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.
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.