> The Iranian society is and was much more open a few decades ago. Truly a sad story of development in the completely wrong direction.
You can blame the US for fucking that up, you do realise that?
The US overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh and put the Shah (a despot) in his place as ruler. The years after were characterised by massive unrest and (understandable) anti-US sentiment, eventually culminating in a fall into populism, arriving finally at the rise to power of the Ayatollah.
Iran being a tyrannical theocracy with grudge against the US is a direct result of the US overthrowing a democratically elected Iranian prime minister.
How else do would you uncover scandal and abuses of power?
The tabloid shit I don't care about, but public interest journalism is something I would never want to be without.
It's absolutely essential to a functioning democracy. The only reason you could possibly be against it is you don't want democracy; in which case, why are you living in one?
Because one is a minor inconvencience, the other is psychological warfare used to modify behaviour.
It's baffling why you'd think the Google example is somehow less dangerous, especially considering its a given that they have profiled your political views as well as your spending habits, among every other aspect of your life.
I attended a talk by Jack Poulson (quit Google over Dragonfly and how it was handled) over the last weekend and he suggested that based on Google's reaction, it has definitely been simply shelved until the resistance and media attention dies down.
The whole thing was carried out in secret to begin with and Sundar Pichai has been completely silent on how it jives with it's own ethical standards.