YouTube blocked videos for Russian draft dodgers on request from Roskomnadzor(ovd.info)
ovd.info
YouTube blocked videos for Russian draft dodgers on request from Roskomnadzor
https://ovd.info/express-news/2024/05/20/youtube-po-trebovaniyu-roskomnadzora-zablokiroval-videoinstrukcii-dlya
24 comments
YouTube must either respect local laws or leave the country... Which means that they should perhaps stop doing business with totalitarian regimes.
Maybe it's better instead to disregard totalitarian regimes' requests?
Regimes like Australia and New Zealand?
Huh?
These two countries heavily censor the internet.
Huh?
These two countries heavily censor the internet.
Do no evil does not seem so simple anymore.
Why is YT still available in Russia?
"Why would Google forego a potential source of revenue."
Things like morality and ethics don't play a part in what these big corporations do. There's only profit and loss. If it's illegal, but they will make more than they lose in fines, they'll take the profit. If it's legal, but loses them money, they won't do it.
They're in Russia because it makes them money. If it didn't make them money, they wouldn't be there. This is the framework our society has created within which corporations operate. We could do better, but probably won't, because fixing things like this require time, resources, and coordinating dozens or even hundreds of competing incentives and thousands of relevant actors.
You can stop using Google products. You can advocate for others to do so. More than that is probably not the most effective use of your time. Besides, in ten years, Google might not be around - they've been notoriously unreliable for anything other than gmail, youtube, and search, and have recently dropped the ball, and to me, look like has-been hacks in the AI space.
Things like morality and ethics don't play a part in what these big corporations do. There's only profit and loss. If it's illegal, but they will make more than they lose in fines, they'll take the profit. If it's legal, but loses them money, they won't do it.
They're in Russia because it makes them money. If it didn't make them money, they wouldn't be there. This is the framework our society has created within which corporations operate. We could do better, but probably won't, because fixing things like this require time, resources, and coordinating dozens or even hundreds of competing incentives and thousands of relevant actors.
You can stop using Google products. You can advocate for others to do so. More than that is probably not the most effective use of your time. Besides, in ten years, Google might not be around - they've been notoriously unreliable for anything other than gmail, youtube, and search, and have recently dropped the ball, and to me, look like has-been hacks in the AI space.
Actually I don't think that Google makes any money from YT in Russia because they disabled ads for Russian users altogether about 2 years ago, and there's no easy way to pay for a premium subscription in Russia since SWIFT stopped working, unless there're other ways it can make money other than those two. And it's very good that they still keep working in Russia anyway, because it provides a platform for alternative views and opinions. As a Russian, I'm really glad we still have YT and surprised it hasn't been blocked.
I don't think Google is particularly moral, but I do not believe they make any money now in Russia.
So you are incorrect in your main thesis.
YouTube monetisation was disabled a long time ago and Google was fined for some crazy amount for some imaginary offences. I don't think they sell any services now in Russia.
You don't think Google has made any money off of Russians from YouTube since the war started?
Is there a way to verify that claim?
Because I'm pretty sure I'm still watching YouTubers based in Russia, and I would imagine ads play on their videos (I'm not going to bother turning off my Adblock to check)
Is there a way to verify that claim?
Because I'm pretty sure I'm still watching YouTubers based in Russia, and I would imagine ads play on their videos (I'm not going to bother turning off my Adblock to check)
Does the link you provided state that Google doesn't run ads on Russian produced content?
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Eh, this is pretty cynical. Google doesn't do business in China despite it probably being very lucrative for them. Unlike say, Apple, which gets lots of praise for privacy or whatever. Different companies "sell-out" in different ways.
Honestly, it's probably a good thing for YouTube to be available in Russia. It allows for western media to be seen by their population. If Russians only had access to Russian and Chinese media, the propaganda machine would be much stronger.
Now I'm not saying Google is a charity. They are probably also making money, but there's a non-zero chance someone thought about not cutting them off for non-monetary reasons.
Honestly, it's probably a good thing for YouTube to be available in Russia. It allows for western media to be seen by their population. If Russians only had access to Russian and Chinese media, the propaganda machine would be much stronger.
Now I'm not saying Google is a charity. They are probably also making money, but there's a non-zero chance someone thought about not cutting them off for non-monetary reasons.
Google isn't in China because of the costs. There are the public perception costs, the infrastructure and staffing needed to maintain compliance with China's censorship requirements, and the taxes. Even attempting to partner with China on a tech project resulted in major blowback from their staff in recent years. It's not lucrative at all - the potential costs outweigh the potential profits. Lots of people would be furious if Google built a censorship engine compatible with China's demands.
It's not cynical, it's a fundamental feature of massive corporations. No human, whether the CEO or other individual in power, can impose empathic, moral, or ethical considerations that violate the primary profit driver. Companies that violate the profit incentive don't survive, or never get big enough to be relevant.
Companies that don't have to worry about censorship compliance accept the occasional PR hits when it's discovered that China, yet again, continues to use slave and child labor, or unethically sourced resources, etc.
It's not a conspiracy or cabal or an intentional cluster of power brokers, it's a component feature of the marketplace and suite of international rules and regulations governing the operation of corporations.
There are lobbyists and policy wonks and think tanks fiercely debating the minutiae and pushing their findings on lawmakers and regulatory agencies. Then there is an ebb and flow of regulations and enforcement, and public perception and reputation, and finally labor, material, and overhead. The sum total of all those things drive the decisions made by massive corporations based on profit potential for any particular choice. Sometimes it costs less to pay for influence than to pay for compliance if regulation increases. Sometimes it costs less to comply, and varying timeframes and political regimes can affect long term strategies.
The only way ethics and morality ever become relevant to corporate strategy is if the public perception and reputation components are affected. If a PR campaign and fluff pieces can mitigate a temporary hit over some unethical move, they'll inevitably make the unethical moves. In massive bureaucracies, humans are distanced from responsibility for these decisions through institutional inertia and being more or less powerless to defy the overall corporate organism's behavior and incentives. Companies that correctly value and account for all these factors will succeed against companies that do not.
Where individuals or small activist groups succeed in overriding corporate level incentives, the company will almost always, inevitably, lose money and market share. If it's not illegal, it's fair game. If it's illegal, it's still fair game if it's profitable. If it's not profitable, it's not a valid choice.
We'd need a regulatory system with teeth that forces companies to be accountable for all of the mass surveillance, exploitative labor, unethical resource acquisition, and other maladaptive behaviors at a global level. Megacorporations pay a metric ton of lobbyists to fight against change in that direction, because it would significantly reduce short term profit potential.
Individuals stop mattering to corporations past a certain size unless there's a PR angle. Even if the CEO is the best, most moral, most superbly ethical person in history, the rules of the game don't give them any effective power with which to impact the company's behavior. There are literally millions of examples of this malignant feature of our modern marketplace. Despite that, it works fairly well, and people can usually find justice in the most egregious cases of abuse and damages. There are mechanisms for course correction baked in, and civil activism can occasionally push a human interest issue with enough energy that the profit impact results in The Right Thing™.
This isn't cynicism, it's simply how these massive corporations work. They're dehumanizing and awful, but they're also incredibly efficient and profitable, and it's often the case that the overall net benefit to humanity exceeds the ugly and exploitative negative externalities. It's very easy to get lost in the gray area and lose sight of right and wrong, but as long as we keep shifting toward "better" then maybe it's an overall good.
And if a company violates your own boundaries of right and wrong, you can decline to use their products or do business with them. Well, unless it's Google, or Facebook, or any other global surveillance harvesting company, or the credit bureaus, or companies that use conflict minerals, or child or slave labor, or... yeah, you know, maybe we need a few small tweaks.
It's not cynical, it's a fundamental feature of massive corporations. No human, whether the CEO or other individual in power, can impose empathic, moral, or ethical considerations that violate the primary profit driver. Companies that violate the profit incentive don't survive, or never get big enough to be relevant.
Companies that don't have to worry about censorship compliance accept the occasional PR hits when it's discovered that China, yet again, continues to use slave and child labor, or unethically sourced resources, etc.
It's not a conspiracy or cabal or an intentional cluster of power brokers, it's a component feature of the marketplace and suite of international rules and regulations governing the operation of corporations.
There are lobbyists and policy wonks and think tanks fiercely debating the minutiae and pushing their findings on lawmakers and regulatory agencies. Then there is an ebb and flow of regulations and enforcement, and public perception and reputation, and finally labor, material, and overhead. The sum total of all those things drive the decisions made by massive corporations based on profit potential for any particular choice. Sometimes it costs less to pay for influence than to pay for compliance if regulation increases. Sometimes it costs less to comply, and varying timeframes and political regimes can affect long term strategies.
The only way ethics and morality ever become relevant to corporate strategy is if the public perception and reputation components are affected. If a PR campaign and fluff pieces can mitigate a temporary hit over some unethical move, they'll inevitably make the unethical moves. In massive bureaucracies, humans are distanced from responsibility for these decisions through institutional inertia and being more or less powerless to defy the overall corporate organism's behavior and incentives. Companies that correctly value and account for all these factors will succeed against companies that do not.
Where individuals or small activist groups succeed in overriding corporate level incentives, the company will almost always, inevitably, lose money and market share. If it's not illegal, it's fair game. If it's illegal, it's still fair game if it's profitable. If it's not profitable, it's not a valid choice.
We'd need a regulatory system with teeth that forces companies to be accountable for all of the mass surveillance, exploitative labor, unethical resource acquisition, and other maladaptive behaviors at a global level. Megacorporations pay a metric ton of lobbyists to fight against change in that direction, because it would significantly reduce short term profit potential.
Individuals stop mattering to corporations past a certain size unless there's a PR angle. Even if the CEO is the best, most moral, most superbly ethical person in history, the rules of the game don't give them any effective power with which to impact the company's behavior. There are literally millions of examples of this malignant feature of our modern marketplace. Despite that, it works fairly well, and people can usually find justice in the most egregious cases of abuse and damages. There are mechanisms for course correction baked in, and civil activism can occasionally push a human interest issue with enough energy that the profit impact results in The Right Thing™.
This isn't cynicism, it's simply how these massive corporations work. They're dehumanizing and awful, but they're also incredibly efficient and profitable, and it's often the case that the overall net benefit to humanity exceeds the ugly and exploitative negative externalities. It's very easy to get lost in the gray area and lose sight of right and wrong, but as long as we keep shifting toward "better" then maybe it's an overall good.
And if a company violates your own boundaries of right and wrong, you can decline to use their products or do business with them. Well, unless it's Google, or Facebook, or any other global surveillance harvesting company, or the credit bureaus, or companies that use conflict minerals, or child or slave labor, or... yeah, you know, maybe we need a few small tweaks.
> There are the public perception costs, the infrastructure and staffing needed to maintain compliance with China's censorship requirements, and the taxes.
Don't be silly. Infrastructure and an ops team aren't meaningful costs in relation to the money to be made there. China is 1/6th of the world economy.
And for example Apple is absolutely minting money there, giving full cooperation to the CCP including handing over user data thousands of times per year, with no PR consequences at all. Even on HN, let alone with the general public.
Now, it is true that there would be PR consequences for Google specifically, since there is a double standard at play. In this case it's a self-inflicted double standard, since they left China in the first place. But would those consequences be durable? It's hard to say. Google's leadership under Pichai has been incredibly risk averse, so it makes sense they're not taking that gamble just like they're taking no other gambles.
But it's definitely not obvious that the costs of operating in China would exceed the benefits.
Don't be silly. Infrastructure and an ops team aren't meaningful costs in relation to the money to be made there. China is 1/6th of the world economy.
And for example Apple is absolutely minting money there, giving full cooperation to the CCP including handing over user data thousands of times per year, with no PR consequences at all. Even on HN, let alone with the general public.
Now, it is true that there would be PR consequences for Google specifically, since there is a double standard at play. In this case it's a self-inflicted double standard, since they left China in the first place. But would those consequences be durable? It's hard to say. Google's leadership under Pichai has been incredibly risk averse, so it makes sense they're not taking that gamble just like they're taking no other gambles.
But it's definitely not obvious that the costs of operating in China would exceed the benefits.
Thanks for this post, I strongly agree with you. There are no such thing as "good" or "evil" companies, there are only amoral profit maximization engines balancing profit, and costs (including intangible costs like PR or staff unrest).
And they are very efficient.
>And if a company violates your own boundaries of right and wrong, you can decline to use their products or do business with them.
I just want to say - the best (and the only) way to fix something is to regulate the companies. The slavery and child labor didn't stop because CEOs had a change of hearts, but because they were made illegal. Boycott is not enough, people should vote and lobby to make immoral things illegal.
And they are very efficient.
>And if a company violates your own boundaries of right and wrong, you can decline to use their products or do business with them.
I just want to say - the best (and the only) way to fix something is to regulate the companies. The slavery and child labor didn't stop because CEOs had a change of hearts, but because they were made illegal. Boycott is not enough, people should vote and lobby to make immoral things illegal.
Plenty of big companies have decided to leave Russia because of the invasion. Remember Russia has a tiny economy.
For example, ExonnMobile isn't traditionally known as a company that abandons major profits to virtue signal and yet they abandoned their Russian operators.
For example, ExonnMobile isn't traditionally known as a company that abandons major profits to virtue signal and yet they abandoned their Russian operators.
Google famously exited China while refusing to censor search results.
Russian government would be very happy if it wasn't.
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