Seeing Americans companies take sides in the politics of foreign countries in such enthusiastic, carefree ways leaves me feeling very uneasy.
Many of our ills as a society are caused or perpetuated by too many individuals and corporations remaining amoral in the public arena.
The real questions is: how does one 'take no sides' when dealing with international commerce? Is selling weapons to both sides, 'taking no sides?' Or is the only true way to 'take no sides' just to refuse to do international business at all?
Amiright?
Amiright?
Rules only exist for those who don't make them.
Wau Holland Foundation is responding by suing PayPal. That's how the law works.
Partisan politics has no place in business.
Alternatively, even if they pick "the right side", they might wind up inadvertently helping the wrong side, since the right side can then say "Hey look, our enemies are being propped up by foreign interests!"
Does this mean that foreigners can't take sides in political battles going on in other countries? No, but they should certainly be circumspect about it and do their research and not jump on a bandwagon just because it happens to smell nice.
If an oppressive new regime rises, then it's bad because it's oppressive, and you couldn't blame it on the existence of freedom of communication during the revolution. Of course I don't speak for Google in any of this, but I think it's simply supporting the notion that, when in doubt, more freedom of communication is probably better. (At least at this point, where the status quo is currently, "cut off from the outside world".)
The situation the way I see it is this: currently the bad guys are in power. The opposition forces are the not-so-bad guys (liberal democracy types) and the much worse guys (radical Islamists).
The Muslim Brotherhood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood) are, after all, not just radical Islamists -- they're pretty much the dudes who invented radical Islam. Their obtaining power would... well, it would be bad, especially for non-Muslims in Egypt. And probably anywhere else.
My opinion on whom to support? Well, I'm just thankful that it's none of my fricking business and I can't do anything to change the situation anyway, so I don't really have to make a decision. But I am uncomfortable with the level of optimism I'm seeing from some western folks who assume the good guys will necessarily triumph (or worse, that the Muslim Brotherhood aren't really bad guys after all because they say they're not in favour of violence and they only want to form a unity government with the liberal forces whom they're totally not going to kick out at the earliest opportunity).
Ultimately, this system is an interesting use of technology and makes for good infotainment. I have doubts to the extent which social networking impacts peoples lives in or moves events in Egypt. I see it as a cheap and easy way for news agencies to relate international news back to our lives in the west, possibly to make news stories more commercially viable.
I just don't like the precedents of companies taking activist roles in foreign countries.
You really didn't look closely at the tanks and guns on TV.
But you bring out a good point. The American government is approaching the crisis in a responsible, and moderate way precisely because they have an investment in Egypt and will have to deal with the consequences of the crisis.
Tech activists are behaving irresponsibly, and encouraging civil disobedience precisely because they have no investment in Egypt and can walk away if things there deteriorate. Armchair revolutionaries.
Posted by Ujjwal Singh, CoFounder of SayNow and AbdelKarim Mardini, Product Manager, Middle East & North Africa
Wait, yes, he's Egyptian: http://www.google.com/profiles/ak.mardini?hl=en
While I agree with your broader point, if this particular contribution comes from an Egyptian rather than an American it does seem to have some relevance for your original comment, which I took to pertain to this particular piece of software rather than to just be a general comment.