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Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

theguardian.com

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Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#111

Post by ginja »

frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

Should people who wouldn't like to work for e.g. George Bush have pressured their companies to stop operating in the US? After all, they were effectively accepting and complying with things like secret courts that issued broad warrants and some questionable sanctions (e.g. Cuba), while paying taxes that funded indiscriminate wiretapping of people all over the world, invasions of other countries under false premises, CIA black sites, imprisonment and torture without due process in Guantánamo and so on.

Not saying bin Salman is any better (he's not) but my point is that things aren't so cut and dried, and ultimately companies are just going to do what is best for them even if it means accepting some shady stuff. If all workers were that strict about the morals of the companies they work for, most of us would be out of a job.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#112

Post by josephg »

31835843 wrote: post #85
RyEgswuCsn wrote: post #54

Do people agree that corporations should respect the customs and values of the local people when operating their business there? If yes, then Amazon is not "bowing", and it is The Guardian who is playing word games here. If not, then it would seem to imply that we are OK with western powers using their capital (instead of gunboats) to impose their ideology on other cultures in the world. Now, one may argue that the c…

> If not, then it would seem to imply that we are OK with western powers using their capital (instead of gunboats) to impose their ideology on other cultures in the world. “impose their ideology” is a disingenuous frame for this situation. They are censoring search results. As in, the customer, who Amazon makes money off by showing them what they want, is not being shown items that relate to what they searched for. T…

> American companies should use their capital to promote American values

Like how Facebook bans all nudity, even in countries where nudity is much less of a big deal (eg Germany)? Or apple has a blanket ban on “adult” apps in their App Store, because in America violence is ok but sex is bad?

I hear what you’re saying, but as an Australian, exported American cultural values can be pretty odious too. I don’t have any simple answers though.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#113

Post by frereubu »

NhanH wrote: post #108
frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

(c) Every drops of oil you use strengthen Saudi Arabia, why didn't you stop yet? and (d) If you are using Uber, WeWork or in a company being invested by Softbank, Saudi Arabia get benefits from it as well ( https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/Pages/OurInvestments-Global.aspx ). > but I don't see much of a moral distinction between the two. The key here is that you will have to elaborate how you think the two are similar. And t…

This just seems like a recipe for paralysis. Just because you can't live a perfect life - I try to drive as little as possible, and try to be careful about where things I buy are sourced, but my time is not infinite - doesn't mean you can't live a better one. This doesn't seem like a slippery slope argument to me.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#114

Post by HelloMcFly »

Thorentis wrote: post #84
GekkePrutser wrote: post #73

I just cannot understand why so many people get so angry about what other consenting adults get up to in a closed bedroom. Live and let live.

I also can't understand why we need parades that share what other people do in their bedrooms. This cuts both ways.

Because some private behavior has been stigmatized, villainized, and criminalized. With that kind of history, it certainly seems understandable to me that groups victimized in that way create cultural artifacts to celebrate who they are together and normalize them as "just people" to everyone else.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#115

Post by photochemsyn »

frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

Just change the names from UAE / Dubai / bin Rashid al Maktoum and Saudi Arabia / Mohammed "Bone Saw" bin Salman to Syria/Assad and Russia/Putin and it will all become clear.

One set of despotic rulers deposits the majority of their oil money in Wall Street firms, one set of despotic rulers does not. That's entirely why the Saudi/UAE war on Yemen and the blockade of Yemen ports and the resulting famines and deaths are quietly ignored by the New York Times / CNN / FOX etc., and why the war in Ukraine gets daily front page coverage.

It's fairly obvious that if the likes of Putin and Assad cut the same kind of deal over oil money and recycling petrodollars to Wall Street, they could persecute their own people and wage local wars with not a murmur of disapproval from 'the world leader on human rights and democracy', just as Saudi Arabia and the UAE do.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#116

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

ausbah wrote: post #65
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #9

As does every other corporation that puts up a rainbow lag the second its pride month. Blackrock, McDonnel Douglas and Exxon are really trying to be on the right side of history here, folks! Ask Disney if they show the same movies in China. Its all just kowtowing to the power of the Global American Empire legislated by misguided civil rights legislation, enforced by the politcommissars in HR. Every culture has a righ…

>Its all just kowtowing to the power of the Global American Empire legislated by misguided civil rights legislation I would to know more as to why you this civil rights legislation, or presumably court rulings as well, are "misguided" >Every culture has a right to protect its values. Cultures that discriminate against people for innate characteristics like sex, sexual orientation, race, etc. are backwards. Label me b…

> a person's right to participate fully in a society should depends on any cultural or societal norms or traditions

Did you mean to write "shouldn't"?

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#117

Post by frereubu »

onmobile2022 wrote: post #104
frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

This generalizes to whether or not you would be willing to e.g. get an Uber. This money is absolutely everywhere, is there really some moral high ground in measuring how far away you stand as you accept it? What about working for a public company with Saudi shareholders? For me at least, the willingness to take Uber rides I know are subsidized by Saudi money is little (if at all) different from a moral perspective th…

No, I don't take Ubers because I don't agree with their business practices. As I said in another comment, I can't be perfect with my finite time, but I can make moral decisions. These kinds of comments feel a bit like the Zeno's arrow paradox where things can be framed in a way that makes change seem impossible, but in practice I don't think that's the case.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#118

Post by frereubu »

londons_explore wrote: post #102
frereubu wrote: post #94

I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't s…

By not providing your services to the people of these countries, you are making their quality of life worse. See heavily sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran for examples of quite how much worse life is for those citizens. "I don't want to support Mohammed bin Salman" needs to be traded off against "I don't want to make 34 million people have worse lives". In my view, in nearly every case, the latter effect…

I completely get where you're coming from, and I prefer to be pragmatic rather than ideologically pure. But I don't see how Amazon being in a country really makes that much of a difference.

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#119

Post by ziddoap »

Banana699 wrote: post #110
erellsworth wrote: post #51

There's no such thing as a woke corporation. Corporate wokeness is an illusion created by PR departments to maximize market share.

Alternatively, there is such a thing as a woke corporation, and there is such a thing as an anti gay corporation, and they might even be the same corporation at different points in space and\or time. Wokism is a dominant religion (not demographically) in the US, therefore corporations there pray to wokism and observe its rituals. Anti gay islam is a dominant religion in the Middle East, therefore corporations there w…

Genuine question: what is the definition of 'woke' (in the context of how you're using it)?

Dictionary tells me it is "alert to injustice in society, especially racism". But the vast majority of time I see someone talk about 'wokeness' or 'woke culture', they use the word in a derogatory manner.

So I'm guessing the 'woke' mentioned is not "being alert to injustice" (as it is a pretty reasonable stance to be alert to injustices). In your case, you go as far as to call it a religion. Is being alert to injustice really a religion in your view? Or, how are you defining 'woke' and 'wokism'?

Re: Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

#120

Post by 31835843 »

josephg wrote: post #112
31835843 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not, then it would seem to imply that we are OK with western powers using their capital (instead of gunboats) to impose their ideology on other cultures in the world. “impose their ideology” is a disingenuous frame for this situation. They are censoring search results. As in, the customer, who Amazon makes money off by showing them what they want, is not being shown items that relate to what they searched for. T…

> American companies should use their capital to promote American values Like how Facebook bans all nudity, even in countries where nudity is much less of a big deal (eg Germany)? Or apple has a blanket ban on “adult” apps in their App Store, because in America violence is ok but sex is bad? I hear what you’re saying, but as an Australian, exported American cultural values can be pretty odious too. I don’t have any s…

I wouldn’t consider those “American values,” except in the sense that those companies are trying to protect their interests by having a platform that appeals to a wide variety of people.

Which, come to think of it, is itself a distinct value: compromise of free expression for money.

You have a good point here.

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