Comment by godwinson__4-8 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godwinson__4-8 | Hacker News Reader

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This misses the mark in the same way people getting mad at Google for updating the "Gulf of Mexico" do.

You're missing the driver. It's not like Google cares or wants to change the name. They more or less have to given the public/private relationship and who is responsible for what. It's not Google's job to name bodies of water, it's not a credit card company's job to censor. And if you actually look, they aren't making that decision because they want to. They are often acting on behalf of the government.

Payment companies are even more enmeshed with the state. They often do these things to simply comply with what the government tells them to do or to get ahead of government telling them what to do. Like with some of the anti-pornography laws being drafted or passed in certain American states.

The private/public distinction really needs to come under more scrutiny here. The credit card duopoly is very much tied in with state power. This has only accelerated post 9/11 as the Treasury's mandate increasingly shifted to "national security".

Payment processors are censors because the government is. Just like Flock the government can't do certain things so it contracts with a third party. They then have an interest in protecting/promoting that party. Flock is a snoop because the police are snoops. If Flock does it and the government merely pays for it well it's not a violation of your rights. Your rights protect you against the government, not against Flock. It's the same legal backdoor. A payment processor doesn't care what you buy, why would they? They make money so long as you keep transacting. It's the government that cares.

This same dynamic happens all over the American economy because the private/public distinction can get increasingly amorphous. Your credit card is as much government spyware as your phone. But understand - the problem is not the companies, it's the majority of your fellow citizens who either don't care or actually do endorse censorship. Unless you have a solution for that trying to blame credit card companies for the problem unfortunately misses the mark. You might as well suggest Google have the authority to name bodies of water.

Many people are attacking you here but I suspect you're right. Here in the UK, we have infrastructure for digital direct bank to bank payments (e.g bypassing Visa & Mastercard). That should mean as long as you have a bank that's willing to work with a service that sells adult content you're OK but:

- Many banks are not OK with that

- Even if you find one who does, finding an Open Banking provider to be that middleman is a nightmare

Short of working with the financial conduct authority to be your own financial institution, it's makes getting paid a pain if you want to accept adult content (even if you have all the safeguards and comply with all UK law!). I can't see anything but it being indirect pressure to censor, and to push smaller players out of the market - such that it's easier to regulate the industry.

They aren't even my fellow citizens, I'm from Europe and mostly buying content from Japan. Yet those American companies still keep getting in the way.

Your governments benefit enormously from American largesse. Europe is essentially still operating in receivership to the United States

Why have almost all European leaders come to grovel before an American President they clearly despise?

When you can defend your own continent without the sight of your governments prostrating themselves to such a man I'll take your claim more seriously. Europe has been asked for decades now to act more responsibly. Now you are being forced. Instead of blaming America let's see if you guys can cobble together a path forward with waning American guarantees without recreating the internecine strife that led to the American intervention in the first place.

Nothing I am seeing out of Europe gives confidence over the next decade. Hold your own governments accountable.

This is only one side of the story. No doubt European states have been vassals of the USA since WWII, but this was also what the USA had for a long time encouraged them to do: USA provided security, in return Europe did what it was told to. One reason was also because the USA did not want another strong army in Europe. The USA no longer likes this deal, OK, this is a change of course, to which everyone tries to adapt somehow.

> It's not Google's job to name bodies of water

It kind of is.

If the US executive branch published an order renaming every street in America to "America Street", I suspect Google would not update Google Maps to reflect that unless the government compelled them to do so.

Google has made a choice about where they're placing the bar for voluntary action.

No, it kind of isn't.

You are merely noting Google Maps has an imperative to be useful.

The notion of a street name is meaningless if they all have the same name. It doesn't change the fact that it's not Google's job to name them. If the government did that and postage and signs eventually changed, one would expect Google Maps to likely cease to refer to street names at all.

I often find when traveling in unfamiliar areas giving me a street name is a profoundly unhelpful manner of instruction unless there is adequate signage, and there often isn't. A more reliable way is to say something like "make the turn at the stop sign" or "at the third light". The idea that it's Google's jobs to name things as if they don't rely on a sensible state is just nonsense. If the government turns into Alice in Wonderland at the end of the day Google Maps cannot exist. Google doesn't just assign a random name to every street or deliver the mail. It's not their job. Your strawman doesn't change that it just asks what would a company do if the government went completely off the rails. It doesn't change the fact Google doesn't bear responsibility for naming these features in the first place.

> They more or less have to given the public/private relationship and who is responsible for what. It's not Google's job to name bodies of water, it's not a credit card company's job to censor.

They don't have to but they can, but monopolies and oligopolies don't have to and don't play by the same rules and they tend to have a lot of political and soft power. Especially in Google's case, it's not a stick a floating in the river and going wherever the current takes it. Brin and Page are (allegedly) sentient human beings and they still control the majority of the company. Maybe they couldn't pull of exactly what Musk is doing but there is a huge amount of space in between that and doing nothing.

Sure, what point are you making?

I'm not alleging a conspiracy. It's almost self evident emergence given the nature of a company and a government. What is Google to gain for resisting the name change? Nothing. Status quo they benefit from a service that names things according to government convention. Their map wouldn't be very useful otherwise. If the government starts renaming things why do they care? This isn't some cult in the middle of nowhere, the federal government changed the name. If liberals don't like it tough maybe learn how to not choke away another election. Why would Google fight the government on the name change? There is no upside and it's not something they care about. More importantly it's not their job.

The same logic applies to credit cards. You think the MasterCard CEO is gonna risk his plush paycheck so a handful of degenerates can beat off? He doesn't care. It's not his job to decide that question and he doesn't want it to be. If the government wants to nationalize him however, then of course he will care. It's called a trade off and ultimately all successful people learn to navigate them. It doesn't change the fundamental truth in my point that many people blame corporations for alleged sins that in truth are caused by governments. The "Gulf of Mexico" thing and "credit card censorship" being two of many examples of this confusion in our discourse.

Increasingly people are so deep on abstractions from the essential issues that they have lost sight of reality. People who are pro gun control get furious when the courts inevitably rule that the many legal kludges used to compensate for a lack of unity or functional societal give and take. There’s a genuine sense that the kludges are necessary rather than a sloppy shortcut to bypass the democratic process they feel has been corrupted.

Naturally the “other side” feels the same and returns the favor, so we end up in this death spiral of ignorant people reacting emotionally to complex issues they lack the patience to work through as a society.

Tl:dr there is no shortcut to changing society, any such victories will be short term and costly.

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