Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshuamorton | Hacker News Reader

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I'd encourage you to read this tweet[0] and this article[1]. They provide perspectives from Saudi women. To do my best to summarize:

Indeed, the app is bad. That it exists or needs to exist is a bad thing. But given the Saudi government and Saudi law, the opinion of many women in Saudi Arabia is that scrapping the app would hurt their agency, not help it. They need male approval to travel either way, and by making it easier to get, the app, in practice, gives women more agency by lowering the bureaucratic barriers to travel.

The best way I can put it is that the app here doesn't really particularly help the oppressors. Like maybe, in a contrived way, you can argue that by making the oppression lighter weight you're less likely to have a full on revolution or something. But then, you've still lessened the oppression. That's not a bad thing.

But if removing the app from the store makes the experience of women in Saudi Arabia worse, which is exactly what many of those women are saying, then removing it doesn't do anything. You're just asking to have the Saudi society regress even further to a position where in practice women had even less agency.

Is that better?

[0]: https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1095360734798721025 an

[1]: http://time.com/5532221/absher-saudi-arabia-what-to-know/

Could you provide more references backing up the 'opinion of many women in Saudi Arabia ...' part of your comment?

The tweet seems to reference a single anecdote received in a text message, and the article mentions "... many Absher users within Saudi Arabia have come to its defense", without mentioning any particular supportive groups (or providing numbers).

Unfortunately it's particularly difficult to hear the voices of an oppressed group, especially one where the majority of the commentary is going to be in another language.

So no. You're probably stuck trusting time on this one.

I think that American corporations should not facilitate evil.

You might be 100% right, I certainly don't know the perspectives of Saudi women, but I will take your word for it.

But if Google resisting evil means that the Saudi government punishes Saudi women, then that is the fault of the Saudi government.

Should Google accede to every despotic government that threatens its people? I wrote in a previous comment about how Google does nothing to prevent China from using its technology to put innocent people in camps. Perhaps China will be even more brutal if Google tries to thwart them. But I still think Google has an obligation not to cooperate.

I sympathize with what you are saying. And if I were a woman in Saudi Arabia, I would probably not want the app banned too.

How is loosening the restriction on freedom of movement for women evil?

That's what this app does.

I'm also confused by the china comparison. I'm not aware of any google tech China is using to oppress, but even if that is true, your China example is technology causing more oppression. This is the opposite. The technology reduces the oppression.

You're presenting a very weird moral arfument. If you thought that not supporting this app would accelerate the fall of the Saudi regime, I'd say you're naive, but ok. But you're not saying that, you're saying that American companies shouldn't work with groups you don't like, even when the result is objectively good, because, for lack of a better term, virtue signalling. Why?

> I'm also confused by the china comparison. I'm not aware of any google tech China is using to oppress, but even if that is true, your China example is technology causing more oppression. This is the opposite. The technology reduces the oppression.

Google could very easily prevent China from using Android phones to oppress people. China is forcing people to install well known .apk files on their phones. Google has a very well developed infrastructure for blacklisting malware from their devices. But they refuse to life a finger.

> You're presenting a very weird moral arfument. If you thought that not supporting this app would accelerate the fall of the Saudi regime, I'd say you're naive, but ok. But you're not saying that, you're saying that American companies shouldn't work with groups you don't like, even when the result is objectively good, because, for lack of a better term, virtue signalling. Why?

In the short term it may be objectively good, sure. But no, I still don't like them working with groups "I don't like". I don't like American corporations legitimizing oppressive regimes. And what you are essentially saying is that if an oppressive regime threatens to hold a population hostage, then we must work with them.

>Google could very easily prevent China from using Android phones to oppress people. China is forcing people to install well known .apk files on their phones. Google has a very well developed infrastructure for blacklisting malware from their devices. But they refuse to life a finger.

As far as I know, Google has very little control over devices in China. They're almost all developed by other manufacturers (Huawei for example), and don't use Google Apps or Vanilla android, but instead use Huawei or OnePlus or Oppo's flavor of android, and use one of these[1] app stores.

So Google could add code to blacklist these apks to android source, and then Chinese manufacturers could remove it. Or they could have GMSCore do it, and since that's blocked in china, it wouldn't do anything.

So, not to get too sidetracked here, but I'd be curious to know what actions Google could take to do this, short of relicensing Android (which also wouldn't actually fix the underlying issue here, it would just cut Google's connection).

>And what you are essentially saying is that if an oppressive regime threatens to hold a population hostage, then we must work with them.

No, I'm saying we should work to improve the lives of people under oppressive governments, even if that requires working with the oppressive governments. Should the US Government not provide humanitarian aid to North Korea? Is letting people starve worth being able to say that NK isn't "legitimate"?

[1]: https://www.appinchina.co/market/app-stores/

Some interesting arguments, and if this does genuinely increase freedom of movement, that's good.

But do you see any risk that this could set in motion different, more controlling behaviors for the men who authorize women's movement?

It's presumably a click or two in an app - maybe that will lead to better outcomes for women, or perhaps not? Would they have more or less empathy for the situations involved, for example?

I don't claim by any means to be an expert here, far from it, but I think there's a deeper discussion here and you may be brushing it aside; it feels like there's evidence missing that the app will definitely lead to better outcomes.

My understanding is that the reality of the situation is that Saudi Arabia is extremely patriarchal by law. Women need men's permission to do anything. By reducing the friction for men to approve women's activities, you make men more likely to let women do stuff.

Now the man doesn't need to go to a government office to let his wife travel, he just taps some stuff in an app. Like I mentioned, there's an argument to be made (that I personally disagree with) that this increased friction will somehow accelerate change in saudi society or something. But the argument there is that by inconveniencing oppressors you'll somehow make them more empathetic to the oppressed. History says that doesn't usually happen. You just annoy the men and then don't help the women. Change comes slowly and incrementally, not all at once in an avalanche.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. -- Goethe

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