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Comment by brightball | Hacker News Reader

But that’s happening everywhere on every social platform isn’t it? The very act of going along with censorship requests interferes with the politics of a nation by silencing opposition.

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Not any more, most social media platforms nowadays seem to be capable of enforcing local laws. The act of following lawful takedown requests isn't political, it's literally just enforcing the law of the land, the bare minimum any foreign company has to do if it wants to do business anywhere.

There's obviously also no reason to assume this has anything to do with any opposition, Twitter can't even make sure anything that's posted on that site is even posted by people, let alone citizens of their respective jurisdictions.

Having Elon Musk on the one side and bots from a basement in Moscow on the other set your country's conversation is many things but certainly not democratic.

You seem to envision a world in which one would have to physically travel outside the borders of your nation in order to hear what people outside the nation think. Do you also propose that foreign printed media be banned in your nation? What if a foreigner writes a letter to a citizen in your nation and attaches a clipping of a magazine article that criticizes your government? Should the letter be confiscated? Should all mail be opened and censored by your government? How would that be any different than life was in Soviet Russia and East Germany? Do you really propose regressing to that, now in the 21st century, after all the oppressive atrocities perpetrated in the 20th?

I don't, what kind of strawman is that? What I propose is that foreigners play by the same rules domestic citizens do, no more no less. When in Rome do as the Romans do is what I propose, so as long as foreign outlets abide by the laws and rules of the country they want to do business in they should be able to freely publish. But when they think that they don't need to do that because they're convinced the American first amendment somehow applies in Brazil or the European Union and that American businessmen get to make the rules instead of national governments then you show them where the door is, that is all.

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