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Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

"Basically" means in your opinion. Even north korea is democratic. The US picking between two parties is not so democratic either. Putin maybe a quasi dictator but their government isn't just one guy, are all the ministers in their legislature dictators too? Even with dprk of course they all vote for kim but what about other elections they have?

My question is who cares? They are a sovreign nation and the form of government they have is an internal matter. Their leaders and government are recognized by the world (even America) as legitimate rulers of their country

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This is literally a talking point and argument that Twitter's executive management made, according to Mudge's testimony.

In Sen. Klobuchar's questioning, Mudge quotes a conversation he'd had with Parag Agrawal regarding a request by Vladimir Putin to censor and surveil Russian Twitter users: "we don't really have the ability and tools to do things correctly, this is a lot of work, it's not really driving our main executive incentive goals, is there a way that we can simply punt? And since they have elections, doesn't this make them a democracy?"

That specific Q&A exchange begins at 1:00:15.

The immediate prior exchange with Sen. See is also telling. "I'm reminded of one conversation with an executive, when I said, 'I am confident we have a foreign agent', and their response was 'Well, since we already have one, what does it matter if we have more? Let's keep growing the office.'"

For those who haven't listened to the testimony, I strongly recommend doing so --- it's informative, level-headed, and reasonably fast-paced.

I didn't watch the whole thing but I agree with Twitter's CEOs comments but more importantly why is this an issue Twitter is deciding? If the government of Russia is not recognized by the US or if Twitter should not obey certain Russian laws/orders or cease business there then the very functional and legitimate (sarcasm) democratically elected government of the US can declare sanctions to that effect. Whether you agree with putin or not Russia is in a state of war and you are expecting twitter to not censor things?? Do you think the US government does not do the same thing or did everyone forget Snowden's leaks? So much half-baked hypocrisy around this whole sentiment.

In the context of multiple other statements by Mudge, the pattern is one of Twitter repeatedly expressing indifference to concerns, consequences, and summoning of political will and corporate capital to address any such concerns.

Your focus seems preternaturally narrow and short. Much as that of Twitter's executive staff.

I have desire to defend twitter exec's track record. Of course what I said is narrow because the subject is specific in this thread. I don't get how people like you insult your own intelligence by insinuating that for twitter's CEO to be correct on one matter means everything they do is acceptable.

Is this an age and maturity thing? I can see how someone under early twenties can be this immature where either you hate twitter execs or you are completely in love with them. Be rational and reasonable, if you would like to disagree or counter any of my points feel free but I have no interest in paricipating in a "cancel" fight.

I'm flattered by your presumption. It, as well as numerous previous assessments of yours, seem quite poorly formed based on my own experience and knowledge.

I generally try to run adversarial assessment even on my own most cherished views or takes, as well as charitable interpretation of those of othsers. Both can lead to interesting places, much more so than the opposite strategies. More practices I recommend.

We care because having some unhinged old man with no checks on his power is bad.

As you may be aware, said senile old man just invaded a neighboring country. The same issue we have with DPRK.

Last time we did the "mind our own business" the jerk of the moment took most of Europe and killed several million people. Putin is doing his best to exterminate the Ukrainians now.

But you don't live in thise countries and they are sovreign, you do not get to project your ways on others as if they are superior. A bunch of uneducated ignorant people voting for the loudest asshole isn't a perfect or better way either. America and the wesr enjoy a nice economy and military so things are ok there are many countries where democracies devolve into civil wars and dictatorships or worse because people aren't happy and the loudest scariest dude wins in a democracy. The whole point of sovreignity is that the people of that countey self-determine without outside influence. Now, if your country recognizes some component of a foreign state as the legitimate ruler then by all means but both dprk and russia are ruled by american recognized rulers so by what law or reason outside of social media rage do you justify your outrage?

Regardless of the ruler or government invading another country means more countries that have an interest in the invaded country can get involved because sovreignity was violates. In case of hitler the moment he invaded another country it was everyone's concern just like putin but before that it was only the german people who had a say in who leads them. If I remember right even hitler was voted in and his socialist party won election because they were loud and scary.

Twitter is a company that operates under US laws not under the laws of random public outrage. If you want your government to sanction doing business in russia or declare war on it by all means call your rep or discuss that until then it is perfectly acceptable for twitter to operate in Russia which means obeying their laws.

By your logic, what if a UK company refuses to block illegal content in the US. They are both democracies so the UK co should obey laws? But if the US became a dictatorship then it should break laws? What is this nonsense, you expect companies to break laws because you don't like the government of a foreign country?

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