Tech companies need to confront dictators, not coddle them

[Zorro]

Tech companies are complying with dictators’ laws, compromising human rights and freedom of speech.

In many countries around the world — from Russia and Iran to Venezuela and Cuba — dictators regularly draft new laws aimed at destroying citizens’ rights, including those related to the internet. Far too often, U.S. tech companies comply with these laws without asking too many questions.

Block access to foreign media? Done. Restrict tools that bypass censorship? No problem. Deny citizens tools to encrypt their messages to avoid repression? Even to that, Big Tech says “yes.”

Every concession to dictators hides a tragedy. In Iran, administrators of opposition media platforms, whose data was handed over to the government, have been executed under the country’s laws. In Russia, tens of millions lost access to uncensored information about Vladimir Putin’s bloody war against Ukraine, leaving them vulnerable to relentless state propaganda — all in full compliance with laws dictated by a regime that flagrantly violates international norms. These “laws” are crafted by a dictator and rubber-stamped by a toy parliament of loyalists.

“But do we really have a choice?” corporate lawyers from Western tech companies argue. “To operate in a country, we must follow its laws!” They see no room for debate. Law is law, they claim. And it must be obeyed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/03/kara-murza-navalnaya-yashin-dictators-tech/

Tech companies are onboard with Trump's policies because they want to turn all citizens into economic serfs paying those ever-increasing monthly media subscriptions where those companies can also control the message. Ahhh, the benefits of unregulated and unfettered capitalism...