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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

>Its like pushing your culture on different countries.

I think the original point was there is no way for Google not to do this. Sometimes cultures have opposing viewpoints which makes a neutral decision impossible. One obvious example is with displaying disputed borders in Google Maps. Any decision there is going to be political. Lots of people are going to be upset with Google for making the wrong decision regardless of which decisions they make, but I think that anger is misplaced. The real problem is Google has the power to make this decision for too many people. Companies like Google are simply too powerful and need to be broken up.

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There is no reason to put this feature. This is political feature and can be used in many ways and affects other countries and cultres you cant imagine

There are second order and third order consequences of having this kind of features.

Google should not push their politics and agenda on other countries and cultures. It affects every other country in different ways.

In future this kind of feature can be used in many ways we dont know.

Well, yes this is a political feature, but your comment leads me to believe I didn't make my point clear enough. Almost every feature is political when you are the size of Google. You may only be objecting to this feature because it goes against your culture. However there are thousands of other decisions that Google has made that support your culture at the expense of some other culture. Many people here are viewing the problem as Google choosing the wrong culture. I am saying we should instead focus on the immense power Google has to force one culture on another culture.

If Google is broken up, the decisions of the new smaller companies will still be political.

So what would have been achieved?

well at the very least the companies in question actually reside in the jurisdiction in which they serve and are thus at least in some form accountable to the people and hopefully share some values.

Being German I'm kind of tired of the fact that American social media sites have for some reason exported QAnon protests to our cities while women get banned for showing a nipple.

Competition. Google is able to use its power to push out competitors. Without that power, there would likely be lots more companies challenging the various product categories that Google currently dominates. Not every company would reach the same decision on all these issues, especially if these companies arose in different cultures.

presumably those smaller companies would be beholden to the jurisdictions they're located in, where the laws are drafted by people who are democratically elected.

so, i guess democracy would have been achieved. or at least a relative increase in democratic control

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