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Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBT search results

• matt321 4y ago
  The rainbow logo has always been about money.
• c0l0 4y ago
  "Pride month's over anyway, folks - let's pack it in!"
• klez 4y ago
  I'm a bit confused by the fact that they're talking about UAE and then they suddenly switch to talking about non-Amazon related events in Saudi Arabia.
  • jimbob45 4y ago
    I didn’t notice that until you pointed it out. Either the author erroneously thinks the UAE subsumes SA or they needed to pad their word count and didn’t count on anyone noticing.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • Joeboy 4y ago
    Maybe the author sees crackdowns on LGBT stuff in SA as related to crackdowns on LGBT stuff in UAE, and therefore thought it reasonable to mention them in the same article.
  • joshjdr 4y ago
    The headline could have been changed by the editor after the article was submitted.
  • baybal2 4y ago
• sweetheart 4y ago
  Is there any argument here in Amazon’s defense? Or is my initial disgust at Amazon truly the appropriate response. I cannot fathom being the person at Amazon who makes that call. Do they sleep well at night? Do they feel good about themselves?
  • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    They are probably sleeping in a 14 room mansion in an ultra king size bed being rubbed to sleep by three prostitutes. So yeah, they’re probably sleeping well. But you expect anything different from a corporation? Their only purpose is to make profit. It’s just basic economics. They don’t care about politics or LGBTQ, they care about money. The only reason they ever seem to care about LGBTQ is because they saw the group as a market. A Market to exploit.
    • lentil_soup 4y ago
      sure, it's a corporation but in the end a bunch of people have to make the call and implement these filters. My guess is the blame gets dilluted and people are really good at rationalising their work by hiding behind the corporation image, or "someone else will do it anyway", or "yeah, but look at what happens in X", etc
      • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        > sure, it's a corporation but in the end a bunch of people have to make the call and implement these filters. Yes, people who work at the corporation, the people who will be fired from the corporation if they do not comply. Everyone who works at the Amazon earns money from the profit they make and they will pay the most to people who will make these sociopathic choices.
      • scoutt 4y ago
        If there is no guilt then there is no blame. The only concern they have is about the wording they should use when communicating the decision they've taken so it doesn't look bad. Here is a template: "we did all we can, but we have to comply with a greater force outside our reach". Below certain paygrade of people taking those decisions, a kind of mental "Nuremberg defense"(1) rule applies. People should learn that companies milk these kind of feelings just because they profit from them; it's good for business. The top earners (investors and managers) that probably are, in this very moment, partying in a Singapore KTV, they don't really care. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
• trasz 4y ago
  Soon in southern US.
  • usrn 4y ago
  • easeout 4y ago
    Don't go thinking other states or the federal government are immune.
  • mardifoufs 4y ago
    This weird obsession some have to make everything about the usa is just ridiculous especially in this case. If you think there is any similarity between the UAE/KSA and even the most regressive US states in how they treat LGBT rights, you should really really take a step back and reconsider. Yes, it's funny to call those states the equivalent "American talibans" or whatever, but it doesn't make it true. It's so weird to see that people unironically repeat the most blatantly hyperbolic, obviously partisan and inflammatory rhetoric to the point of actually where they start believing it themselves.
    • trasz 4y ago
      You do realise that even UAE and Afghanistan both have more humane abortion laws than some of the southern states, don't you?
      • mardifoufs 4y ago
        What does it have to do with LGBT rights? Also, your comment is completely wrong, but again it's representative of the weird hyperbole that sounds completely hysterical from an outsiders perspective. For starters, even if abortion becomes completely illegal in any given US state, you can still travel across state lines and get one. Not ideal, but in Afghanistan you can't get an abortion or even travel without your husband's consent. And that's even if we were to take at face value the assertion that abortion is not illegal in Afghanistan (it is, for all intents and purpose). And if we were to simply go by official laws instead of what the reality on the ground is, abortion in germany (and some other EU countries) is still technically illegal except for medical emergencies so surely Afghanistan and the UAE are actually just more progressive than the west!
• MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
  As does every other corporation that puts up a rainbow lag the second its pride month. Blackrock, McDonnel Douglas and Exxon are really trying to be on the right side of history here, folks! Ask Disney if they show the same movies in China. Its all just kowtowing to the power of the Global American Empire legislated by misguided civil rights legislation, enforced by the politcommissars in HR. Every culture has a right to protect its values.
  • Ekaros 4y ago
    It is all just virtue singling. And in different places virtues are different... Cynical but truthful take. After all on scale these firms operate having someone update their logo with different colour scheme is probably cheaper than being attacked for not doing it.
  • ausbah 4y ago
    >Its all just kowtowing to the power of the Global American Empire legislated by misguided civil rights legislation I would to know more as to why you this civil rights legislation, or presumably court rulings as well, are "misguided" >Every culture has a right to protect its values. Cultures that discriminate against people for innate characteristics like sex, sexual orientation, race, etc. are backwards. Label me biased by Western propaganda I suppose, but a person's right to participate fully in a society shouldn't depends on any cultural or societal norms or traditions.
    • troon-lover 4y ago
    • MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
      > a person's right to participate fully in a society should depends on any cultural or societal norms or traditions Did you mean to write "shouldn't"?
      • ausbah 4y ago
        yes thank you
• PradeetPatel 4y ago
  Speaking as someone who worked in the reputation management sector, this kind of behaviour has been around since the early 20th century. I think people often mistaken "region based marketing" for genuine political statements. If promoting pride yields a net positive increase in reputation and revenue in Western countries, one would be foolish not to jump on that bandwagon.
  • easeout 4y ago
    Right, but supporting a marginalized group for a month doesn't have much of an ethical downside. Repressing it year-round sure does. I think it just means ethics are not an overriding factor for them, just another pro/con item. Or the goodwill of their home customers and employees is a cost of doing business in more countries.
  • yakubin 4y ago
    Yeah, this is the reason why I stopped attending pride parades. When you're there, it looks like a big PR platform for a bunch of banks, Google, Apple and whatever. Those same companies don't advocate for the right of this community in places where it matters most, since it won't give them money, but it will mean risk. I think it would be fine, if they weren't part of the parades, but the hypocrisy is where it crosses the line for me. I'm also disappointed in pride parade leaders for allowing it, but I also doubt they're genuinely there for the cause, rather than the political platform it gives them to jumpstart their careers. Same goes for Hollywood preaching. It would be a lot better, if they did nothing and never commented on politics, than the charade they're playing.
    • AlexandrB 4y ago
      > Those same companies don't advocate for the right of this community in places where it matters most, since it won't give them money, but it will mean risk. It's worse than that. Many of these companies donate to political parties actively undermining those rights.
    • carapace 4y ago
      Growing up in SF I had a ringside seat for the "enclosure" of gay culture by-- I don't want to say "corporate", although that's a big part of it-- a lot of corporate execs are openly gay now, eh? Anyway, Gay Pride and especially the Castro Halloween celebration went from being subversive to mainstream and the celebration itself literally became more exclusive, with fences and then ticket sales. Now it's the theme-park version of itself. Same with Haight St. and the hippie culture: packaged up into a theme-park of itself. The actual hippies are marginalized in favor of tourism and consumerism.
• aaron695 4y ago
  [dead]
• erellsworth 4y ago
  There's no such thing as a woke corporation. Corporate wokeness is an illusion created by PR departments to maximize market share.
  • drnonsense42 4y ago
    I find this take ridiculous. This is the liberal equivalent of “no systemic racism”. What would you call it when a significant portion of your company believes in woke values and promotes some of these individuals into influential roles where they have power to pressure people? I’m sure their influence on product always rationally optimizes shareholder value and is not influenced by their beliefs.
  • AlexandrB 4y ago
    Yes. There's a good video on this topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=06yy88tLWlg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=06yy88tLWlg
  • zmgsabst 4y ago
    If that were true, Disney’s shareholders would be a lot happier.
  • high_5 4y ago
    So you're implying LGBT are fundamentalist that corporations bowed to too.
    • meatsauce 4y ago
      A mob of LGBT allies will make your life a living hell if you don't pledge total fealty, so yes, they are fundamentalists and zealots of their own little religion.
      • happytoexplain 4y ago
        It seems unreasonable to essentially accuse the group "gay and trans people" of being a religion of fundamentalist zealots who demand total fealty.
• RyEgswuCsn 4y ago
  Do people agree that corporations should respect the customs and values of the local people when operating their business there? If yes, then Amazon is not "bowing", and it is The Guardian who is playing word games here. If not, then it would seem to imply that we are OK with western powers using their capital (instead of gunboats) to impose their ideology on other cultures in the world. Now, one may argue that the customs and values of some countries are incompatible with those of the West and may even be considered "backward" to the point that western companies should completely withdraw from those markets because providing services to such markets equates to empowering those backward social values. That can be a fair assessment, but just remember not to blame them for "banning western companies" in the future.
  • MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    No, only the law. UAE customs and values on LGBTQ will collapse naturally by the outside pressure of superior Western culture.
    • baisq 4y ago
      Yeah, let's see that superiority when the US supremacy breaks down. Because the only way that the Western culture has prevailed this century is through bloodshed.
      • digitalsushi 4y ago
        There must be some western culture that has been successful because it is what humans naturally gravitate towards.
        • azth 4y ago
          Logical fallacy, just because humans naturally gravitate towards something does not make it right. Humans gravitate toward feeling good (drugs), and we see how that turns out for example.
        • xcambar 4y ago
• GekkePrutser 4y ago
  I just cannot understand why so many people get so angry about what other consenting adults get up to in a closed bedroom. Live and let live.
  • Thorentis 4y ago
    I also can't understand why we need parades that share what other people do in their bedrooms. This cuts both ways.
    • Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
      >I also can't understand why we need parades that share what other people do in their bedrooms Probably a reaction 'what they do in the bedroom' being made literally illegal for a long period of time. I can imagine wanting to throw a parade to show the 'good people of society' that you're just as human as they are, with the expected goal being to ward off further persecution in the future.
      • azth 4y ago
        No one is saying they are not human (straw man). Aren't thieves or murderers human as well? This is a weak argument frankly.
        • Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
          I think a lot of people consider murderers as less than human, and reflect that in the way they talk about them and the punishments they should face. I think a lot of people consider homosexuals as deviants and in some way less than human, also. They might not say it openly but they think it.
          • azth 4y ago
            • 4y ago
• Thorentis 4y ago
  Companies will do whatever they can to increase profits in the market they find themselves in? The choice to paint a logo rainbow, or not paint a logo rainbow, is purely a monetary decision and doesn't actually reflect whether the company cares about social justice or not? Companies exist to make money? What a hot take.
• frereubu 4y ago
  I'd be (genuinely) interested in an answer to the questions: (a) would people here, as individuals, feel comfortable working for a company owned by someone like Mohammed bin Salman? and (b) If not, what is the difference between that and a company changing its working practices to continue making profits in that country? My sense is that the corporate decisions are easier because they're depersonalised, but I don't see much of a moral distinction between the two. Clearly there's a difference in the directness of interaction when it's a person or a company. But speaking personally I would never compromise my core ethical beliefs (which include not working in an environment where gay people are executed because of who they love and secret service agents are sent to kill critical journalists overseas) just so my company could make more money. This isn't to say that I don't think politicians shouldn't talk to those regimes, but that feels quite different.
  • francisofascii 4y ago
    Related, this debate is big news in Portland this week, and in the golf news world in general. These kind of questions are being asked and discussed. A few players have signed lucrative deals to play golf in a Saudi Liv Golf league, tarnishing their legacy in exchange for crazy amounts of money. Other players are rejecting the offers for moral reasons.
  • londons_explore 4y ago
    By not providing your services to the people of these countries, you are making their quality of life worse. See heavily sanctioned countries like North Korea and Iran for examples of quite how much worse life is for those citizens. "I don't want to support Mohammed bin Salman" needs to be traded off against "I don't want to make 34 million people have worse lives". In my view, in nearly every case, the latter effect outweighs the former.
    • starkd 4y ago
      That's the "magic" of commerce. That a transaction can bring two parties together who ordinarily would not agree on anything. And they BOTH walk away from it with a net positive.
• turing_complete 4y ago
  In the west, Amazon restricts search results or drops books critical of gender theory. In other countries, it's the other way round. I would even prefer them having a consitently bad position to being just spineless and opportunistic.
  • Taurenking 4y ago
• pharmakom 4y ago
  I’m fine with corps not taking a stand and just following local regs IFF they don’t pretend to care about this stuff in recruitment and marketing messaging.
• varjag 4y ago
  It is endearing how the big tech makes grandstanding against FBI warrants but repeatedly caves in to every petty dictator demands if PR fallout is deemed irrelevant.
• andsoitis 4y ago
  If this was a story about blood diamonds and not gay lives, I think the tone / shape of the discussion thread would be different.
• system16 4y ago
  So many companies are hypocritical about this and I don't know why they don't get called out on it more. My social feeds are flooded with rainbow avatars from accounts like @MercedesBenz and their unwavering support for the LGBTQ community, but a quick look at @MercedesBenzME shows no rainbows in sight.
• Tarucho 4y ago
  Companies are just a table where some people put money on it with the idea of taking more from it later. The rest are strategies to make that money grow.
• FerociousTimes 4y ago
  > Earlier this month, authorities in Saudi Arabia seized rainbow-coloured toys and children’s clothing, which they claimed encourage homosexuality, according to state TV Al Ekhbariya. It said commerce ministry officials removed a range of items from shops in the capital, Riyadh, including hats, skirts, T-shirts, hair clips and pencil cases. I swear it's always a moral panic/mass hysteria with these people when it comes to discussing controversial social issues. They also seem to be very fixated and invested in the talking point that with the proper and right formula of marketing, you can convert straight people to gay people, or make them engage in homosexual activities which is quite absurd and ridiculous if you ask me but here we go again.
  • azth 4y ago
    "These people", sounds "racist" huh? We see what's coming, we see how things are unfolding in the rest of the world, so taking preventative action is only the smart and rational thing to do. You might not agree with it, but these are our culture and norms, and we've survived for over 1,400 years now.
  • aliswe 4y ago
    can I play advocate here and say that one could interpret boycotting anything remotely connected to Russia or removal of anything confederate, cleaning up terminology like "master branches", or the hysteria calling for defunding the police as moral panic as well? not governmenral perhaps, but still moral panic.
    • FerociousTimes 4y ago
      I totally agree except for the master branch renaming manufactured controversy, it was total and plain idiocy on GH's part to give in to the blackmailing of those wokesters.