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Comment by rapjr9 | Hacker News Reader

Large corporations blackmailing countries seems to be becoming more common. There was probably some of it going on throughout history (oil companies?, pharma?) but recently we've seen AT&T, Pornhub, TikTok, Google, Meta and others threaten to or actually stop services in areas that try to regulate them. There has been no legal reaction to this so far, rather companies "voluntarily" leave. Might we see large corporations seized in the future for blackmail?

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Private companies are not obligated to offer services, and in the US the government cannot compel private companies to do so (except rare circumstances). "We will stop offering services if X does not happen" is not coercive, it's an ultimatum. Companies should not be expected to operate in a market hostile to them.

What about privatized utilities then? What prevents e.g. electricity or phone companies from shutting down when they don't like some rules? It's a little more nuanced than "all or nothing".

Good point. Nationalise essential services

But TikTok is an entertainment, not utility, company

Because it's endlessly profitable and very low risk to run a utility, the company's board is... unlikely to ever decide to do a stunt. For what payoff?

Losing TikTok for a few hours or a day is perhaps going to make TikTok users more angry at the government than TikTok.

Losing electricity or phone service for a day is going to make people more angry at the utility or phone company, regardless of why the shutdown has happened.

And if a utility threatened to shut down service instead of complying with a new government regulation, you can bet the government would immediately jail anyone involved in that decision.

Covered under "except rare circumstances". Regulations for utilities, telecommunications, transportation, and financial services are the exception and not the rule.

In cases like AT&T where they provide telecommunications infrastructure for much of the country, threatening a shutdown is coercive.

Maybe it's time we have a global government that can have more power than global corporations?

I'm torn on this, though, because it's not really the companies blackmailing the countries. It's the companies telling their users, "hey, your country is doing this, and if you don't want them to do this, make some political noise".

Sure, if that message is dishonest or manipulative, that's dangerous, but TikTok telling their US users that they're going to lose access to TikTok if they don't "do something" seems like a pretty reasonable use of free speech.

But at the same time, I don't like that companies have the clout to influence politics to the degree they do. But they have far more (and IMO often better) levers they can pull than what TikTok has done here, and I think those levers (campaign contributions, for one) are much more dangerous to democracy than stuff like this.

(For the record, I am loosely in favor of a TikTok divestiture or ban, though not for the reasons touted by the US government.)

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