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Yes. I agree that companies shouldn't become adhoc moral arbiters. beholden to social media campaigns, or the like.

However, the bigger problem is that companies with international presence are going to have an increasingly difficult time navigating legal sanctions or directives from the various countries they may sell to or operate in.

The challenge comes when a company is faced with being closed out of a large market if they don't comply with another country's legal directives. While, the best/right answer might be to ignore those countries, the reality of having to withdraw from valuable markets would be challenging.

Though, while it may seem like new problem, non-digital industries have been dealing with this kind of thing for a long time. Maybe the WTO, or the like, will develop fair trade/IP regime to guard against enabling a country to block or sanction international digital/media companies for violating local laws. But I wouldn't expect anything like to happen soon because countries are not to keen on giving up sovereignty.

Maybe spontaneous digital trade wars will become a thing.

edit: typo as usual




That's what Google did with China.




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