Politics aside, this feels like a good policy question? How do laws apply in the context of a global platform like Facebook. Something may be in violation of a law in one country, but be totally acceptable in another. Should sovereign citizens on one country be subjected to laws of another? If Twitter files showed us anything, posts get taken down at the request of the government (including US and Canada).
India (among other countries) have passed so called "hostage-taking laws" that require large social media companies to have in-country employees that can be strong-armed from ways small to large (threats of being convicted of treason and executed).
This is a specific policy to allow them to enforce their censorship laws in other countries.
If there is a single Facebook employee on Indian soil, that Facebook cares about, then obviously, yes they can enforce it, simply by being mean to those Facebook employee(s).
It seems like India's stance is: If you want to do business in India, you have to have employees you care about on our soil, so we can be mean to them if you do something we don't like.
Facebook's stance appears to be: We like your money enough that we will comply with this.
I'm just glad I'm not one of those Facebook employees.
"Either have employees in-country so we can intimidate them so you'll do what we want, or we block your service."
Sounds pretty effective? Sure, some people will get around the blocks, but it'll be a relatively small percentage (especially if the government makes circumventing these blocks illegal, most people won't find it worth any risk to do it anyway), and your service will be effectively destroyed in that country.
There's a ton of precedence of American companies applying American laws universally across the world (regardless of whether it's applicable by jurisdiction) in IP cases, in trade issues, etc. many times it's easiest to just have 1 set of rules across the planet, so companies end up with following the lowest common denominator of legal actions and policies. (even if these policies are illegal in other jurisdictions. Many cases, American companies just go ahead with the illegal policies and then pay the fine in each country where it is found to be acting illegally. The fines are not even sufficient to be rounding errors of their operating budget in many cases so they just break laws at will just so that it's easier to match the policies around the world).
There are two differences:
First, American law does not apply globally and makes no demands to apply globally. If companies do so it is a matter of convenience and not policy. While companies may petition the US government to apply pressure on allied countries to influence policy there is no presumption that American law will apply in a foreign country outside of what is circumscribed by treaties. Second there is the matter of positive vs negative laws. American law doesn’t prohibit much by way of publishing or collecting information in public spaces. Applying American laws globally results lack of a compliance in countries with stricter laws. The law in question actually prohibits something. What results is actually a greatest common denominator of law.
American law absolutely applies globally when it is applied to American citizens. People who don't realize this routinely end up in jail.
Stuff like the drinking age (a state law) doesn't apply, but federal laws do apply, which is why American citizens who go abroad to commit gang-related crimes (and more stupidly, break fishing and hunting restrictions) are still arrested when they return despite the fact that no aspect of the crime touched American soil.
Please don’t misunderstand. Most countries (all that I am aware of) apply their laws to all people within their territory and to their citizens globally. The Indian Law in question applies to non-Indian citizens outside India. That is a big difference.
Facebook is an American company with a lot of American employees. It also has a lot of Indian employees, and I assume those will be held responsible if things don't go well.
> First, American law does not apply globally and makes no demands to apply globally.
This is completely false. There is no country that is more well versed on imposing their laws on other countries than the USA. This is done via sanctions, limiting access to the international US dollar based financial system, and by holding a dominant position in trade negotiations that often allows the USA to literally dictate the contents of foreign laws.
No. Those are political and diplomatic considerations and not legal considerations. Pressuring countries to adopt treaties and comply with American law is a diplomatic and political act and it is ultimately up to the governments in question to apply these laws (there are plenty of examples where countries reject American law). But regardless, this is an extralegal practice and Congress does not pass laws under the assumption that they will have global application. The Indian law in question is a law that applies everywhere regardless of jurisdiction and the Canadian government was never even notified that a
foreign power was attempting to regulate its media. It would be like if C-18 applied to links in India.
I think that's a fine (and correct) distinction that doesn't matter to what the GP was talking about (who perhaps worded their post in a bit of an unfortunate way that has you focusing on an mostly-irrelevant detail).
Sure, the US government pressures other countries though various means to adopt certain legal regimes. But in the absence of that pressure (or the absence of a foreign country caving to that pressure), US law does not apply in that other country (well, except to US citizens traveling there; the US can and will arrest US citizens who break US federal law while abroad, upon their return).
The overarching point is that US-based companies will often apply US law to their operations in other countries, even when they are not obligated to (by any law, US or otherwise). Likely this is for consistency and simplicity reasons: it's easier to have one policy than hundreds.
Of course in this case it's the reverse: India strong-arming Facebook into following India's censorship initiatives. Seems they can do this by requiring Facebook employ people who reside in India, who the Indian government can threaten in order to get Facebook to comply. As lame as I think that is, that's life, and capitalism. Facebook seems plenty happy to accept all the revenue generated by their Indian user base, in exchange for complying with questionable (or worse) local laws.
The US arrests or gets foreign citizens extradited to the US for acts committed in a foreign country on a regular basis. I'm not sure how you're not aware of this since it has happened to several very notable figure such as SBF, Kim Dotcom and Assange.
More words: the Cloud Act was specifically designed to apply globally. As long as a company has some kind of presence in the US, they can compel that company to produce any data stored anywhere on the globe. That definitely makes American law apply in foreign countries outside of treaties.
If you want access to that country's market, you are thrall to their potentially half-baked, wannabe democracy dictator-like decisions.
I think it's really that simple. Facebook can say "we will obey whatever your laws decide" to every country. Or it can say "deal with it. Block us." And I think it already happens that way for many countries.
