Hacker News Reader

Comment by manigandham | Hacker News Reader

You've posted this (wiki page that you wrote) several times in this thread... but the issue is that all the unblocked companies are already unblocked. What do they stand to gain from this other than a near-term disruption (at best)? The only way collateral freedom works is when there is mutual need for everyone to be included, otherwise why take the risk to carry the designated targets? Also I wouldn't underestimate the economic power of regimes and nation-states that know what they're doing.

View on HN

The mutual need should be considering the freedom of communication that everyone should have as a human right. Like a lot of things when you think of it purely in terms of dollars you end up with an opressive authoritarian system like in China.

On one hand I agree with you, but on the other... why is this Amazon’s place? I don’t agree with how China censors, but what gives a private US entity the right to try and override that in this way? Their place is to choose to, or not to do business with China, not what amounts to a political operation. I think it’s fair to say that it’s the job of governments and intelligence agencies, and some things shouldn’t be privatized.

A lot of companies have to bend to China, Brazil and others. They want to make money, they have to follow by their rules.

Google was ballsy to exit from China, but I doubt others are the same.

Wall Street judges a company by how much money it makes. GDP is how countries and govts are judged. The metric is delivering the result.

I think it is disingenuous to say that countries are judged by persons and other nations by GDP alone.

It's also disingenuous to suppose Google exited China because of principles...

That doesn't make sense. Lots of places think in terms of dollars, in fact the West/capitalism is all about it, and yet we don't have the same issues.

The parent poster might take issue with the idea of capitalism not implicitly meaning oppression. ;)

You are literally posting on an article where Signal's attempt to aid people speaking out against authoritarian regimes are being quelled by entities due to protecting their bottom line.

We don't have oppressive regimes in the West (where Amazon is based) because capitalism encourages freedom and economic prosperity. A company not helping you doesn't mean they're against you. AWS does not want a customer breaking their terms of service, especially when it affects all of their other paying clients.

What does that have to do with other nations and their laws? The censoring issue here is in a foreign state and not caused by capitalism but a lack of it. AWS is not international police so you should focus on government if you want to see political changes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com