Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by Spivak » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

maratc wrote: post #188

Spivak wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the standard you're going to hold the parent to would include "assume as a premise that it's totally fine that a country decides to commit genocide and there's no possible justification for why that's bad outside cultural norms" then what's even the point? Do you want an economic argument or something? I mean the argument is “homosexuality and being trans are real observable phenomena in the human species across h…

People who bring the "genocide" argument to the discussion are like people who bring pepper spray to a party: they are not interested in a discussion (the others are not interested in a party). Skipping that, Amazon is not taking part in any genocide - they agreed to "restrict LGBT search results" in accordance with the local laws (however backward these may seem to you — and me). In the US, Amazon is not selling Mei…

I bring it up because the reasoning I’m arguing against is not scale dependent so if you up the stakes and apply the same reasoning it suddenly is a lot less palatable.

So you amend the rule to be “you follow local laws that harm vulnerable classes of people as long as it’s just a little harm … as a treat” and it sounds ridiculous.

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

#212

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

dotnet00 wrote: post #198

lotsofpulp wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not see why it is gross. Employees have more utility if they get an abortion and less utility if they have to spend time out for parental leave. If society wants to promote parenting, then society should pass laws about parental leave. Individual businesses have no obligation to reduce their competitiveness in the marketplace.

Why should the legal system have to step in to coerce people to behave like decent human beings? Plenty of other businesses remain competitive while treating their employees like fellow humans who have their own lives to live. By your reasoning, if anyone is able to abuse their freedom to do something immoral, it isn't that person or organization's fault, it's society's fault for allowing that to happen. Then why bot…

> Why should the legal system have to step in to coerce people to behave like decent human beings?

Because the statement below is not true:

> Plenty of other businesses remain competitive while treating their employees like fellow humans who have their own lives to live.

See the widening of income/wealth gap in the US over the past few decades, the movement of manufacturing and industry to places with even fewer labor and environmental protections, even in the US. Nobody is going to pay Target $1 or $2 more if Target started treating workers considerably better, they will all go to Walmart.

> By your reasoning, if anyone is able to abuse their freedom to do something immoral, it isn't that person or organization's fault, it's society's fault for allowing that to happen. Then why bother with freedom at all?

That is not my reasoning at all. Immoral and moral is an opinion, and not offering subsidized health insurance to employees falls far short of the “universal” immoral line. If Walmart was beating it’s workers with whips or something, you might have a point.

But Walmart’s job is to get goods from manufacturer to consumer. Not providing its employees with a minimum quality of life. That falls on the government and society as a whole, simply for practical purposes. Expecting anything else is fantasy.

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

#213

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #202

torstenvl wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your position is that "most of the world," i.e., more than half of its 7.75 billion people, disapprove of Dobbs ? How did you come to that figure? There's no possible way that's true unless you simply decide that the opinions of non-white people don't count. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/map-a... And even that map overstates the situation, since, e.g., China's rule is essentially identical to…

I've seen your previously deleted comment. You smell of bias when you use terms like "there's no possible way that's true" and "it's also obviously false". No, things you disagree with cannot be "obviously false", and there are things you think are false that can actually be true. I don't know if you're being pedantic or using straw man arguments by bringing "7.75 billion people" or introducing race into this discuss…

[deleted]

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

#214

Post by carapace » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

ehhthing wrote: post #177

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only people that care that {some company} is censored in China are distinctly people outside of China. That's how censorship works. The people inside the bubble don't know, by design, what information has been omitted, and therefore can't care.

You seem to have taken this quote out of context. My point is that "a less censored platform is always better", in other words "Google but censored is better than Baidu".

Back when India was throwing off the British Raj there was a strategy among the rebels to murder the good British officials (judges and so on) rather than assassinating the corrupt or incompetent ones.

The idea was that the good British made the Raj more tolerable.

- - - -

Edit to add: I should point out that that strategy did not result in victory. It was famously Gandhi and the Non-violence movement who ultimately succeeded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_independence_movement

Is Gandhi censored by the CCP?

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

#215

Post by FerociousTimes » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

aliswe wrote: post #210

FerociousTimes wrote: post #205

> Earlier this month, authorities in Saudi Arabia seized rainbow-coloured toys and children’s clothing, which they claimed encourage homosexuality, according to state TV Al Ekhbariya. It said commerce ministry officials removed a range of items from shops in the capital, Riyadh, including hats, skirts, T-shirts, hair clips and pencil cases. I swear it's always a moral panic/mass hysteria with these people when it com…

can I play advocate here and say that one could interpret boycotting anything remotely connected to Russia or removal of anything confederate, cleaning up terminology like "master branches", or the hysteria calling for defunding the police as moral panic as well? not governmenral perhaps, but still moral panic.

I totally agree except for the master branch renaming manufactured controversy, it was total and plain idiocy on GH's part to give in to the blackmailing of those wokesters.

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

#216

Post by meatsauce » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

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…

No, we, the alphabet mafia, demand total fealty ...or else.

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

#217

Post by meatsauce » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #167

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. You can hardly argue that LGBT acceptance is an American value; our Supreme Court just hinted at repealing it.

Explain how

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

#218

Post by FooBarBizBazz » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

ziddoap wrote: post #149

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

What does any of this have to do with how the word 'woke' was used? The word 'woke' has one applicable dictionary definition (and not thousands of years of teachings, etc.) which doesn't align with how I see it used. I'm not asking for a theology lesson, just how OP intended their usage of 'woke' to be interpreted by the reader. This isn't some 'gotcha' question or start of a debate. I literally am just not understan…

(I engaged in pointless argument here. The quotes below are sufficient.)

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

#219

Post by meatsauce » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #72

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…

> remember not to blame them for "banning western companies" in the future American companies are banned from paying foreign bribes. They’re not given a free pass with suporting genocide or terrorism, regardless of where it happens, even if that’s the law or custom somewhere else. If we place domestic profits over sex trafficking or death penalties for gay people, so long as it’s there not here, then fine, let’s live…

No post body was provided.

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

#220

Post by carapace » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

yakubin wrote: post #67

PradeetPatel wrote: post #17

Speaking as someone who worked in the reputation management sector, this kind of behaviour has been around since the early 20th century. I think people often mistaken "region based marketing" for genuine political statements. If promoting pride yields a net positive increase in reputation and revenue in Western countries, one would be foolish not to jump on that bandwagon.

Yeah, this is the reason why I stopped attending pride parades. When you're there, it looks like a big PR platform for a bunch of banks, Google, Apple and whatever. Those same companies don't advocate for the right of this community in places where it matters most, since it won't give them money, but it will mean risk. I think it would be fine, if they weren't part of the parades, but the hypocrisy is where it crosse…

Growing up in SF I had a ringside seat for the "enclosure" of gay culture by-- I don't want to say "corporate", although that's a big part of it-- a lot of corporate execs are openly gay now, eh?

Anyway, Gay Pride and especially the Castro Halloween celebration went from being subversive to mainstream and the celebration itself literally became more exclusive, with fences and then ticket sales. Now it's the theme-park version of itself.

Same with Haight St. and the hippie culture: packaged up into a theme-park of itself. The actual hippies are marginalized in favor of tourism and consumerism.