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Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
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Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#82These companies banning Russia is AMAZING opportunity for the Russian government. If Russia is run by smart people, they must be delighted by it. All they have to do is wait for these companies to block them... and then use the opportunity to block it from their side never letting them come back to the market... and let the alternatives grow in the local market. That way, they get to keep the population from being de…
That worked well for North Korea.
Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#83>Then it would maybe just be a matter of time until they also closed down access to Spotify in Russia. But it would at least be a statement, saving the face of Daniel Ek. Okay, so the author's idea of bravery is to pull a meaningless PR stunt that does nothing for Russians but instead saves the face of the company's CEO in the eyes of anglosphere online bloggers? For once an actual instance of behavior where the over…
No, the 'smart move' for most companies is to withdraw.
Putin gains almost everything by having his censorship and then having Russians enjoy regular products and services.
Russians still support the war and incursion, at least partly due to propaganda, and they won't miss a beat (pun intended) whatever Spotify censors.
One of the most important things we can do to 'signal' to the Russian public that 'it's bad' is to pull products and services that they know and love.
It's not hugely material from an economic perspective (though it will definitely hit), but not having Starbucks, McDs, Coke, Nike, Spotify, Apple, Netflix - which means maybe no music, entertainment, sports, football - it's important.
It's one of the only ways that every day Russians can 'feel' that they are definitely begin excluded. You want this war? No lattes, Iron Mans, your Volvo will go into disrepair and your iPhone is degraded.
For some services, like Google, which is an 'access point outside of Russia' - it's the opposite, we should do everything we can to keep Russian ability to somehow 'get past the firewall' - that is where your strategy would apply.
But for consumers services, no - we should be withdrawing.
Today Fedex, MS, Volskwagen announced withdrawal. I believe Coke, Starbucks, McD will follow suit.
I should note that it seems the companies with the most 'boots on the ground, dispersed' have the toughest time. It's easy for digital companies to stop/start, harder for those with factories (i.e. Volvo), but even harder for those with broad brand awareness, a lot of local entities and possibly local supply chains, like McDs.
But McDs, though not very important, is kind of like the 'biggest symbol' as they were the thing that was had first after the Berlin Wall came down. Getting a McDs was a signal that the country had entered modernity. It's a bit perverse (!) but it's still populist. Most people like McD fries.
Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#84>Then it would maybe just be a matter of time until they also closed down access to Spotify in Russia. But it would at least be a statement, saving the face of Daniel Ek. Okay, so the author's idea of bravery is to pull a meaningless PR stunt that does nothing for Russians but instead saves the face of the company's CEO in the eyes of anglosphere online bloggers? For once an actual instance of behavior where the over…
This is more of an American thing - the slow and subtle ceding of autonomy and power to corporates, with the expectations that they should behave like country states and be political. It's a very dangerous idea that Americans are being slowly brainwashed into, to repose more and more faith on corporates than their own democracy! This is the kind of thinking that lead to imperialism, with the Dutch East India Company…
"to repose more and more faith on corporates than their own democracy! "
Corporations are a part of the system, that's the way it is.
You want an iPhone, it's not going to be your government that makes it.
While you do have a point ... it's a bit moot when we consider that 'corporatism' is at very minimum 'one of the pillars'.
FYI I would support Swedish government requiring a more comprehensive embargo.
Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#85These companies banning Russia is AMAZING opportunity for the Russian government. If Russia is run by smart people, they must be delighted by it. All they have to do is wait for these companies to block them... and then use the opportunity to block it from their side never letting them come back to the market... and let the alternatives grow in the local market. That way, they get to keep the population from being de…
That worked well for North Korea.
Russia and NK are not comparable economies.
NK has an estimated GDP of 27 billion and a population of 27 million, Russia has a GDP of 1.5 trillon and a population of 145 million (per capita GDP for Russia is an order of magnitude higher than that of NK and very similar to that of China). Russia is perfectly placed to be able to pull that off while NK is not.
Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#86These companies banning Russia is AMAZING opportunity for the Russian government. If Russia is run by smart people, they must be delighted by it. All they have to do is wait for these companies to block them... and then use the opportunity to block it from their side never letting them come back to the market... and let the alternatives grow in the local market. That way, they get to keep the population from being de…
> These companies banning Russia is AMAZING opportunity for the Russian government. If Russia is run by smart people, they must be delighted by it.
Are you living under a rock? Russia's leaders are in the process of destroying their country. Even the super smart contrarians on here who think the invasion is America's fault acknowledge that
Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#87As an R. Kelly fan, this does not surprise me all. Once censorship begins it’s easier and easier to follow that well worn path. A lot of people like to mock the idea of cancel culture and pretend that it doesn’t exist - you know, the plainly disingenuous types who will say “they are a private company” out of one side of their mouth while demanding gay wedding cakes get baked out of the other. And sure there are osten…
> As an R. Kelly fan... You mean Robert Sylvester Kelly, who was found guilty of one count of racketeering and 7 counts of violation of the Mann Act after a jury trial? The same R Kelly that illegally married 15 year old Aaliyah in 1994? The same R Kelly that is now facing further federal charges of child pornography and obstruction? How is he or his cases in any way relevant to censorship or "cancel culture"? The gu…
Seems pretty relevant for the reasons you just stated.
Telling someone you can't like music from a child molester or that it has retroactively been deemed to not be good music is cancel card culture at its heart, the bread-and-butter most defensible part. Preventing people from procuring said music is obviously censorship.
Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#88>Then it would maybe just be a matter of time until they also closed down access to Spotify in Russia. But it would at least be a statement, saving the face of Daniel Ek. Okay, so the author's idea of bravery is to pull a meaningless PR stunt that does nothing for Russians but instead saves the face of the company's CEO in the eyes of anglosphere online bloggers? For once an actual instance of behavior where the over…
This is more of an American thing - the slow and subtle ceding of autonomy and power to corporates, with the expectations that they should behave like country states and be political. It's a very dangerous idea that Americans are being slowly brainwashed into, to repose more and more faith on corporates than their own democracy! This is the kind of thinking that lead to imperialism, with the Dutch East India Company…
I appreciate this point but my take on this is that corporations are running scared of social media...paranoid of normies boycottong their brands. To me this is good and is what was predicted as the next wave of progress by people like William Grieder. Citizens voting with their dollars.
Mother's boycotted GE into leaving the weapons manufacturing business in the 1980s. There is an explicit policy against any type of weapons manufacturing inside the company to this day.
I do agree with your premise that this is inappropriate since power is supposed to rest with elected representatives but I until we ban corporations from political contributions (any activity) then we will have to live with bullying corporations via social media.
Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#89>Then it would maybe just be a matter of time until they also closed down access to Spotify in Russia. But it would at least be a statement, saving the face of Daniel Ek. Okay, so the author's idea of bravery is to pull a meaningless PR stunt that does nothing for Russians but instead saves the face of the company's CEO in the eyes of anglosphere online bloggers? For once an actual instance of behavior where the over…
> The smart move for companies is to comply with these laws to a superficial extent while silently keeping as much dissident content online as possible and staying off the radar of regulators. I don't disagree, but I think we also have to consider that a "PR stunt" by spotify would be part of boycotts by many, many other companies. A hypothetical Russian that still has no clue what their government is doing will be m…
>A hypothetical Russian that still has no clue what their government is doing will be magnitudes more likely to notice spotify stopped working, apple doesn't sell new devices, Ikea is closing, than accidentally find one slighly critical bit of content.
Okay, then what? I guess the assumption is that once they find out, they will find an accurate/neutral representation of what's going on, and then go protest or whatever. What makes you think that'll be the case, rather than them being fed whatever anti-western propaganda the government has concocted? Has western sanctions made the people of north korea realize "what their government is doing"?
Re: Spotify made a cowardly choice: to submit to the Kremlin
#90Imagine USA being bycotted by all companies for attacking Afghanistan or Iraq. This would unite the US citizens no matter what thier president did. Everyone, think twice before imposing crippling sanctions on a country with nukes.