5 ms·

>Then it would maybe just be a matter of time until they also closed down access to Spotify in Russia. But it would at least be a statement, saving the face of

• webmobdev 5y ago
  This is more of an American thing - the slow and subtle ceding of autonomy and power to corporates, with the expectations that they should behave like country states and be political. It's a very dangerous idea that Americans are being slowly brainwashed into, to repose more and more faith on corporates than their own democracy! This is the kind of thinking that lead to imperialism, with the Dutch East India Company being the poster boy of the idea as the world's richest corporate, with one of the largest private army in the world conquering and even ruling colonies. The idea that foreign companies shouldn't submit to the laws, rule and regulations of another country is a retrograde colonial idea that reeks of both racism and greed. CEOs are not elected representatives nor seasoned politicians.
  • smitty1e 5y ago
    > The idea that foreign companies shouldn't submit to the laws, rule and regulations of another country is a retrograde colonial idea that reeks of both racism and greed. More to the point, one cannot dictate the actions of another under pressure. It's one thing to have a theoretical model of what others _should_ do when confronted with aggression. It's quite another to stay on the theoretical course when confronted by state actors backed by guns. Another dimension is those affected by our decisions. One might go down in a blaze of Leeroy Jenkins[1] glory if it's only oneself in the blaze. If ones actions put others in harm's way, things tend to get far more cautious. SUMMARY: it gets hard to be too harsh in these situations. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeroy_Jenkins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeroy_Jenkins
  • sdoering 5y ago
    As much as I would like to agree with parts of your argument, I find it difficult. Maybe because I grew up in Germany and near the Iron Curtain to be more precise. There is an alternative, as a company can either be organized around values like money, shareholder value, opportunism or values like still making money but not at all costs. Acting based on humanistic values. This is a spectrum. And lots of grey between black and white. One could look to be one thing and behind the scenes actively act contrarian to this outside facade. Take many examples of people or companies in oppressive regimes that use their influence to protect others. For example out of personal interest I studied a lot of stories of people in the ranks of the NS regime (2nd World War) that did use their role to secure people being hunted by the state's ideology and others within the NS ranks. As well as many normal people. People like from average Else up to government officials. What I am incoherently rambling about is the fact that one can't always see the details from the outside while things unfold. These people would have been seen as part of the system. Not as actively working against it. Because if the later they would not have been able to work against the system. On the other hand there were a lot of opportunistic people as well. That would have looked a lot like the other category of people described. Maybe Spotify is just opportunistic. Maybe there is a hidden positive agenda. We don't yet know. So I would not try to have a definitive answer in my head.
  • jollybean 5y ago
    "to repose more and more faith on corporates than their own democracy! " Corporations are a part of the system, that's the way it is. You want an iPhone, it's not going to be your government that makes it. While you do have a point ... it's a bit moot when we consider that 'corporatism' is at very minimum 'one of the pillars'. FYI I would support Swedish government requiring a more comprehensive embargo.
  • datavirtue 5y ago
    I appreciate this point but my take on this is that corporations are running scared of social media...paranoid of normies boycottong their brands. To me this is good and is what was predicted as the next wave of progress by people like William Grieder. Citizens voting with their dollars. Mother's boycotted GE into leaving the weapons manufacturing business in the 1980s. There is an explicit policy against any type of weapons manufacturing inside the company to this day. I do agree with your premise that this is inappropriate since power is supposed to rest with elected representatives but I until we ban corporations from political contributions (any activity) then we will have to live with bullying corporations via social media.
    • kbelder 5y ago
      >running scared of social media... citizens voting with their dollars. That's not an unreasonable idea, but the trouble I see is that those two concepts are surprisingly different. The din on social media is not reflective of the general citizenry. Think of almost any issue that the country is split fairly evenly on. How lopsided is the outrage on social media? Right now, it's a weapon wielded by a minority, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.
• atoav 5y ago
  > The smart move for companies is to comply with these laws to a superficial extent while silently keeping as much dissident content online as possible and staying off the radar of regulators. I don't disagree, but I think we also have to consider that a "PR stunt" by spotify would be part of boycotts by many, many other companies. A hypothetical Russian that still has no clue what their government is doing will be magnitudes more likely to notice spotify stopped working, apple doesn't sell new devices, Ikea is closing, than accidentally find one slighly critical bit of content. All of this happening at once is very hard to ignore, also for pessimist apolitical persons (people who don't like putin, but won't do something against him as long as they can do their own thing). That kind of person is quite common in Eastern Europe to my experience. Ofc the Russian government could frame this as everybody else being mean to them, and instead of making Russians critical it could polarize them in that way, so this is not clear cut the best strategy as well. Maybe it would be even better to have them ban you for trying to speak truth to power (if this is possible without putting your staff in harms way).
  • gruez 5y ago
    >A hypothetical Russian that still has no clue what their government is doing will be magnitudes more likely to notice spotify stopped working, apple doesn't sell new devices, Ikea is closing, than accidentally find one slighly critical bit of content. Okay, then what? I guess the assumption is that once they find out, they will find an accurate/neutral representation of what's going on, and then go protest or whatever. What makes you think that'll be the case, rather than them being fed whatever anti-western propaganda the government has concocted? Has western sanctions made the people of north korea realize "what their government is doing"?
• jollybean 5y ago
  No, the 'smart move' for most companies is to withdraw. Putin gains almost everything by having his censorship and then having Russians enjoy regular products and services. Russians still support the war and incursion, at least partly due to propaganda, and they won't miss a beat (pun intended) whatever Spotify censors. One of the most important things we can do to 'signal' to the Russian public that 'it's bad' is to pull products and services that they know and love. It's not hugely material from an economic perspective (though it will definitely hit), but not having Starbucks, McDs, Coke, Nike, Spotify, Apple, Netflix - which means maybe no music, entertainment, sports, football - it's important. It's one of the only ways that every day Russians can 'feel' that they are definitely begin excluded. You want this war? No lattes, Iron Mans, your Volvo will go into disrepair and your iPhone is degraded. For some services, like Google, which is an 'access point outside of Russia' - it's the opposite, we should do everything we can to keep Russian ability to somehow 'get past the firewall' - that is where your strategy would apply. But for consumers services, no - we should be withdrawing. Today Fedex, MS, Volskwagen announced withdrawal. I believe Coke, Starbucks, McD will follow suit. I should note that it seems the companies with the most 'boots on the ground, dispersed' have the toughest time. It's easy for digital companies to stop/start, harder for those with factories (i.e. Volvo), but even harder for those with broad brand awareness, a lot of local entities and possibly local supply chains, like McDs. But McDs, though not very important, is kind of like the 'biggest symbol' as they were the thing that was had first after the Berlin Wall came down. Getting a McDs was a signal that the country had entered modernity. It's a bit perverse (!) but it's still populist. Most people like McD fries.