previously reported on Zoom’s policy regarding sharing personal data but did not name Facebook.)

正如Vice先前报道的那样，Zoom还可能通过将其iOS应用程序中的数据发送给包括Facebook在内的第三方来侵犯儿童应得的保护。 从那以后，Zoom 删除了将数据发送到Facebook 的代码行 ，但是在学校开始尝试使用Zoom的几周内，该公司沿用了每个用户的时区以及广告商用来定位广告的标识符等信息。 ( Mashable之前曾报道过Zoom的共享个人数据政策，但未命名Facebook。)

The government has taken a few steps toward regulating tech platforms that overstep when it comes to children’s privacy. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission fined YouTube a record $170 million for allegedly violating child privacy laws. In some ways, it felt like a watershed moment for protecting children online. But in the aftermath of the fine, there has been both anger and confusion on the part of YouTube creators and parents. YouTube agreed, as part of its FTC settlement, to label child-specific videos and channels. The distinction may sound simple enough, but in practice, it is extraordinarily difficult to police and enforce. If Zoom decides to step up its privacy game, especially when it comes to child users, it may run into a similar quagmire.

政府已经采取了一些措施，以规范涉及儿童隐私的技术平台。 去年，联邦贸易委员会因涉嫌违反儿童隐私法而对YouTube处以创纪录的1.7亿美元罚款。 在某些方面，这就像是保护儿童上网的分水岭。 但是在罚款之后，YouTube创作者和父母们既愤怒又困惑 。 作为FTC和解协议的一部分，YouTube同意标记儿童专用的视频和频道。 区别听起来似乎很简单，但是在实践中，要进行警戒和执行非常困难。 如果Zoom决定加强其隐私游戏，尤其是在涉及儿童用户的情况下，它可能会陷入类似的泥潭。

For those worried about Zoom’s lax privacy policies, there are plenty of options when it comes to videoconferencing services, just as there are plenty of alternatives to YouTube. Entrepreneurs critical of Silicon Valley, like Basecamp cofounder David Heinemeier Hansson, have taken to Twitter to advocate for options that they argue are more privacy-friendly and independent of Big Tech, like Whereby, BlueJeans Network, and Lifesize. Other privacy advocates see the recent criticism as a wake-up call for Zoom.

对于那些担心Zoom宽松的隐私政策的人来说，视频会议服务有很多选择 ，就像YouTube有很多替代选择一样 。 批评硅谷的企业家，例如Basecamp联合创始人戴维·海涅迈尔·汉森(David Heinemeier Hansson)，已在Twitter上倡导各种选择，他们认为这样的选择对隐私更加友好并且独立于大技术，例如Whereby，BlueJeans Network和Lifesize。 其他隐私倡导者则将最近的批评视为对Zoom的警钟。

“Zoom really has no serious value if it doesn’t protect personal privacy,” Doc Searles, an author and research director at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, wrote in a blog post. “That’s why they need to fix this.”

哈佛大学伯克曼·克莱因(Berkman Klein)互联网与社会研究中心的作者兼研究总监Doc Searles 在博客中写道： “ Zoom如果不保护个人隐私，就没有真正的价值。” “这就是为什么他们需要解决这个问题。”

That’s the optimistic view. The pessimistic view is that as people scramble to get up and running with remote work and school, they don’t have time to parse corporate privacy policies. Nor do they necessarily have the leverage to force organizations that use Zoom’s service to adopt a more privacy-focused option.

那是乐观的看法。 悲观的观点是，随着人们争相使用远程工作和学校开始工作，他们没有时间解析公司隐私政策。 他们也不一定有能力迫使使用Zoom的服务的组织采用更注重隐私的选项。

Ultimately, Zoom functions better than most other options for connecting groups via video — and given people’s tendency to opt for ease and convenience over privacy, that’s likely all that will matter, unless policymakers decide otherwise.

最终，与通过视频连接组的大多数其他选项相比，缩放功能要好得多-并且鉴于人们倾向于在隐私方面选择轻松和方便，除非政策制定者另有决定，否则这很重要。