Comment by patrickmay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by patrickmay | Hacker News Reader

> MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s state communications watchdog said on Sunday it had asked Google (GOOGL.O) to stop advertising “illegal mass events” on its YouTube video platform.

> Tens of thousands of Russians staged what observers called the country’s biggest political protest for eight years on Saturday, defying a crackdown to demand free elections to Moscow’s city legislature.

> The watchdog, Roscomnadzor, said Russia would consider it interference in its sovereign affairs and a hostile influence should Google fails to respond to the request.

If Google still follows "Don't be evil", it will respond with the equivalent of a middle finger. I hope someone there still thinks Enlightenment values are more important than kowtowing to a repressive government.

Firstly Google has ditched that slogan, so no use in trying to arbitrarily hold them to it. And secondly, Google has to operate within the law regardless of country.

If youtube was a Russian owned site hosting videos on US protests the US government would accuse it of 'sowing discord' and shut it down without controversy.

Now suppose Russia already has a history of meddling in US internal affairs and funding coups within the US, will Russian youtube with videos on US protests be really even allowed to operate here? Would anyone here even be making arguments about democracy, freedom and enlightenment?

There is always a kind of dissonance and double standards in these discussions. You can't let the harassment and persecution of whistle blowers like Assange, Snowden, Manning, the protestors at Standing Rock and immigrant activists and other brazen attacks on democracy go unchallenged and then claim to be 'concerned' about democracy in far off Russia or China. That is politics, not concern for values.

These values if they are to have any meaning can only apply to actions not actors, and using them to to demonize some and excuse others renders them meaningless, and in many ways this has already happened with the widespread abuse of human rights and democracy by some to achieve other objectives.

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