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Comment by FlownScepter | Hacker News Reader

> Agreed, but this also raises the question: what should their course of action be?

To comply with the law.

No, I don't like it either, but I also don't like the idea of corporations having the ability to flout the laws of sovereign nations because they disagree with them.

> The course of action they followed implicitly supports human rights violations

This is not a "course of action" anymore than not committing a crime is a public service. Enforcing human rights laws is not Apple or Google's job, full stop. They are corporations who's goal is to make money, and that's it. Enforcing human rights is what Governments are for.

Instead of asking "why aren't Apple and Google helping activists in Pakistan?" ask "why is Pakistan allowed to abuse it's citizenry in 2021?"

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The main issue is how Apple and Google are able to profit from the decision. The only way I can see the situation being avoided is by not entering the particular market in the first place, or by not allowing corporations to get so large that their actions can be construed as political interference (whether it is intentional or not). Either way, the current decision is the consequence of earlier ones.

> The main issue is how Apple and Google are able to profit from the decision

I mean, they're going to do that anyway. They will enter all markets they are able to, and profit as much as they can. That's the entire point of their existence: generate value for shareholders.

I'm not saying I disagree that this situation should be avoided, and in fact super agree with you saying that this moment in history is a consequence of earlier ones more than anything else. However, there's a reflexive action where people are like "$corporation needs to make more ethical decisions" and I cannot overemphasize how ridiculous this view is. Corporations are not even unethical, they're aethical. Their decision making is entirely focused on maximum profit generation.

Now occasionally they'll do something ethical, but oftentimes this is solely because the negative PR from doing something else, or doing nothing, would cause too much damage to the bottom line, however relying solely on this mechanism to illicit change in said corporations is optimistic at best. Instead, legislate what must happen. If you don't want corporations to use child labor to mine minerals, then make that practice incredibly illegal, and make sure the costs to do it anyway are sky high compared to the ones to not. And do it with law, not protest.

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