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Comment by noname120 | Hacker News Reader

Do they have a choice? It’s either that or they are shown the door, in which case they will probably be replaced by worse local alternatives in terms of freedom of speech and gov influence

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When some countries tell them 'You need to make sure the product is safe for children', or 'you can't let people under 16 on the platform' Meta stomps their feet, says it's impossible and/or bad for society and spends millions on campaigns to influence the public against the govt's position. In some cases going as far as threatening to leave the country.

So yes, they absolutely have a choice.

Lobbying only works in a democracy, and the UAE is too rich to simply bribe.

Corruption works the same everywhere. Only in democracies do we feel the need to call it "lobbying" to feel better about it.

“If I don’t sell drugs, guns etc at the street corner, someone else will. Might as well be me, I’d like to make a few hundred Billion while I am at it”

Is this a good justification though? I get what you’re saying, but the same argument you’re making for social media can also be applied to everything else, isn’t it?

If I don’t do human cloning, someone else will. If I don’t make bio weapons, someone else will. And so on

>Do they have a choice?

Yes, they absolutely have a choice. People can choose to not assist with transgressions against human rights in the year 2026 :)

Yes, they have a choice. Profits are more important than values.

Right, but it should be acknowledged that this is likely an amoral decision on Facebook's part (or more charitably, a pragmatic decision) not an immoral one.

The governments that forced these changes in the first place are of course acting immorally, that's not in dispute.

Facebook acquiscing to dictatorships that block human rights organizations is immoral.

It is.

It’s not as bas as the time they helped organise a genocide though, so there is that.

I don’t think that’s what amoral means. It’s not malicious but doing something that hurts others just because you gain money from it isn’t amoral just because you’re not doing it just to inflict pain.

Hyperbolic example: If your boss tells you to kill the next customer or you won’t get paid, doing the killing isn’t amoral.

Good point. Even if Facebook is being threatened they're still ultimately responsible for their actions. Maybe amoral isn't the right word to describe this.

I guess it just feels like a lot to me to expect a company to break the law on purpose, even in the service of a greater moral duty. But maybe it shouldn't. Obviously if they did pull out of the UAE and Saudi Arabia over this rather than comply that would be a laudable stand.

Is working for the military immoral? After all, hurting others is the entire point of the whole thing

Depending on the country, for sure yes. Working for Russia military is definitely immoral IMHO

The purpose of every military in the world is hurting people. It's, like, the whole point of their existence, either hurting people right now or preparing to hurt people in the future.

Which is why context and reasons for specific actions matter.

Shoving my child is sometimes/generally immoral. Shoving my child to get them away from an oncoming bus is moral, and on a swing often encouraged.

More on topic: Hurting others can absolutely be moral for the greater good/if it saves more people. What that is is less clear, and the reasoning can be (and frequently is) abused through lying, but I think it's fairly clear cut in the Russia/Ukraine case referenced.

I don’t have issues with the hurting part, it’s a very strange thing to pick on. Are you contributing to the invader, imperialist side or are you contributing to defending, resisting oppression? It’s obviously different moral calculus.

Hurting people that are invading you isn’t necessarily immoral, hurting other people to gain money or land is.

Russia and China can do that, but I am not sure Saudi and UAE reasonably could. Too small and too enmeshed with the US empire

Saudi could - I think people accept Saudi is a religious oligarchy - but the UAE is a playground of international people avoiding tax and ostensibly a first world country, Facebook being banned would highlight how ridiculous the government that did that is.

It's an authoritarian autocracy. I'm not using that as a slur against them as it seems like quite a nice place to stay for a while, but it's simply what it is. An American spent the better part of a year in a max security prison there for the high crime of making a video mocking youth culture. [1] I'm rather surprised to find out that Facebook isn't already banned! In looking it up turns out you can get into legal trouble there for things as small as using suggestive emojis, and they are watching. Kind of funny in a way.

Anyhow, yeah - Facebook being banned in UAE would surprise exactly nobody that's familiar with their government. People are willing to tolerate a whole lot of nonsense for 0% taxes!

[1] - https://apnews.com/general-news-4c1f57ed465940659eeb79b41447...

Even disregarding the ability to criticize the government, Western expats seeking 0% tax want to be able to talk with their family, friends, and business partners elsewhere in the world. UAE banning Meta platforms reduces the country's appeal for foreigners

> An American spent the better part of a year in a max security prison there for the high crime of making a video mocking youth culture:

Here's the video - parent is right this is incredibly mild:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUk5CB9kaBY

From the article: "he was charged with endangering state security under a 2012 cybercrimes law that tightened penalties for challenging authorities." "Cassim has been in the maximum security prison at Abu Dhabi since June. In December, he was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison, a fine and deportation."

The US empire accepted the fact that Saudi Arabia kidnapped and dismembered one of their journalists, among other things such as suspiciously supplying most of the 9/11 hijackers. They kind of have a free pass to do whatever they want.

People here all complain about social American social media companies defying the law when they refuse to cooperate with EU censorship, then they complain about them not defying the law with Saudi censorship, it's a double standard.

Yes of course, clearly the EU and Saudia Arabia both have equal censorship initiatives and human rights track records.

Apologies for the sarcasm. But I think it’d be helpful for you to expand a little on what you mean by EU “censorship” in this case.

Could be goomba fallacy, but listening to people irl, maybe not.

What EU censorship? The RT ban?

It's only a double standard if both scenarios you describe are comparable.

That "if" is incredibly shaky IMHO.

> Do they have a choice?

Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia have extradition treaties with the United States. (On a practical level, they wouldn't be able to enforce one if they had it.)

But they do control the routers that peer with external networks.

Yes they do. twitter followed way less requests than X does

[flagged]

Please don't attribute false quotes to people on HN.

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