>Do they have a choice?

Yes, they absolutely have a choice. People can choose to not assist with transgressions against human rights in the year 2026 :)

“If I don’t sell drugs, guns etc at the street corner, someone else will. Might as well be me, I’d like to make a few hundred Billion while I am at it”

Is this a good justification though? I get what you’re saying, but the same argument you’re making for social media can also be applied to everything else, isn’t it?

If I don’t do human cloning, someone else will. If I don’t make bio weapons, someone else will. And so on

> Do they have a choice?

Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia have extradition treaties with the United States. (On a practical level, they wouldn't be able to enforce one if they had it.)

"Somebody's gonna profit from these authoritarian regimes, so it might as well be us!" -Zuck, probably

Russia and China can do that, but I am not sure Saudi and UAE reasonably could. Too small and too enmeshed with the US empire

Yes they do. twitter followed way less requests than X does

Yes, they have a choice. Profits are more important than values.

People here all complain about social American social media companies defying the law when they refuse to cooperate with EU censorship, then they complain about them not defying the law with Saudi censorship, it's a double standard.