[Niten]

Is this a principle you apply universally? For example, do you oppose U.S. companies providing technical support for Ukraine's justified war aims, such as Starlink?

I've seen no indication that simply protesting is seen as "not ok". But trespassing on private property, or worse blocking bridges, goes quite beyond "protest" and freedom of speech.

[salawat]

It's called civil disobedience, and you opt into the inconvenience when your government acts truly in a truly odious manner to the sensibilities of the governed.

[crabbone]

Google isn't really a government... so, civil disobedience doesn't really work here.

Google, as well as any other employer is required by many different regulations to both comply with government rulings and to give certain means for its employees to appeal / protest whatever the company is doing. Staging a protest inside CEO office isn't a legal way to protest.

It makes sense to protest in such way against an overstepping government because there's no other means to call upon the government to change its course (similar to how there's no way to deal with ethics violations of the supreme court, since there's no court that can judge them). When it comes to a company, things are different because there's a higher power that regulates what companies can do.

The protesters come across as annoying and arrogant for wanting to cut corners in the process of appealing their company decisions and for putting themselves on display rather than trying to use the proper channels and working towards the benefit of those affected / involved.

It's kind of like as if I had a dispute with my landlord over who has to fix the plumbing, and instead of reporting them to the proper authority, I'd block traffic on a busy highway demanding "justice" for the broken plumbing.

[salawat]

>Google isn't really a government... so, civil disobedience doesn't really work here.

Google is a multi-national corporation, which based on jurisdiction, essentially makes it an arm of the local government.

>Google, as well as any other employer is required by many different regulations to both comply with government rulings and to give certain means for its employees to appeal / protest whatever the company is doing. Staging a protest inside CEO office isn't a legal way to protest.

You feel compelled to constrain things to the bounds of legality in a game that has already breached the boundaries of illegality (Genocide and territory annexation, boundary redrawing is illegal by all contemporary standards). Finite thinking in an infinite context.

>The protesters come across as annoying and arrogant for wanting to cut corners in the process of appealing their company decisions and for putting themselves on display rather than trying to use the proper channels and working towards the benefit of those affected / involved.

Quote "proper channels" result in memory holing or ignoring doing anything. Hierarchical power structures ensure this. Arrogance is a subjective eval on your part. Annoying is accurate, but rather the point. I'd call it "pointedly and unambiguously escalating".

>It's kind of like as if I had a dispute with my landlord over who has to fix the plumbing, and instead of reporting them to the proper authority, I'd block traffic on a busy highway demanding "justice" for the broken plumbing.

Landlord disputes have a pre-defined process. War crimes, and ongoing facilitation thereof does not until long after the critical period wherein continued or amplified loss of life can be prevented has already passed.

People called a spade a spade and more importantly, did something about it. The fact we're trying to convince one another of the illegitimacy of their means just demonstrates that to a degree, their act is having the desired effect. People are questioning the status quo.

You need to remember, "the Government" is just a nominative signpost for the set of entities through which a collective projects power. In that sense, a corporation is even more "the Government" than any one of us could ever be.

[nerdjon]

I do think there is a big difference between an invasion and the war that is happening here. Yes I realize both are a war, but there is a big distinction.

That being said, if we need to apply it universally and avoid situations like this that may be the better situation. Once we start making special cases we open it up to this exact situation.