[tejohnso]

Meta is not a political or moral entity, it's a for profit tech company. I don't see why it would be expected to make judgement calls on government requirements. Are we expecting Meta to take a political stance for or against specific policies in every country in which it operates? How would its politics be determined? I think the sensible thing for the corporation to do is to operate as widely as possible and follow the rules where it operates.

Governments suppress information all the time. We know of a huge list of thousands of documents and terabytes of video implicating people in child abuse and as important as that is, we aren't getting all of the information. That's the government position. Redact and suppress. It's up to the people to demand transparency from their government and if they don't demand it and fight for it, they won't get it. Corporations like Meta aren't there to help fight the power.

[drowntoge]

Being a for-profit company does not automatically give you a free pass to do anything in the name of profit and claim immunity if your actions harm certain people. Individuals can (and will) expose and condemn for-profits for policies they believe cause them harm in order to attach some semblance of accountability to a corporation that would otherwise completely ignore their interests. This is effectively a way of exerting some form of voting power over the decision-making algorithm of the profit-driven body. And something that might make an entity solely focused on profit reconsider running over the concerns of those affected, precisely because they made taking that route less profitable for it. This is not only perfectly legitimate, it is also one of the most powerful ways for consumers to challenge plutocratic forces.

[tejohnso]

> Being a for-profit company does not automatically give you a free pass to do anything in the name of profit and claim immunity

Okay but that's not what were talking about. We're talking about Meta following the rules specified by the government of a country in which they operate. They don't need immunity to follow the rules.

[pesus]

Meta lost the ability to claim they're not political when they donated to Trump, one of those child abusers you're talking about. They seem to have no problem taking a political stance when it benefits them.

[tejohnso]

That is not about taking a political or moral stance though. Although Trump is a political figure, it could be seen as a simple transaction to the new administration to gain favor. It's not Meta deciding it dislikes a certain viewpoint and playing activist, making moral judgments about population control mechanisms employed by foreign countries. I think there's a difference there. And Meta is expected to have a stance on things like content regulation and platform liability that are core to its operation. It's not completely apolitical. Almost any decision can be framed as being political.