Zoom Video Communications

Rating Overview

Zoom Video Communications is Medium Risk.

Zoom Communications is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company elevates merit, excellence, and integrity ahead of race and identity-based policies. Zoom occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Medium Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	High Risk
Employment Protection	Medium Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	Medium Risk
Political Actions	No Data

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Zoom admitted to suspending the accounts of U.S-based activists speaking out against the Communist Party of China, doing so at the request of the Chinese government. The company has since changed its policy to remove meetings based on geography, ostensibly to comply with local laws regarding content. The company says, “Zoom does not currently have the ability to remove specific participants from a meeting or block participants from a certain country from joining a meeting” (1)(2). However, the company has not publicly canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (3).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Zoom’s charitable giving focus areas are educational institutions, groups supporting social justice, and groups supporting the environment (1)(2). Zoom likely uses Benevity as its charitable giving platform. Benevity vets charities according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate List, which includes mainstream libertarian, conservative, family, and religious advocacy organizations (3)(4)(5).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Zoom does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (1).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Zoom partnered with the progressive ideological group Color of Change to host a discussion on “supporting voter equity” (1). The company also hosted a series of conversations regarding bias and systemic racism. It has also hosted a number of LGBTQ advocacy events for Pride Month (2). The company’s CEO Eric Yuan expressed his support for abortion rights in a full-page ad in the New York Times in 2019 (3). The company has opposed state laws to protect female sports (4). The company opposed various state and local legislation intended to protect parental rights, girls’ sports, bathroom facilities, and gendered spaces (5). The company scored a 20 out of 100 on the 2023-2024 Corporate Equality Index (CEI) from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a political stakeholder group (6)(7). In February 2024, the company announced an end to its internal DEI team. However, it still intends to hire DEI consultants (8).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Zoom donated $5.5 million toward grassroots social justice and LGBTQ organizations including PODER in Action, an organization that “invests, trains, and supports” queer youth (1)(2). Otherwise, there are no publicly known cases of the company using corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (3)(4).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

N/A

Rationale:

Zoom does not operate a PAC at this time and has not reported on its lobbying (1)(2)(3).