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by graderjs 1576 days ago
If true, what would the debate within Google be like about closing Google services / blacklisting accounts or devices, over the affected regions?

For such a thing they probably have to get approval from the state department or someone else correct?
3 comments
Lascaille 1576 days ago
>For such a thing they probably have to get approval from the state department

Google doesn't have to get approval from the state department to discontinue services.

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hedora 1576 days ago
True, but they have strong ties to the state department, and I imagine those conversations are happening. The right strategy might be non-obvious from the outside.
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graderjs 1576 days ago
No I mean don't think they would, in a regular case...But for such a thing, where say it affects a target/person of interest/VIP who is under surveillance/protection, or, say in this case, where it's an action in and that directly affects a war-zone, I imagine there be such a requirement...

I mean, if anything, you can imagine the situation where say CIA was doing some operation in a country, and at the same time there was some sort of mass disinformation campaign by some "enemy" actor, and Google decided to discontinue services, but that interfered with the CIA's operation somehow, maybe by cutting CIA off from intelligence and capability against the actor. So you imagine that it would be desirable there would be some co-ordination of things, to avoid stepping on toes. I mean, right? That's reasonable, isn't it?

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Rastonbury 1576 days ago
I doubt it, the idea that Russian soldiers are using Maps to navigate in Ukraine is a PR disaster waiting to happen.
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hgomersall 1576 days ago
Right up there with invasion.
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mellavora 1576 days ago
I recall one study where the researchers (with approval) made google maps suggest a route which looped back on itself... the idea was to test if people would blindly follow google maps or if they would try to reason for themselves using GM as one source of info.

turns out many people just blindly followed.

So closing/blacklisting accounts might not be the best solution, you could just make all the route instructions take them back to Russia.

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