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Comment by emilsedgh | Hacker News Reader

So the choices are:

1. A western company that has to abide to Russian's unlawful and immoral requests time to time

2. A Russian company, which either belongs to the state, or is fully controlled by the state, or has absolutely 0 power against the state.

You choose 2?

Another way of looking at it for me is this:

If, one day, Iran and US governments allow Google to operate in Iran, that'd be a step forward. It's true that Google _may_ have to bow to Iran's regime from time to time. It's also true that Google may _want_ to help Iran's regime from time to time (due to whatever interest) but their interest is not 100% aligned. It's only sometimes aligned.

That, next to all the benefits of Google operating in Iran, would definitely make me choose 1.

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Both of these would only serve to amplify the power of Iranian government many fold. And there is no "maybe" and no "time to time". We're talking the de-facto tools of surveillance capitalism here. When their interests aren't aligned with Iranian government, they'd be aligned with American government, and the latter is what brought upon you the former in the first place.

To be honest, I think that tech has no solution for you, and that you're only looking there because tech's what you're good at.

> Both of these would only serve to amplify the power of Iranian government many fold. And there is no "maybe" and no "time to time". We're talking the de-facto tools of surveillance capitalism here.

Your argument is definitely compelling - I share the distrust in the way things are going with “surveillance capitalism” as you call it, but, is there a risk of being too binary here?

For example, could it be possible that options 1 and 2 do not necessarily have the same negative outcome. Could an outside tech company (not state controlled) even if it’s under control of a western government that’s continually pushing for more control (and I speak as a Brit where we’re fighting our own battles on this front) still be better at helping to spread freedom of communication and ideas even marginally than the fully state controlled alternative?

It’s all relative I think. No country is perfect, no government is perfect. As a Brit my government fucks up continuously. The American government fucks up continuously. The Australian government fucks up continuously (looking at the recent legislation that we’ve talked about on HN). We’re all basket cases. But, the world is imperfect. Is it possible that even with our flaws, a more open and democratic (relatively) country’s private sector companies can still have a positive impact by having a presence in less open/democratic countries? Even if that means having to acquiesce occasionally?

I’m not sure. But I’m open to the possibility and I think the parent makes a strong case from their description of their own experience with Iran.

> I’m not sure. But I’m open to the possibility and I think the parent makes a strong case from their description of their own experience with Iran.

Of course! I'm just observing how tech is being applied in my part of the world and assuming the same thing will happen in theirs. There's a good possibility that my hypothesis is incomplete or just plain wrong. I thought it's worth sharing nevertheless.

I live in the US now and I'm no stranger to how these companies surveil you. My point is, Google has more incentives and interests than just keeping the powers to be in Iran.

But a state-owned company would only and only have 1 master, which would be the state. And it wouldn't bring any of the benefits of Google with it. It would surveil you more aggressively and it would be more devoted to the state.

> There's a good possibility that my hypothesis is incomplete or just plain wrong. I thought it's worth sharing nevertheless.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a good chance my hypothesis is incomplete too! :)

> Both of these would only serve to amplify the power of Iranian government many fold. And there is no "maybe" and no "time to time". We're talking the de-facto tools of surveillance capitalism here.

I'm not so sure they would be equal. Example:

Iranians have been using Telegram/Whatsapp/Viber for many years. And every few years the government tries to block them and push their own "national" app. Every time they try to push this agenda, there is a massive massive backlash, because noone trusts the government.

Maybe Iranian government would have enough leverage against Facebook/Google to ask them to do something (like removing Navalny app) at key moments (or push to surveil some key people at certain moments) but they definitely wont have access to every single person's database like a "national" app would. That's a very big difference.

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