Just unethical, hence the discussion.
They don't want customers breaking terms of service, whatever those terms are, and especially when it means the rest of their customers are affected. It's not a single company involved here and they're looking out for everyone else they serve.
I think maybe you're trying to express that under a free market ethical framework, AWS has done nothing wrong here. Which is true, and an insightful indictment of the free market as an inherently liberatory force.
Signal had an strategy, but it involves breaking the terms of service, so that vendor has no reason to comply and put the other customers at risk. Signal just needs to figure out another option. It's a technical issue and nobody is stopping Signal itself. AWS will still host them just fine as long as they follow the terms.
By the way, the free market is what allowed companies like AWS and Signal to exist in the first place, and lets you contributed effort and money if you'd like, so perhaps you should widen your context before throwing around indictments.
I don't think Amazons reasoning was "oh, lets help dictators dictate", but more "hey, isn't this a potential security hole ripe for abuse that would make us look incompetent?".
Asking a private corporation to be international police is not good for anyone, as well intentioned as it may seem.
> Asking a private corporation to be international police
This implies only police can and does enforce cultural and moral norms. This is the exact opposite of the correct order of things - the police should be preventing or punishing crimes, like theft, robbery, rape, murder, etc. - and people themselves - individually or in organized groups, like companies, NGOs, voluntary societies, etc. - should be creating and enforcing moral norms. You can not just delegate this to "the police", being it national or international.
Thus, asking Amazon to take part in helping to create an international norm of upholding free speech is reasonable. And their refusal is morally despicable.
Nobody is talking about cultural norms here. The story is about Signal being used to help those in oppressive societies with active censorship, not some differing cultures. And "police" is a form of expression, not literally a police department.
Asking Amazon to do anything political is absurd because it's a corporation that should be focused on its paying customers, none of whom would appreciate unwillingly being affected by Signal intentionally breaking their terms of service. Do they suddenly not matter?
It's morally despicable to just expect and force others to help you in your causes, no matter how noble (you think) it is.
Regardless, what actually isn't proper is expecting major corporations to do police duty. That never ends well.
Are you sure you still feel that committing a war crime and doing what philosophers and statesmen and lawyers consider the "supreme" crime is really worse than "expecting major corporations to do police duty" ?
I think part of your argument is reasonable to a point that two people could, in good conscious and respectfully, disagree. Maybe governments are better suited to handle this (via what is known as soft power).
But as long as you take such an extreme position that cannot be defended (it's better to wage of war of aggression than to have amazon stand up for Signal), you're just commenting for yourself. No one is going to engage you in meaningful discussion, because even when it gets pointed out that you're advocating for a war crime, you can't even say "well ya, maybe that was a bit extreme."
1) As noble as the cause may seem, it would be better for everyone if massive corporations just focused on business instead of politics. It's reasonable, predictable, and safer. Signal is not affected by this, it just means picking a better option than breaking terms of service.
2) The correct process for citizens of a country is through government diplomatic and military action, especially when concerning other foreign states. That's all I said, and another posted specifically asked about the military in which case the option is called war. This entire story is about oppressive powers, most of which are disabled through military action, so it's not a strange concept and nowhere is a war of aggression mentioned.
Perhaps take a step down from your moral high ground and try to comprehend the entire conversation before telling someone that they are advocating for war crimes, that would be much more helpful if you want a meaningful discussion.
I find that chilling.
What I said is that if someone has an issue with another country (oppressive or otherwise) then they should use political means to influence change through their (and foreign) governments. As the commenter specifically stated the military, war is how that change is done in that case.
Should any government coerce me into paying a large DNS bill just to sponsor freedom of speech? Even if it is a noble cause, we shouldn't coerce innocent 3rd parties into doing this.
For the record, I'm of the opinion that the US should insist that American companies not help dictators abroad in their censorship efforts. But it's hardly unreasonable for Amazon to say, "this type of stuff is illegal in Egypt. We don't want any trouble, so please stop using us as a means of circumventing Egyptian law."