[baldajan]

Reading the comments, there seems to be a lot of misconceptions and biases. But one general rule that’s been thrown out the window: Goverment is not the same as the People.

A tech hub, bringing coding, tech and entrepreneurship to a region (any region) is a good thing. It creates opportunities and helps lower and middle income individuals/family grow.

[13years]

Only if a company can operate free of implementing a governments tyrannical policies.

The question is if such a company will actually be free to serve/help the people or will it be a tool of the oppressive regime

[Cthulhu_]

Google might be a good example of that actually - they pulled out of China because they refused to conform to the regime there.

[gaius]

Because the regime wouldn’t let them make enough money there

FTFY

[BeetleB]

This seems very much to be a false dichotomy. There's a whole space between the two extremes.

[13years]

Sure, it can even be both. Look at the US and the issues of privacy and data sharing between the government and large tech.

However, it certainly is a legitimate question as to what role the company may play, what control it will have etc. If a free country like the US spies on its people through tech, to what extent would be expected Saudia Arabia would have no issues going far beyond

Unfortunately, if there are abuses, we will likely never know.

[BeetleB]

Not agreeing or disagreeing with you (or Google), but:

>However, it certainly is a legitimate question as to what role the company may play, what control it will have etc.

It is always a legitimate question for any country. We have to move beyond merely asking questions, and work towards analyzing the scenarios. I know you did not intend it as such, but this is merely an alternative phrasing of "But I can't help wonder..."

>If a free country like the US spies on its people through tech, to what extent would be expected Saudia Arabia would have no issues going far beyond

I think the answer depends on how well you know Saudi Arabia. This is very much a business relationship, and very likely with active members of the royal family having some stake in it. They are not all-powerful in this regard, and Google does have its leverage. The net outcome will likely be a tweaking to satisfy both sides as opposed to something draconian.

There are countries (e.g. Pakistan) who in the past banned Youtube outright for long periods of time. With this move, I think this will make it far less likely it will be banned outright in Saudi Arabia - both sides will have something to lose. I don't doubt some filtering will be done, but that doesn't bother me any more than the sub-culture based filtering Youtube already does in the US.

[13years]

Spying and filtering are just an example. I think what really needs to be know is what laws must Google honor.

Certain behaviors we consider normal can get you imprisoned or worse. Will Google be bound to report such activities from either data it collects or just reporting on its own employees? Troubling is that the answer to such I can not fully expect would necessarily be disclosed.

[lern_too_spel]

The main misconception is that it is a tech hub that will bring coding, tech, and entrepreneurship to the region. The article just mentions data centers, likely to compete with AWS data centers in the country. https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/id...

[gaius]

Goverment is not the same as the People.

There is an old saying: people get the government they deserve