8 ms·

Google siding with Saudi Arabia, refuses to remove government app tracking women

148 points by SirLJ 8y ago

diebeforei485 8y ago
The app is basically a webview around a government website, and the notification happens by SMS. I'm still struggling to understand why anyone thinks removing the app will have any effect - it's not like removing an app from a store would cause SMS messages to stop.
- gumby 8y ago
  Because their App Store is curated (you couldn't, say, have a child pornography app) and so by permitting this app they are saying it's OK with them.
  - tedivm 8y ago
    Child porn is illegal, so even if the app store wasn't curated it wouldn't the allowed. There are a ton of other things that are legal but that google doesn't allow though, so your point still stands.
    - gotocake 8y ago
      The system of tracking and restricting womens’ movement would also be illegal in most countries, so which set of laws do we use? At some point we do have to choose, in the same way we would if child porn were legal in a country Google did business in. Would they then have an excuse to host a version of Tindr for tracking kids?
  - syrrim 8y ago
    They're curating for user experience, not for political opinions. If someone uploaded a vim clone google isn't taking a stance in the editor war by letting it stay up. "Saying it's OK with them." If they made a public statement "we are not ok with this, but the app stays anyways" is everyone satisfied now? Everyone knows google is in favour of womens right. People want them to take it down because they think google won't, so it gives them an opportunity to complain about how sexist google is. Then the next time something happens regarding women near google, they'll say wow google is so sexist remember how they made women get permissions slips to travel? When in fact google is completely powerless before the might of a nation state, and the worst they can do is make saudi arabia host the apk on their own website.
    - apostacy 8y ago
      > They're curating for user experience, not for political opinions. If someone uploaded a vim clone google isn't taking a stance in the editor war by letting it stay up. That may have been true in 2015. But no, Google us curating for political reasons. Google claims that they are concerned about things like the safety of women and LGBT groups. They have banned apps like Gab.com for purely quite flimsy political reasons. So you would think that Google would have no problem banning this app. Thus, their approving of an app which literally facilitates patriarchal misogyny on a nation-wide scale, while banning apps that simply make misogynist jokes, is colossal hypocrisy on their part.
- sasasassy 8y ago
  In some countries being gay is punishable by death. It doesn't mean your walled garden app store having an app to find and punish gay people is OK.
  - cronix 8y ago
    I don't think anyone is saying it's OK. Just that removing the app will have 0 effect on the current law or the outcome. They'd just go back to pen/paper like they had to before the app was available, and take longer.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      > "They'd just go back to pen/paper like they had to before the app was available, and take longer." That would inconvenience Saudi men, would it not?
      - caymanjim 8y ago
        No, it would inconvenience Saudi women, because the men wouldn't bother doing the extra work.
        darkpuma 8y ago
        Would the Saudis really have created this app if it didn't convenience Saudi men? I doubt that. I don't think the Saudi government is in the business of conveniencing Saudi women, except insofar as that's an incidental byproduct of conveniencing Saudi men.
    - brenschluss 8y ago
      If removing the app has 0 effect, then having the app has 0 effect also, so might as well remove it, no?
      - eridius 8y ago
        See this other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19292651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19292651 In short, the app, as awful as it is, is an improvement for Saudi women. Getting rid of it will hurt them.
- pintxo 8y ago
  Actually read an article where the app was helping the daughter to escape: she stole Daddy’s phone and that way he did not get any notifications and she could approve her own leaving the country!
  - diebeforei485 8y ago
    Those are SMS messages, not app notifications delivered via Google/Firebase Cloud Messaging (or Apple Push Notification Service on Apple platforms). But yes, it would have been much harder without the app, because the old system would have required her dad to appear in-person, wet-sign specific paper forms, etc.
  - pintxo 8y ago
    > In order to flee, Nourah used her father’s phone to give herself permission to travel, disabled his notifications and flew to Turkey. From there she traveled to Georgia, then bought a ticket to Australia via the United Arab Emirates, although she feared that the Emirati government would catch her in transit and return her to Saudi Arabia. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-women-flee.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/world/middleeast/saudi-ar...
- happytoexplain 8y ago
  Personally, I have not seen people citing the elimination of the SMS system as an effect of removing the app, so I can't relate with struggling to understand why people would claim such a thing. Also, you speak as though there are no other reasons to want the app removed. Have you considered the accessibility an app provides over a web site to new users? Or the simple subjective perception of its availability?
  - diebeforei485 8y ago
    "New Users" register IRL, and can then use either the website on desktop, the website on mobile, or the app. There is no ease of onboarding provided by the app, given that onboarding happens IRL. Perception varies by cultural context, so it doesn't really matter how people with no connection to Saudi Arabia perceive things. Removing the app would mean making travel even harder, not easier - you should look at how all of this worked before the online service was introduced.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      There is no ease of onboarding provided by the app Removing the app would mean making travel even harder These seem like contradictory statements.
- x0x0 8y ago
  Because there's a space to say something to the government of Saudi Arabia "Listen, what you're doing is fucking disgusting. Maybe I can't stop you, but I sure as hell don't have to help you."
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
  We should find out what carrier they are using to introduce those messages into the SMS network and demand that other carriers blacklist them until they stop.
  - tedunangst 8y ago
    Presumably Saudi Telecom. Not sure why you're focused on the carrier. Why not simply demand your phone company not connect to Saudi Arabia's country code?
- m-p-3 8y ago
  So if I made a webview to PornHub, and sent feed notification over SMS, that would be okay? I'm sure Google would take it down in a heartbeat. And as you said, it wouldn't have any effect on PornHub as people would still go there through the website, but it shows that Google is okay with government-backed slavery but not with porn.
peter303 8y ago
Do do evil
q3k 8y ago
Interesting comments in the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sa.gov.moi&hl=en&showAllReviews=true https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sa.gov.moi&hl=...
- julianz 8y ago
  Wow, some serious quality astroturfing there. Who knew that every single Saudi man suddenly wanted to write exactly five lines of effusive praise about their government's app on the same day!
  - kissickas 8y ago
    Never underestimate the power of Saudi twitter (not just their bots, which surely do exist).
- pcurve 8y ago
  My favorite 1 star comment "This app is great! I've been looking for a good way to track my teenage wife and build my very own virtual prison so she can't escape my insatiable desire for sex with underage women and this is it! Google you've really outdone yourself this time! I can even set her as missing if she doesn't answer my texts so other enlightened men can hunt her for me!"
pbreit 8y ago
“Slippery slope” defined. Once you start deleting apps/speech, the requests and outrage become never-ending.
- simple_phrases 8y ago
  Remove all content mentioned in a DMCA takedown request? Reasonable, not worth spending the money to go to court over. Remove an application that facilitates subjugation of human beings? That's going a little too far if you ask pbreit.
- krapp 8y ago
  >Once you start deleting apps/speech, the requests and outrage become never-ending. Apps are not speech, and apps have been deleted in the past, because Google has terms of service which can be violated. And yet, requests and outrage have not already become never-ending, therefore it is already demonstrably false that any attempt to delete an app must lead to never ending requests and outrage, because neither human beings nor society work that way. "slippery slope" seen for the empty concern trolling that it is.
- wnevets 8y ago
  but we're already removing apps we deem against our morals.
- stupidcar 8y ago
  "Slippery slope fallacy" defined. Simply agreeing to outlaw some things — child pornography, incitement to murder, violation of human rights — doesn't set you on an irreversible course to outlawing everything. Partial regulation by community consensus is a fundamental tenet of all human civilisation.
  - pbreit 8y ago
    I think there's a big difference between opinion-driven censorship and legal-driven.
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
pgeorgi 8y ago
The "gov app tracking women" angle is a PR stunt by international advocacy groups and it points at the wrong problem. The app provides various official services, among them a digitized version of the "yellow sheet" a legal guardian has to fill out for a woman to be able to leave the country. (https://www.rt.com/news/women-tracking-saudi-arabia-359/ https://www.rt.com/news/women-tracking-saudi-arabia-359/ from 2012 describes this particular system, the app apparently integrates it with more digital services). The alternative isn't freedom of movement, it's having to get a signature on paper and potentially personal appearance of the legal guardian, which is harder to get (this includes: forge) than a button click on a website. As a remedy for that reduced trust in the system, it sends an SMS - to the very same device. There are activists in Saudi Arabia (see for example https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1095360734798721025 https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1095360734798721025) who see value in that type of app because the degree of automation it brings makes it easier to leave the country without supervision (e.g. by stealing the legal guardian's phone).
- thefounder 8y ago
  Congrats to Google because it makes this easier. Let's hope someone makes an app to manage/track child slaves easier! I heard some of them can become pretty slippery!
  - apostacy 8y ago
    I don't know why you are getting down-voted. It would be 100% consistent. People on HN would even rationalize it the same way.
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
  I do think that this is worth noting, however, I still think Google should not be hosting it as it's still facilitating an immoral action (running an oppressive government that doesn't respect freedom of movement). I guess it's kind of a deontologist/consequentialist thing.
  - vilifiedtwin 8y ago
devoply 8y ago
Couldn't women use this app in the place of their husbands/guardians by faking their info to escape?
- sanxiyn 8y ago
  Yes they can, which is an improvement over previous procedure involving physical presense. Saudi feminist activists are actually against removing the app because that makes escape harder.
Chutzpah3 8y ago
I am not a big fan of Islamic regimes and the Islamic law but then I think American citizens should realize that not all other countries share their values and American corporations are not beholden to any values American society might pretend to have. I would rather ask American people pressurize their government from not selling weapons to Saudis and not to protect their Royal family. That does 1000x damage to Saudi women and American values more that Google making things simple for Saudi Arabian women to move around. Would you rather have a scenario where a woman needs to wait for the husband to drive to the airport and permit her to travel ?
karlakush 8y ago
I can't fathom how Google removing this app would do anything at all to help people in Saudi Arabia. In fact, removing this app would probably hurt people as the law would remain unchanged, but now it would be more difficult to comply with it. I have to wonder if the people complaining about this actually care about women in Saudi Arabia at all. Seems like they're just seizing on any opportunity to attack Google.
davidf18 8y ago
A number of Google employees told management signing a letter stating that they did want Google to develop weapon systems that protect our troops, but they are apparently silent when it comes to this abuse of women.
intopieces 8y ago
On a completely unrelated note, I like the app's logo, it's a reduction of the app's Arabic name. It would normally look like this: أبشر
sjwpv 8y ago
Google siding with Israel is not surprising.
reaperducer 8y ago
I'd forgotten about this issue. Now that Google has made it an issue again, let's hope that means Apple will make its response public soon.
scarejunba 8y ago
Guys, come on, please. This app is an improvement for women in Saudi Arabia. It lowers the barrier to their being able to travel. It isn't always about just keeping your hands clean. You also have to sometimes help people. And it may leave your principles sullied but what are those rigid rules good for if they don't help someone be free. If we say we're not going to participate in this and then we turn our backs on them we've made their lives so much harder and given them no help. Tomorrow you'll forget you participated in an outraged comment thread and move on. But Saudi women will still be there. And all that they'd have for it all is that their lives are harder. Please, refrain from boarding the outrage train this time.
throw2016 8y ago
How the mighty have fallen. From once defending freedom and liberty to advocating looking the other way when an app that grossly violates the basic human rights of an entire gender shows up. The top voted comment betrays the current moral compass of the tech community, nothing is too regressive to not 'normalize' and hand wave away. But given the community's U turn from freedom lovers to supporters of invasive profiling and eager builders of surveillance systems this yet more evidence of the community's dramatic slide into irrelevance, unless the conversation is about startups or money. The good news is for those with some moral spine this is not going to fly. There is no way Google or Apple can continue to host this app once it is widely known. Others will fight and win this battle while you plot your next billion dollar unicorn to 'save the world'.
chriselles 8y ago
Very interesting to see Google retain an app designed to shackle Saudi women with digital chains. While Google employees openly express discontent with Google’s involvement with US DOD projects. Gen 1 Silicon Valley was built on a foundation of US Defense funding. How much is Saudi/Qatari/Emirati sovereign wealth fund money funding the current generation of Silicon Valley? I’ve worked with numerous women from conservative islamic countries. All but onee are now settled legally in countries with considerably more freedoms for females. One is still working with the sword of Damocles dangling overhead in terms of arranged marriage. One female GSB classmate of mine is Egyptian working in Saudi Arabia in a tenuous position without a male family sponsor/guardian. Their country, their rules...... But our countries and companies, our rules. Some consistent backbone by Google would be nice to see, not just in countries where the consequences of having a backbone are minimal.

148 points by SirLJ 8y ago

The app is basically a webview around a government website, and the notification happens by SMS. I'm still struggling to understand why anyone thinks removing the app will have any effect - it's not like removing an app from a store would cause SMS messages to stop.

gumby 8y ago
Because their App Store is curated (you couldn't, say, have a child pornography app) and so by permitting this app they are saying it's OK with them.
- tedivm 8y ago
  Child porn is illegal, so even if the app store wasn't curated it wouldn't the allowed. There are a ton of other things that are legal but that google doesn't allow though, so your point still stands.
  - gotocake 8y ago
    The system of tracking and restricting womens’ movement would also be illegal in most countries, so which set of laws do we use? At some point we do have to choose, in the same way we would if child porn were legal in a country Google did business in. Would they then have an excuse to host a version of Tindr for tracking kids?
- syrrim 8y ago
  They're curating for user experience, not for political opinions. If someone uploaded a vim clone google isn't taking a stance in the editor war by letting it stay up. "Saying it's OK with them." If they made a public statement "we are not ok with this, but the app stays anyways" is everyone satisfied now? Everyone knows google is in favour of womens right. People want them to take it down because they think google won't, so it gives them an opportunity to complain about how sexist google is. Then the next time something happens regarding women near google, they'll say wow google is so sexist remember how they made women get permissions slips to travel? When in fact google is completely powerless before the might of a nation state, and the worst they can do is make saudi arabia host the apk on their own website.
  - apostacy 8y ago
    > They're curating for user experience, not for political opinions. If someone uploaded a vim clone google isn't taking a stance in the editor war by letting it stay up. That may have been true in 2015. But no, Google us curating for political reasons. Google claims that they are concerned about things like the safety of women and LGBT groups. They have banned apps like Gab.com for purely quite flimsy political reasons. So you would think that Google would have no problem banning this app. Thus, their approving of an app which literally facilitates patriarchal misogyny on a nation-wide scale, while banning apps that simply make misogynist jokes, is colossal hypocrisy on their part.
sasasassy 8y ago
In some countries being gay is punishable by death. It doesn't mean your walled garden app store having an app to find and punish gay people is OK.
- cronix 8y ago
  I don't think anyone is saying it's OK. Just that removing the app will have 0 effect on the current law or the outcome. They'd just go back to pen/paper like they had to before the app was available, and take longer.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    > "They'd just go back to pen/paper like they had to before the app was available, and take longer." That would inconvenience Saudi men, would it not?
    - caymanjim 8y ago
      No, it would inconvenience Saudi women, because the men wouldn't bother doing the extra work.
      - darkpuma 8y ago
        Would the Saudis really have created this app if it didn't convenience Saudi men? I doubt that. I don't think the Saudi government is in the business of conveniencing Saudi women, except insofar as that's an incidental byproduct of conveniencing Saudi men.
  - brenschluss 8y ago
    If removing the app has 0 effect, then having the app has 0 effect also, so might as well remove it, no?
    - eridius 8y ago
      See this other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19292651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19292651 In short, the app, as awful as it is, is an improvement for Saudi women. Getting rid of it will hurt them.
pintxo 8y ago
Actually read an article where the app was helping the daughter to escape: she stole Daddy’s phone and that way he did not get any notifications and she could approve her own leaving the country!
- diebeforei485 8y ago
  Those are SMS messages, not app notifications delivered via Google/Firebase Cloud Messaging (or Apple Push Notification Service on Apple platforms). But yes, it would have been much harder without the app, because the old system would have required her dad to appear in-person, wet-sign specific paper forms, etc.
- pintxo 8y ago
  > In order to flee, Nourah used her father’s phone to give herself permission to travel, disabled his notifications and flew to Turkey. From there she traveled to Georgia, then bought a ticket to Australia via the United Arab Emirates, although she feared that the Emirati government would catch her in transit and return her to Saudi Arabia. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-women-flee.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/world/middleeast/saudi-ar...
happytoexplain 8y ago
Personally, I have not seen people citing the elimination of the SMS system as an effect of removing the app, so I can't relate with struggling to understand why people would claim such a thing. Also, you speak as though there are no other reasons to want the app removed. Have you considered the accessibility an app provides over a web site to new users? Or the simple subjective perception of its availability?
- diebeforei485 8y ago
  "New Users" register IRL, and can then use either the website on desktop, the website on mobile, or the app. There is no ease of onboarding provided by the app, given that onboarding happens IRL. Perception varies by cultural context, so it doesn't really matter how people with no connection to Saudi Arabia perceive things. Removing the app would mean making travel even harder, not easier - you should look at how all of this worked before the online service was introduced.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    There is no ease of onboarding provided by the app Removing the app would mean making travel even harder These seem like contradictory statements.
x0x0 8y ago
Because there's a space to say something to the government of Saudi Arabia "Listen, what you're doing is fucking disgusting. Maybe I can't stop you, but I sure as hell don't have to help you."
morpheuskafka 8y ago
We should find out what carrier they are using to introduce those messages into the SMS network and demand that other carriers blacklist them until they stop.
- tedunangst 8y ago
  Presumably Saudi Telecom. Not sure why you're focused on the carrier. Why not simply demand your phone company not connect to Saudi Arabia's country code?
m-p-3 8y ago
So if I made a webview to PornHub, and sent feed notification over SMS, that would be okay? I'm sure Google would take it down in a heartbeat. And as you said, it wouldn't have any effect on PornHub as people would still go there through the website, but it shows that Google is okay with government-backed slavery but not with porn.

peter303 8y ago

Do do evil

q3k 8y ago

Interesting comments in the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sa.gov.moi&hl=en&showAllReviews=true https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sa.gov.moi&hl=...

julianz 8y ago
Wow, some serious quality astroturfing there. Who knew that every single Saudi man suddenly wanted to write exactly five lines of effusive praise about their government's app on the same day!
- kissickas 8y ago
  Never underestimate the power of Saudi twitter (not just their bots, which surely do exist).
pcurve 8y ago
My favorite 1 star comment "This app is great! I've been looking for a good way to track my teenage wife and build my very own virtual prison so she can't escape my insatiable desire for sex with underage women and this is it! Google you've really outdone yourself this time! I can even set her as missing if she doesn't answer my texts so other enlightened men can hunt her for me!"

pbreit 8y ago

“Slippery slope” defined. Once you start deleting apps/speech, the requests and outrage become never-ending.

simple_phrases 8y ago
Remove all content mentioned in a DMCA takedown request? Reasonable, not worth spending the money to go to court over. Remove an application that facilitates subjugation of human beings? That's going a little too far if you ask pbreit.
krapp 8y ago
>Once you start deleting apps/speech, the requests and outrage become never-ending. Apps are not speech, and apps have been deleted in the past, because Google has terms of service which can be violated. And yet, requests and outrage have not already become never-ending, therefore it is already demonstrably false that any attempt to delete an app must lead to never ending requests and outrage, because neither human beings nor society work that way. "slippery slope" seen for the empty concern trolling that it is.
wnevets 8y ago
but we're already removing apps we deem against our morals.
stupidcar 8y ago
"Slippery slope fallacy" defined. Simply agreeing to outlaw some things — child pornography, incitement to murder, violation of human rights — doesn't set you on an irreversible course to outlawing everything. Partial regulation by community consensus is a fundamental tenet of all human civilisation.
- pbreit 8y ago
  I think there's a big difference between opinion-driven censorship and legal-driven.
morpheuskafka 8y ago

pgeorgi 8y ago

The "gov app tracking women" angle is a PR stunt by international advocacy groups and it points at the wrong problem. The app provides various official services, among them a digitized version of the "yellow sheet" a legal guardian has to fill out for a woman to be able to leave the country. (https://www.rt.com/news/women-tracking-saudi-arabia-359/ https://www.rt.com/news/women-tracking-saudi-arabia-359/ from 2012 describes this particular system, the app apparently integrates it with more digital services). The alternative isn't freedom of movement, it's having to get a signature on paper and potentially personal appearance of the legal guardian, which is harder to get (this includes: forge) than a button click on a website. As a remedy for that reduced trust in the system, it sends an SMS - to the very same device. There are activists in Saudi Arabia (see for example https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1095360734798721025 https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1095360734798721025) who see value in that type of app because the degree of automation it brings makes it easier to leave the country without supervision (e.g. by stealing the legal guardian's phone).

thefounder 8y ago
Congrats to Google because it makes this easier. Let's hope someone makes an app to manage/track child slaves easier! I heard some of them can become pretty slippery!
- apostacy 8y ago
  I don't know why you are getting down-voted. It would be 100% consistent. People on HN would even rationalize it the same way.
morpheuskafka 8y ago
I do think that this is worth noting, however, I still think Google should not be hosting it as it's still facilitating an immoral action (running an oppressive government that doesn't respect freedom of movement). I guess it's kind of a deontologist/consequentialist thing.
- vilifiedtwin 8y ago

devoply 8y ago

Couldn't women use this app in the place of their husbands/guardians by faking their info to escape?

sanxiyn 8y ago
Yes they can, which is an improvement over previous procedure involving physical presense. Saudi feminist activists are actually against removing the app because that makes escape harder.

Chutzpah3 8y ago

I am not a big fan of Islamic regimes and the Islamic law but then I think American citizens should realize that not all other countries share their values and American corporations are not beholden to any values American society might pretend to have. I would rather ask American people pressurize their government from not selling weapons to Saudis and not to protect their Royal family. That does 1000x damage to Saudi women and American values more that Google making things simple for Saudi Arabian women to move around. Would you rather have a scenario where a woman needs to wait for the husband to drive to the airport and permit her to travel ?

karlakush 8y ago

I can't fathom how Google removing this app would do anything at all to help people in Saudi Arabia. In fact, removing this app would probably hurt people as the law would remain unchanged, but now it would be more difficult to comply with it. I have to wonder if the people complaining about this actually care about women in Saudi Arabia at all. Seems like they're just seizing on any opportunity to attack Google.

davidf18 8y ago

A number of Google employees told management signing a letter stating that they did want Google to develop weapon systems that protect our troops, but they are apparently silent when it comes to this abuse of women.

intopieces 8y ago

On a completely unrelated note, I like the app's logo, it's a reduction of the app's Arabic name. It would normally look like this: أبشر

sjwpv 8y ago

Google siding with Israel is not surprising.

reaperducer 8y ago

I'd forgotten about this issue. Now that Google has made it an issue again, let's hope that means Apple will make its response public soon.

scarejunba 8y ago

Guys, come on, please. This app is an improvement for women in Saudi Arabia. It lowers the barrier to their being able to travel. It isn't always about just keeping your hands clean. You also have to sometimes help people. And it may leave your principles sullied but what are those rigid rules good for if they don't help someone be free. If we say we're not going to participate in this and then we turn our backs on them we've made their lives so much harder and given them no help. Tomorrow you'll forget you participated in an outraged comment thread and move on. But Saudi women will still be there. And all that they'd have for it all is that their lives are harder. Please, refrain from boarding the outrage train this time.

throw2016 8y ago

How the mighty have fallen. From once defending freedom and liberty to advocating looking the other way when an app that grossly violates the basic human rights of an entire gender shows up. The top voted comment betrays the current moral compass of the tech community, nothing is too regressive to not 'normalize' and hand wave away. But given the community's U turn from freedom lovers to supporters of invasive profiling and eager builders of surveillance systems this yet more evidence of the community's dramatic slide into irrelevance, unless the conversation is about startups or money. The good news is for those with some moral spine this is not going to fly. There is no way Google or Apple can continue to host this app once it is widely known. Others will fight and win this battle while you plot your next billion dollar unicorn to 'save the world'.

chriselles 8y ago

Very interesting to see Google retain an app designed to shackle Saudi women with digital chains. While Google employees openly express discontent with Google’s involvement with US DOD projects. Gen 1 Silicon Valley was built on a foundation of US Defense funding. How much is Saudi/Qatari/Emirati sovereign wealth fund money funding the current generation of Silicon Valley? I’ve worked with numerous women from conservative islamic countries. All but onee are now settled legally in countries with considerably more freedoms for females. One is still working with the sword of Damocles dangling overhead in terms of arranged marriage. One female GSB classmate of mine is Egyptian working in Saudi Arabia in a tenuous position without a male family sponsor/guardian. Their country, their rules...... But our countries and companies, our rules. Some consistent backbone by Google would be nice to see, not just in countries where the consequences of having a backbone are minimal.