Hacker News Reader

Comment by Klaster_1 | Hacker News Reader

Previously, Google usually ignored such requests, but seems to have finally gave in. If they are willing to remove the app, what's next, disclosing personal information to help the regime with repressions, preventing access from Russia to other Google resources, removing YouTube videos? The "we comply with local laws" clause effectively puts citizens of opperssive regime at a disadvantage. It's not like I had an impression somebody else besides citizens of the country in question can help to fight the power, but sad news like this disillusion even more.

View on HN

Google obeys Russian laws. Of course they'll disclose any information they have given proper police request. They did that many times in the past. With Russia and with other countries.

Do you expect Google to go partisan war against Russian government?

Why didn't they remove Navalny's videos from YouTube then?

I guess because Russian authorities did not make a proper requests for doing so.

It is a totally different thing. App store apps are localized, Youtube is currently global.

Not all videos are available everywhere, probably for copyright reasons. It does mean that their system is capable of region blocking though.

There is a difference on availability and removal.

Everything is global, I hate that modern tech tries to bring back some kind of "illusion" of borders.

Not really; Youtube has a mechanism for geographically restricting videos. Germans could talk for hours about it ;)

Two different things; removing something from everyone versus blocking something from specific userbase.

If you read it again, you will find it is the same thing.

Not really. It is totally different policy. Somebody asking removing content from the whole world, because of their limited local legalization versus just not showing it for this limited area. From the perspective of some users, it might be the same result. However, the content is still there and can be accessed from the different route.

Both youtube and app store are local and remove/block by regions; so if something is removed from multiple regions, it is because it infringes some law in all regions.

Navalny's organization FBK has an extremist status given by a Russian court, so legally speaking all their YT channels could be wiped in a split second.

They have though. Kremlin has made plenty of effort in trying to delete individual videos and the whole channels.

So far Google/Youtube have not complied. Let's see what happens after today's developments...

>Do you expect Google to go partisan war against Russian government?

Expect? To some degree, yes, for example they do not remove "illegal" YouTube videos yet. Would like to? Absolutely.

I'd expect them to predict this problem and design a system where it's not a problem. They'd specifically built a system that allows them to do this

Then Google employees would start getting arrested, and whatever would be left of Google in the country would comply anyway, achieving nothing but the imprisonment of more people. Google Russia's employees don't have diplomatic immunity.

How long would other western companies continue doing business in Russia if that started happening?

The most profitable choice for them is to stay in Russia and obey the government. They have no reason to leave or risk getting the same treatment as Google by disobeying.

As long as it continued to be profitable, obviously.

> they do not remove "illegal" YouTube videos yet

They don't? They do "remove" them in Germany, though it's typically enough to set your location to outside Germany, they're not strongly geo-fenced. I assume they do similar things in Russia. They don't need to remove them globally to be compliant with local laws, as those laws typically end at the border of the nation they're operating in.

Yes, Brin's $100B can arm a lot of Russians.

$100B/$60k USD = 1.6 million soldiers feed, and armed for a year.

If he is a patriotic Russia who he claims himself to be, he should do that instead.

That's 1.5 times the Russian regular army, which could be tripled in a week with mobilization. Not gonna work.

It will, because the mobilisation will of course not work.

Nobody want to die for Putin. That's why he switched to mercenaries in Ukraine, because use of regular troops regularly returning to Russia in bodybags was about to become the straw which would've broken camel's back.

That's a huge misconception. But I guess it would be better for Russia if you continue to live in your dreams.

Those mercenaries are in the first tier of reserves anyway and it wouldn't be their choice but army on mobilization.

And if they are, then maybe, it's even better.

If their first option is this bad, then others must be completely useless.

It's in reverse: Russia has a 1 year long mandatory military service for men aged 18-26 inclusively; roughly 30% serve it, guess which part of the IQ curve doesn't want to spend a year painting grass to green during winter.

The first tier of reserves are anyone who did it and are under 35, as well as officers under 45-60 dependent on rank, the other 2 tiers are either unfit or older. The average Ivan in the first class reserve is pro-government, poor and without higher education.

Never seen that Brin stated he's patriot of Russia. Do you have any proofs?

Besides, arm who? Arm us, Russians to do what? Destroy our own country like e.g. Ukraine did?

So that western corporations destroy all the industry (suppress competition and create bigger market for western goods), destroy even agriculture (US and EU farmers would be happy to supply their food to a new market, keeping agriculture production in neo-colonies is not necessary)?

It all already happened in Ukraine, Georgia, to some lesser extent in Balitc states and Eastern Europe.

I really hope that our people are not stupid to fall into this trap.

> Besides, arm who? Arm us, Russians to do what? Destroy our own country like e.g. Ukraine did?

Ukraine is by no means "destroyed," it is reinvigorated, it's renewed. It went from a post-soviet satrapy into the modern world. I want Russia to follow its path.

> I really hope that our people are not stupid to fall into this trap.

Are you perhaps a Putinist?

Ukraine is by no means "destroyed," it is reinvigorated, it's renewed.

In all areas of life, it's position severly declined since 1991 and especially after coup of 2014.

Population is rapidly declining.

Industry is destroyed. Shipbuilding, aviation construction is dead. As almost all other industry areas.

Corruption is all time high (even EU leaders openly say this).

What is reinvigorated, renewed? The next step is selling lumber and even the earth itself to the West. Both options are already discussed (maybe even approved already, I don't really follow news from Ukraine).

Are you perhaps a Putinist?

I'm and I don't see anything wrong with it. He saved Russia from the eventual collapse where it was led by Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their western puppeteers. I'm very grateful to him for that.

>> Are you perhaps a Putinist?

> I'm and I don't see anything wrong with it. He saved Russia from the eventual collapse where it was led by Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their western puppeteers. I'm very grateful to him for that.

This is so wrong. Putinism is a absurd, pernicious ideology. Your ideological upbringing been bad.

To call a mafia-state, a freedom is delusional. It's like slaves fighting for the right to be enslaved.

To call a mafia-state, a freedom is delusional.

I didn't use the word "freedom". There's no ideology in the current Russia, unfortunately. Neithr good, nor bad.

I guess you're from Ukraine (sorry, if I'm wrong). If anything, Ukraine is much closer to mafia-state than Russia. Corruption in Ukraine is so high now, that even presidents of EU country alert their citizens to avoid doing any business with Ukraine.

It's like slaves fighting for the right to be enslaved.

Why are we slaves? I'm free to go anywhere. I'm free to say anything in my country. I can say that Putin is bad. I can say that Putin is good. There will be no repercussions in both cases. Unlike in "free" Ukraine, where it is forbidden by law to speak Russian, for example.

Also, you fail to see how US and EU betrayed Ukraine. They don't need "free" Ukraine, although elections are a perfect way to control their puppets: if a puppet attempts to do something unpleasant, there's easy way for US, controlling all the media, to choose another, more conformable, puppet. This is why "democracy" and "elections" are of utmost importance to US in the third-world countries. Easy way to install comprador puppets.

They need Ukraine which they can plunder (via e.g. Burisma Holdings). They need Ukraine that doesn't compete on the global markets with EU and USA, so they destroyed all the industry in Ukraine (it's impossible to deny that). They need a source cheap labour - hence tens of millions of Ukrainians are doing poorly paid jobs in Europe.

That's the freedom I should wish for? No, thanks, take it back, please.

I don’t think USA asked for Kolomoisky to come launder money here

> It all already happened in ... Georgia

Hm, let's see

Russia: https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp

Georgia: https://tradingeconomics.com/georgia/gdp

What it should prove? Where exactly should I look?

Well, it's kind of obvious, that Georgia is poverty-stricken country. It's possible to visit Georgia for anyone. Millions of tourists from Russia visits Georgia every year. We can see that there's extreme poverty in Georgia everywhere. Unemployment, energy shortage, lack of future perspectives. These problems will get only worse due to COVID-19 and global energy crisis (Georgia doesn't possess significant fossil fuels deposits, it has to import everything from abroad).

You can simply click Compare, then pick the other country.

> Unemployment, energy shortage, lack of future perspectives.

Have you been in Russia outside of >500k cities? Even Tver, one of the oldest and most famous, is going precisely nowhere.

Yes, I've traveled almost everywhere in Russia, and some regions are poor. But even poorest of Russian regions are richer than Georgia. And this discrepancy will increase, not in favor of Georgia.

Do you expect Google to go partisan war against Russian government?

Google already does this. It promotes opposition and western propaganda in the search results and YouTube.

If you're Russian and just register on YouTube, for the first few weeks you'll be flooded with videos of Navalny and his cronies.

Google had also went back on their word on halting to provide information to the HK/Chinese government after the national security law has been enacted.

>If they are willing to remove the app, what's next, disclosing personal information

Both Apple and Google share all requested information in the US, so why is this any different? If Apple or Google should "do better" the change need to be made in the US at first. Pointing fingers while down in the mud doesn't really do any good.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com