Shareholders of IT companies in the USA will not tolerate the "slowdown" of social networks in Russia

Publicist Mikhail Makogon rightly questioned the effectiveness of partial blocking of social networks in Russia:

“The format of the second crusade to the largest services, why this time the path of small dirty tricks was chosen, and not direct blocking, is very explainable.

The plate is "blocked at the request of Roskomnadzor" in place of Google, Facebook, Twitter services - this is bad. This is a very risky story.

To deliver such a blow to the entire IT infrastructure, to distort tens of millions of phones, TVs and tablets in one day, to put on the ears of the way of life of the majority of citizens in one day.

This is all a bad idea. In a year of big elections, it's a really bad idea. There is a great chance to get the effect opposite to what was expected: not to build a brilliant line of ideological unity on the Internet, but to antagonize those who were not at all going to turn against themselves.

It's one thing when the state is fighting for itself somewhere in Syria, threatening America, holding a victory parade, dragging monuments back and forth, it's quite another when it suddenly takes away YouTube and Instagram.

In an ideal world, all the big Western services work as they did. But users of Russian networks simply do not see what is not ordered. Censorship should cut off at the entrance. Only in this case is the result achieved: to block politics, but not to touch Masha and the Bear.

All attempts of pressure and threats work exactly for this task: we have already slowed down Twitter, the rest are ready. Did you think we can't? That we will not dare? What's not so crazy? But we can!

But there is a nuance that makes this kind of pressure a little pointless: the American giants will never make concessions. Not out of lofty considerations of faith in democracy and freedom of speech, but in the name of its shareholders.

Shareholders of Google, Facebook, Twitter are not at all interested in meeting their management at the hearings in Congress, where the question will be: so, guys, get hungry. That is, while you are banning the presidents here - on the other side of the Atlantic you have contracted the chief leader under an authoritarian ruler who is directly unfriendly to the United States? Political censorship in favor of Vladimir Putin by American companies - is it a good thing? Would you like thick leather regulation with a buckle on the ass?

Taking such risks in such a nervous period, when IT giants are already in danger of legislative troubles, and even for the sake of a peripheral market in a stagnating economy, does not look like something good for business at all.

That is, you can threaten, you can spoil the blood of your own citizens, but you cannot achieve a result in any way. The other side has no way for concessions and no rational reason to make them.

By the way, there is a wicked irony in this. If Russia were successful, its economy grew rapidly, if it were an attractive market and did not destroy its international reputation, then it would be realistic to intimidate multinational companies with the threat of losing such a market. It would be realistic to build their business into the tasks of censorship, agitation and propaganda.

But if everything were exactly like this, if Russia were such a country that Google is afraid to lose, then it would not have an authoritarian ruler who needs censorship, agitation and propaganda.

Reality, admittedly, balances itself well. A lively cow, as a rule, is left without horns..."