Tech for Dictators

Feb 3 2025 The Washington Post

This is by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Yulia Navalnaya and Ilya Yashin

-Vladimir Kara-Murza is a contributing columnist at the Washington Post. A Russian politician, author and historian, he was imprisoned in Russia from April 2022 until August 2024 for speaking out against the war on Ukraine.
-Yulia Navalnaya is a Russian opposition politician and the widow of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
-Ilya Yashin is a Russian opposition politician.

They do know what they are talking about, they have first hand experience from Russia.

*****

We’re Russian. We know what happens when Big Tech coddles dictators.

Big tech companies operate globally, and try to serve as many people as possible. Obviously, that is their business model. And they obviously follow the laws of countries they operate in, not following laws is bad for business.

But what happens when the local laws they follow, clearly are immoral or illegal by international standards? Do you follow the local laws even if they restrict the rights or the freedom of speech of the population of the country?

Corporate lawyers, from the safety of the boardrooms in the West, will tell you that you must follow the laws, a law is a law. End of discussion.

Kara-Murza, Navalnaya and Yashin, argue that there is room for discussion, and they propose an alternative path. Instead of blindly following the local laws, whatever they are, they propose three simple principles.

Principle 1: Put human rights first.

Principle 2: Focus on real-world outcomes.

Principle 3: Establish mechanisms for dialogue with civil society.

Yes, you may lose some business in some countries run by dictators, but your customers in democracies are free to dump your tech, they have other options. They can start to vote with their feet, if your tech helps dictators repress their populations.

Technology is just technology, it can be used for good or for bad. But if that technology is yours you will have control over how it will be used. The choice is yours.

If you run a big tech company that aims to be in business for the long term, my suggestion would be to take the long term strategic view, and, if you have to, sacrifice some short term gains in the process.

After all, in the end, it does make a lot of business sense to end up on the right side of history.