Link is a tweet from Ukraine’s vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov. It contains a letter from PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, confirming the company’s decision to shut down its operations in Russia.
Read the replies to see the affect that moves like this has on the working class. This is the first time in recent memory I have noticed America actively weaponizing its private/public partnerships in mass against another nation state to inflict harm at this kind of scale. Does anyone know if they pulled similar moves with private companies in Syria and Afghanistan?
This is going to have massive implications for American tech companies. They will likely not be getting back many of these users.
Relevant blurb:
Payments company PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O) shut down its services early on Saturday in Russia, citing "the current circumstances," joining many financial and tech companies in suspending operations there after the invasion of Ukraine.
"Under the current circumstances, we are suspending PayPal services in Russia," President and Chief Executive Dan Schulman said in a statement. He added that the company "stands with the international community in condemning Russia's violent military aggression in Ukraine."
For reference, PayPal does not have a huge marketshare in a lot of countries in Asia. AliPay is the most popular payments app in a lot of countries.
All of these American companies self-destructing in Russia is literally just handing an opening to either Russian tech start ups or tech companies in China and India.
It also shows how forward-looking China has been to build out their own independent tech sector.
This is the first time in recent memory I have noticed America actively weaponizing its private/public partnerships in mass against another nation state to inflict harm.
:xi:
This feels like a reference I should get, but I don’t, can you explain it?
The US does this stuff all the time. It's what sanctions are.
For another example. I know that GitHub was closed off from Iran by the US. But I just looked it up and apparently they got a sanctions exemption so that's cool. https://www.zdnet.com/article/github-receives-us-sanction-exemption-to-be-fully-available-to-developers-in-iran/
GitHub's own statement: Advancing Developer Freedom (tfw an American company points out that the US restricts freedom :amerikkka-clap:)
