| > Isn't the issue that the "big names" in the sector are not exclusively US based? That is an issue, but it's explicitly not what I was talking about. To pick one example, Discord is -AFAIK- US-based. They decided to knuckle under rather than tell the UK, Australia, and others to fuck right off with their free-speech-and-association-limiting horseshit. Multinationals have their own problems, but they're -when we measure by number of businesses- a tiny minority of businesses. My commentary was exclusively about US-based companies. And even if a US-based company happens to have employees in a country that's pushing this shit, well, they can shrimply close that office and explain to local politicians exactly why. It's regrettable to lose good employees, but it's way worse to be far less of a hero in the fight for fundamental rights than 4chan and Kiwi Farms are just to keep a few good employees. |
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| ▲ | philipkglass 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | According to Discord's careers page, they're currently hiring people in the US, UK, Singapore, Portugal, and the Netherlands: https://discord.com/careers They have a registered office in Schiphol: https://discord.com/company-information Discord could keep all of its employees, infrastructure, and business within the United States, but like other companies it has not. It would rather pursue more business opportunities. | | |
| ▲ | dogleash an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | >It would rather pursue more business opportunities. You're agreeing with parent poster that they don't care to fight on principle (in the unlikely chance they hold any principle in the first place). You're just using avoidant terminology that skips the criticism inherent in parent's framing. | | |
| ▲ | philipkglass an hour ago | parent [-] | | I'm commenting on how non-US laws may affect businesses, descriptively speaking, without prescriptively stating what I think that the law ought to be. I am a US citizen and I approve of US-style free speech protection. If anything, I think that the US still has too much restriction on speech (e.g. DMCA limits on "anti-circumvention" software.) However, I also approve of democratic government. If people in other countries vote to treat speech differently than the US, I wouldn't want to live under those laws, but I also wouldn't say that they are incorrect. I think that democratic principles mean implementing the will of the majority, even if I think that the majority is foolish. There are some things that I would fight against (not just lament) even if approved by the will of the majority; I can't fully reconcile my conflicting impulses, but I acknowledge them. All of this would have been a long and distracting aside to my original point, which was that most American businesses of note operate under multiple countries' jurisdictions. |
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| ▲ | simoncion 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > They have a registered office in Schiphol: Ah, I stand corrected. Discord has a branch office in the Netherlands. Thanks for the correction. > Discord could keep all of its employees, infrastructure, and business within the United States, but like other big names it has not. It would rather pursue more business opportunities. As I said: And even if a US-based company happens to have employees in a country that's pushing this shit, well, they can shrimply close that office and explain to local politicians exactly why. It's regrettable to lose good employees, but it's way worse to be *far* less of a hero in the fight for fundamental rights than 4chan and Kiwi Farms are just to keep a few good employees.
Trampling on fundamental rights in order to chase marginally more money is neither admirable nor prosocial behavior. |
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| ▲ | gpm 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Discord does business in the UK, Australia, and just about every other country of any relevance. It would be trivial for the UK courts to collect fines against them simply by ordering the payment processors handling payments for them in the UK to redirect those payments, for instance. 4chan is only reasonably immune from this because it's not really operating as a business... | | |
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