3 Reasons I Don’t Use Zoom
you should think twice about using it too
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom. Seems like everyone is using Zoom. (Poor Skype. Remember when that was the thing?)
I’ve used Zoom multiple times. A lot of those times were when I was teaching at a school, for a few lessons. Apparently Zoom was really cooperative with schools; but I don’t trust the motives. I’m really not that impressed with it. It’s cool that you can change your background, but not all that great. Here are some reasons I don’t (and hopefully won’t) use Zoom.
1. I don’t want to.
Is this the best reason? In some ways, it could be. There are things you have to do that you don’t want to. At this point in my life, using Zoom is not one of them.
2. Zoom’s apparent CCP ties.
Zoom shut down meetings related to the Tiananmen Square massacre according to a 2020 article from The Washington Post. Even meetings based in the US. Apparently this was in cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party. However, there’s mention that the FBI made the allegations, and sadly that bureau is showing itself to be very political rather than impartial. On the other hand, Zoom is still operating in the US, so maybe it just got a slap on the wrist.
Zoom also — as of this article from 2020 — employs a lot of people in the CCP. Supposedly this is because the cost of labor is lower there. This raises the question of whether or not Zoom is paying fair wages. I’m not an expert on the cost of living in various places, but aside from the security risk of supporting the CCP, employee wages are something worth considering.
3. Zoom has shown security issues.
Zoom was sketchy — at best — regarding end-to-end encryption. This article (which I found linked in this article) shares that Zoom used its own interpretation of end-to-end encryption rather than the industry standard (Is this a sugar-coated way of saying they lied?). This surely would give many users a false sense of privacy.
There was also the phenomenon of “Zoom bombing”…and schools continued to use it! Apparently, the government did too.
This 2019 article from How-To Geek shares a creepy vulnerability where websites could turn on your Mac webcam — even if you’ve uninstalled Zoom — with a less-than-impressive response from Zoom. Apparently Zoom did fix the issue, and Apple also had an update to protect from this.
As recently as 2022, there was a security bug where “hackers could take over your system” on Mac.
Finally, why on earth would Zoom need to route a call between two North American users through China, especially when Zoom is supposedly based in the US? This should raise concern.
Supposedly, some of these features help Zoom work faster or smoother. Supposedly. I’d rather have a less-than-perfect video chat than communism.
Whether you choose to use Zoom or not is your choice. I think a lot of people who use Zoom are unaware or don’t believe the issues it could cause, both personally and nationally. There’s also peer pressure (most or all of the times I ended up on Zoom calls, I didn’t really want to use it) and an uncertainty in backing up your position. Writing this article hopefully helped me — and you — have some more concrete answers for declining Zoom calls.
It’s kind of astonishing to me that churches and schools have used Zoom so extensively, especially with the persecution that goes on in China. (However, there is also sadly persecution going on in the US.) Again, I think a lot of it goes back to the reasons above. I think people also think that Zoom is user friendly and people already know how to use it. I think that’s bologna. There are alternatives that are easy to use too.
Some of the articles I linked are older, from back to 2019, but Zoom will have to do a lot to earn my trust. I’m not sure it’s even possible at this point.
If you’re ready to zoom away from Zoom, I’ll list some alternatives below. I haven’t used all of them, and I haven’t extensively researched all of them.
Zoom Alternatives
Brave Talk - you can send a link and neither party needs an account
Jitsi - open source
There are also the more “mainstream” alternatives of Skype or FaceTime for Apple users.
I don’t write this article as someone who has everything figured out or who is perfect at supporting only upstanding companies. I still use YouTube (but Rumble is preferable). I’m typing this on an iPad. But every step is a step. I encourage you to try to make small strides toward supporting upstanding companies.
What are your thoughts on Zoom and the Zoom boom? Do you have a video chat service you recommend? Share with all of us in the comments!