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Comment by noname120

2 hours ago

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

"Somebody's gonna profit from these authoritarian regimes, so it might as well be us!" -Zuck, probably

> 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.)

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.

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.

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.