While driving in a loop with his friend in Tiananmen Square, Zhou resisted his temptation to carry out a public protest, fearing that he would be quickly muzzled and " would be gone in a minute." Zhou said he showed solidarity by paying a visit to his friend Gao Yu, a former reporter who wrote about the Tiananmen Protests and was jailed, alongside human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, at the detention center. Zhou faced no problem when he identified himself at the reception; later police came to his hotel on the pretext of searching for drugs and interrogated him at length. He was then put on a flight back to the United States, Zhou said. Zhou revealed that prior to this visit, he had previously visited China on two other occasions in which no friends nor family knew of his plans beforehand. In response to his recent episode, Zhou acknowledged that a future visit might be much more difficult. In January 2019, LinkedIn sent Zhou a message, saying although the company "strongly supports freedom of expression," his profile and activities would not be viewable to users in China because of "specific content on your profile." Hours later, Linkedin reversed its decision and Zhou's profile was quickly restored on the Chinese platform after a wave of negative publicity. On June 1 2020, Zoom closed Zhou's paid account a week after he held an event discussing the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.