UAE, which bans same-sex relations, ordered Amazon to block products and searches.
Read the whole story
Read the whole story
Amazon blocks LGBT products in UAE, says it “must comply with local laws”
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Can I have one enormous dildo that is larger than six average sized dildos?
Of course, SIX dildos would seem to represent diversity, and Texas won't tolerate that.
Upvote
3
(4
/
-1)
That's true until those unjust laws become federal laws, that override what states want to do. So there's some justification for the "American Taliban" fear in places that don't fully buy in to the hype.
Upvote
9
(10
/
-1)
Ouch, someone making sense on this forum ? Prepare your downvotes shelter.
Upvote
-2
(7
/
-9)
Upvote
-1
(0
/
-1)
which is why .... Amazon will NOT quit doing business there. Believe it or not, they don't care about what you think.
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
Man... So funny coming here to read all the activists criticizing another country's policies, asking to stop doing business with them while typing from the top of their Chinese made devices. Ohhh the righteous of this hypocrite world, lol.
Upvote
-13
(8
/
-21)
But Jeff's yacht yacht needs a yacht! Think of the billionaires!
Upvote
2
(3
/
-1)
Not to be mean or anything /s, but what is a LGBT product? Is that like a normal product with a rainbow sticker and a price hike?
Upvote
14
(14
/
0)
Wrote the Ars commentator on an electronic device that most likely contains plastic made out of Emirian, Saudi Arabian, or Qatari crude oil...
Unless the ban happens at the federal/country level, good luck weeding out any company that's doing business with those countries as an individual consumer.
Upvote
-5
(4
/
-9)
Eric Schmidt went by this advice when it came to China (choosing to have Google exit the country rather than comply), and days later he became ex-CEO.
Companies exist to make money by providing products and services, government exists to regulate and impose trade bans. Stop expecting from one to do the work of the other.
Upvote
0
(2
/
-2)
If you're a UAE official, you'll know it when you see it. Especially if it's found in the possession of a political adversary.
Upvote
17
(17
/
0)
UAE must be heaven for you, LGBTQ people have no rights and abortion is banned. Maybe you should move there.
Upvote
19
(22
/
-3)
Upvote
-18
(1
/
-19)
The UAE is a sovereign country, with its own values and its own laws based on those values. The rest of the world is under no obligation to always exactly copy western values and laws. If you don't like that, sucks to be you.
That being said, UAE really doesn't give a damn what you do with your personal life as long as you are discreet about it. They have gay bars in Dubai with drunk guys in tights rubbing themselves all over each other in public. As long as nothing gets posted online, the cops here don't care.
UAE has always had restrictions on what you can buy online (and in retail stores). This is nothing new. It is also quite easy to bypass. Just order from a Western store. If they won't ship it directly to you, route it through a freight forwarder. A ridiculous number of items are not available to buy in the UAE Amazon, including the Amazon Fire tablets, for some strange reason.
That being said, UAE really doesn't give a damn what you do with your personal life as long as you are discreet about it. They have gay bars in Dubai with drunk guys in tights rubbing themselves all over each other in public. As long as nothing gets posted online, the cops here don't care.
UAE has always had restrictions on what you can buy online (and in retail stores). This is nothing new. It is also quite easy to bypass. Just order from a Western store. If they won't ship it directly to you, route it through a freight forwarder. A ridiculous number of items are not available to buy in the UAE Amazon, including the Amazon Fire tablets, for some strange reason.
Upvote
-18
(2
/
-20)
You'd lose the shit out of that bet. Not because of any social justice reasons, I just think basketball is boring as hell.
Upvote
16
(16
/
0)
and, setting aside morality for a moment, very dumb from a PR standpoint. what possible percentage of amazon's profitability could the UAE represent? they go down this PR path over trivial amounts of money -- a path they will likely have to reverse at some point anyway. so, trivial amounts of money for a short period of time. marketing genius at work.
Upvote
2
(3
/
-1)
There isn't much that's illogical about it. It's calling out the hypocrisy of defining a set of values for others to abide by when you yourself conveniently ignore those values. Amazon pulling out of the UAE won't mean anything for either Amazon or the UAE. If you really care about the LGBT rights, how about writing to your representatives to boycott UAE oil and hit them where it really hurts? That's not illogical or whataboutism.
Upvote
-2
(7
/
-9)
Ah fuck it I'm gonna pull the Godwin trigger. Sometimes it's relevant.
Imagine if you saw someone post this, how would that feel?
Upvote
13
(15
/
-2)
It is not just the UAE. It is the entire MENA (Middle East & North Africa) region, which the UAE Amazon serves & ships products to. It is a large market with oil money and a young & rapidly growing population. It is most certainly not trivial amounts of money.
If you want western companies to stop selling to repressive regimes in the Middle East, you should first call for an end to US arms sales to the region. That alone is worth billions of dollars every year.
Upvote
8
(9
/
-1)
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
Speaking as someone who would be an affected party if I ever went there...No one cares until the authorities decide it's crossed some arbitrary line is not very comforting when it comes to BEING SENTENCED TO DEATH.
Upvote
19
(19
/
0)
Upvote
3
(5
/
-2)
Touche. But that is historically inaccurate. The Nazis didn't only target publicly visible Jews. They persecuted them all, including even Christians with Jewish ancestry. There were no active synagogues in Nazi Germany at the height of WW II.
Upvote
5
(8
/
-3)
I like the replies that don't understand why I brought up petroleum. Like I'm attacking capitalism or engaging in whataboutism. Even if we stopped buying oil from the UAE, oil is fungible to the point that other countries would buy it from them for slightly cheaper. It would take a world-wide sanction, like the U.S. has imposed on Russia to have any effect against them.
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
Just out of curiosity, suppose Amazon does quit and "send a powerful message", would it cause some actual damages to UAE other than a mere message? Is it something irreplaceable?
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
Sure, but I needed to change the context to show how uncomfortable the idea of "If you draw attention to what you are, we will kill you, but otherwise you're fine" is.
Upvote
9
(10
/
-1)
Upvote
-10
(1
/
-11)
A mentality like this is a major reason why we collectively get 'played' by our politicians and our media again and again. You know, like how so many of us were once driven to a real fear that teeny tiny Iraq was 'threatening' the world's freedom (or now, for very similar reason how Russians - esp. the older ones who watch their network news) get played into believing how Ukrainian nazification must be stopped...
Upvote
-14
(1
/
-15)
Look at it this way......
Amazon sells various products in the middle east & keeps extensive data on its customers
Let's say someone from the royal family um buys some naughty stuff....
This information can now be weaponized to provide favorable terms in negotiations
Wink Wink...nudge...nudge...... here, why don't you buy our latest weapon systems etc etc & while at it....you can store all your data on aws.....locally....ofcourse....
Now, these guys are not our friends & will happily capitulate to the Chinese or Russians
But as long as we have a presence ........
I don't think Amazon should have folded this quickly, so theres more going on behind the scenes than we know off
Upvote
3
(4
/
-1)
Sure, but the LGBT community isn't, at least as far as I'm aware, authorized to drag people off to be murdered by the state for being heterosexual.
Upvote
15
(15
/
0)
I would bring up China and Uighurs and Tibet, but I've already been blamed for whataboutism. It seems if we stopped dealing with bad regimes, we'd have to stop trade completely. Shit, I already feel bad about shopping at Home Depot!
Upvote
3
(5
/
-2)
So don't go to the UAE. If you have to go there and you don't want to take a risk, stay celibate for the duration of your stay in the UAE. Being gay is not illegal here, having sex with a person of your own gender is. Being gay does not mean that you absolutely must have sex every single waking moment, does it? Just a couple of years ago having heterosexual sex with anyone you were not married to was illegal here as well. This is not a liberal western country.
Homosexuality has been punishable by death in almost every single country in this world at some point of time or the other, including in the US. With the current out of control US Supreme Court, I wouldn't be surprised if anti sodomy laws made a comeback.
Upvote
-19
(1
/
-20)
In a practical sense you can't REALLY avoid dealing with China anymore, unfortunately, you can only minimize where it's possible.
I can't avoid buying a computer or a phone that's made there, but I can avoid buying a car that's made there, for example.
Upvote
12
(12
/
0)
That's a good point. They might make you feel uncomfortable.
Upvote
-9
(0
/
-9)
Getting to be that way here - not to mention our own barbaric state-sanctioned killings (aka capital laws)! So measuring ourselves with what you use to measure others... do you support having the more civilized societies (E.U. states for example) sanction our country and our businesses - to force our government to improve finally? Or do you actually think our laws are up to us ourselves to debate over? If the latter, then give some thought to letting different societies evolve on their own... and not be so trigger happy with sanctions (aka collective punishment)?
Upvote
-4
(2
/
-6)
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)