On the other hand, not using our influence over Apple and Google to project power against Saudi Arabia and try to force them to agree to different moral norms signals that their norms (and the behaviour they cause and justify) are ok. And that's how you get millions of women horribly mistreated.

Sovereignty may be a great concept, but not when you use it to justify and normalize abuse. I feel like that should be condemned and not tolerated under any circumstances.

The former because the rights groups which criticize the corporations are the ones driving the supposed change and enforcing their own morality. Rights groups are probably better moral arbiters than corporations, on account of there being less conflict of interest. And the latter because, while the line can definitely be very hard to trace in various, more ambiguous situations, I really don't think this specific case is one of those. It feels like a slippery slope argument to me, specifically: "If we enforce this, what else are we going to end up enforcing?"

Freedom of speech is one thing. This app is _specifically_ created to harm women who want refuge.

If female genital mutilation "direct harm"? If yes, does the same apply to circumcision of males? If yes, is denying jewish people a religious practise (and thus potentially entry to heaven) "direct harm"? Different people will answer this very differently, even in the same country and culture.

More applicable to this case: Is it ok for parents to see where their children are? Is ist ok for parents to get an alert when their children cross a geofence? If in a culture the husband is viewed as the guardian of his wife, is it ok if the husband uses the same app for his wife?

Note that I don't endorse any of these things, I'm simply saying that "are people being directly harmed by this product" is sometimes a deep philosophical or psychological question that is arguably harder than rocket science.

If female genital mutilation "direct harm"? Yes.

does the same apply to circumcision of males? Not to the same extent, because the harm is less - despite using the same word, cutting off the foreskin is objectively less harmful than cutting off the clitoris.

However, this is an area where the prevailing opinion is shifting as we speak. Male circumcision used to be normal (in the US), now it's considered in most polite circles to be somewhere between antiquated and barbaric. The loudest argument in favor seems to be "it's my religious tradition!" but ask the mormons how that argument faired WRT plural marriage and excluding blacks. Public opinion shifts slowly but it's not hard to imagine a future where even religion doesn't cut it as an excuse for cutting off bits of a baby's junk. We may revisit this question in a few more decades.

Is it ok for parents to see where their children are? Yes. Parents in every modern society are granted extremely broad powers over their children.

If in a culture the husband is viewed as the guardian of his wife, is it ok if the husband uses the same app for his wife? No. Women are not property. That's the moral judgement of modern society. Cultures which violate this moral judgement should do so without our help.

These are not thorny issues or deeply philosophical problems.

If we look at African culture, which is the most common place for female circumcision, we find that male circumcision is quite different from what people might expect in both execution and purpose. The boys are much older, and the ritual is done in part to test the "warriors" ability to withstand pain. A boy who cries out in pain brings great dishonor to his family, and of course no sedative is applied. It is ritualized torture with religious attributes.

This does not make US and EU style of male circumcision more moral, but it does mean that when you say that "the harm is less" with circumcision of males, what we are saying is that ritualized torture is not as bad as cutting off the clitoris. I object to that. male circumcision in nations that practice female circumcision is one of the worst form of barbaric acts one human can do to an other human, and for the worst reasons.

Protesting the immoral behavior only by means that don’t really hurt your own bottom line is not actually doing much except cement the hypocrisy.

Sure, but no western agent is obliged to comply with the moral standards of Saudi Arabia, or any other country to that matter.

Apple, Google are complacent because they want to do business in Saudi Arabia. They're favoring profit over enforcing western morality within their operations abroad, and will continue to do so as long as they don't get too much scrutiny.

The argument is a neutrality one, essentially that Google and Apple should not be enforcing morality here or abroad.

Should we also just drop sanctions and ban exports to these nations while we're at it?

Sovereignty in its own right cannot be used to justify complacency.

The fact that you're talking in hushed tones of reverence about the glorious principle of sovereignty in a discussion of Saudi Arabia is really just the icing on the cake.

The GP comment (about the Peace of Westphalia) is bananas and the dementors might be a little uptight when it comes 'snark' but you're way past snark - 'lol, reading comprehension much' is not snark it's just crappy namecalling. You should edit it out.

You have even truncated my original quote to make it seem snarkier:

"to the point that you don't seem to be able to read any meaning into anything that seems a little snarky" -> "you don't seem to be able to read any meaning"

What I find tiresome is the overuse of the word 'snark' on HN to mean 'you disagreed with me but didn't show my arguments the hushed reverence of the drawing room'. As a result, every conversation at HN rapidly silts up with people straight-facedly raising disingenuous absurdities. We didn't quite make it to the Nazis, but seriously? "Apartheid-era South Africa should have been left alone because something something Westphalia."

You are exactly right: the comment is bananas. It is past due that it should be allowed to call a comment 'bananas' on HN without people crying out for teacher to come Save Them From The Snark.

This way they have complete control of praticing their own norms and policies on their platform without large foreign compines saying what they should and shouldn't do.

There’s a thing called human rights and we should all stand up for them.

I wish people could see injustice as unjust even if they are not in the targeted group.