On that same thread, Cisco built the Chinese Golden Shield which is what now is refer to the great chinese firewall iirc.

That's nonsense. Countries are responsible for making up their own laws, not foreign techies.

I think it behooves all techies to reread and really think about the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace every now and then:

https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence

I am deeply against censorship, consider myself a libertarian and wouldn't personally work for Facebook. I deeply sympathise with this manifesto. But I'm also a consequentialist and I believe the Vietnamese are overall better served with a censored Facebook/Youtube than no Facebook/Youtube at all. I also don't believe that getting 100% of techies on our side is a realistic strategy.

It definitely isn't. There's also the "something you build can be used for evil or for good" aspect, too.

When I say enable, I am talking about stateless nonprofits creating platforms where people can communicate freely, express themselves freely, and if they need to - organize protests to protect their freedoms. Things like Signal are great steps toward it, but we need more.

If you are from the US, be aware that even United States spies on its citizens, and recently-activated social media screening is just another step towards it.

sorry to break it to you some citizens can be traitors relaying on the "I know his people" and he's a good chap belongs to the right club does't work as a vetting procedure as we found in the UK with the cambridge 5 and others

I agree, but this is a slippery slope, and be mindful that warrantless surveillance is technically illegal (or not, i don't know what patriot act brought these days). It's a slippery slope because there is no end to it. It starts with surveillance - which evades privacy, then comes your freedom of speech, then your freedom to choose.

Oh I agree on warrantless wire tapping the one of problems with the states is they don't separate the Police role of the FBI from is Security / Contra Espionage.

Just following orders huh?

Most of the time, these companies are actually stronger than the government, even if they are not, there are a lot of ways they can choose to resist the orders.