It’s SO funny how apparently for almost 20 years we (as in the west outside the USA) decided that using Chinese cloud platforms or networking hardware was dangerous and to be avoided, but private US companies? Nothing to see here!
Silver lining of the orange man is that maybe countries will wake up and smell the digital sovereignty that we sorely lack.
If they’re making profit, how in the world can they possibly think it’s charity?
Top comment is about how Chinese censorship is not overt, but behind the scenes to stop your speech from spreading. It’s definitely censorship, but no one is going to arrest you for criticising the government online (to a point), they’ll just stop you from reaching others with your message.
I’m just saying that there definitely is censorship, just not what some “China Bad” people imagine.
My comment was in opposition to the “China Good” crowd who also pretend like everything bad said about China is not true.
Reality is inbetween, in my opinion. It’s a country with good and bad points.
@FleetwoodLinux@lemmy.zip thanks for the assist. This is indeed what I meant.
There’s arguably much more support for that, than stopkillinggames.
But the political opposition to stopkillinggames is far less.
These two things overlap under capitalism, as doing right by your customers is only required if not doing right by your customers affects your profits.
We definitely want them to sweat.
I think the top comment is the real answer on this.
There is censorship in China, as well as in the west. They just operate very differently.
In the west, outside the US, I think it’d be fairly easy to argue there’s more censorship in China. (Even with the pretty depressing clamp down on right to protest, and suppressing of anti-israel speech in many forms happening at the moment)
Equally though, people massively overblow what censorship is actually like in China. I’m not gonna get disappeared next time I go to China just for this comment. Or even if I overtly criticised the government on real-name social media.
tl;dr “China bad!” and “China so good!” are both equally annoying positions to find on the internet.
Reality is nuanced, but that doesn’t seem to make people happy.
I think the original commenter means that Google got off with a tap on the wrist
The US lacks even the most basic consumer protections it seems.
In Australia, companies still try to give you the run around, but I am extremely confident this wouldn’t fly here. Even though I’m not a lawyer.
If you literally can’t get a hold of them, they’re breaking Australian Consumer Law, that’s a slam dunk to charge back the card and dare them to take you to your state’s relevant tribunal that hears cases like this. It costs either like $70 to file, you can represent yourself easily, and if you’re low-income, it’s literally free.
They don’t want to waste money on fighting you. If you’re confident you’re clearly in the right, it’s very easy to get a company to back down.
This is a great time to remind everyone to take photos before and after getting a rental car, because otherwise it’s your word against them.