It's actually perfectly reasonable to subject American companies to the laws of nations they operate in unless you're suggesting they ought to act in imperial fashion and ignore the law of sovereign nations.

It goes without saying that the same is, of course, true for foreign companies in the US.

How do you define 'operating in' for a web service? I would suggest they are operating on the internet, out of the US, therefore bound only to US law. Having the service accessible worldwide shouldn't make you subject to everyone's laws.

I guess it depends on whether they have ads paid for by Singaporean based companies targetting Singaporean based audiences. If Coca-Cola sells their wares in Singapore entirely by remote operations based in the United States, we'd still expect them to abide by Singaporean regulations pertaining to the sale of beverages in Singapore, taxes etc.

The alternative would seem to be separate national internets. Data might be imported and exported, but it wouldn't be seamless like today.

You can say you're not subject to a foreign law, but if you want that market, you aren't really immune.

If Coca-Cola sells remotely, I would imagine that would be through a local importer, and it would fall on him to follow the local regulation, or through a local subsidiary, and the same would apply. So yes, Singapore should have to separate from the internet if it wants to enforce its laws imo.

Facebook have a large office in Singapore where they employ many people. There is no question they are operating there.

So would that be 'Facebook USA' or the local subsidiary? Of course 'Facebook Singapore' needs to respect Singapore law, but the question was wether 'Facebook USA' needs to.

They are asking a US company to censor the words of an Australian because its about them. There are 190 something depending on who you count nations in the world. Anyone who connects a server to the internet is instantly "operating" in every one of them to some degree.

A company should expect to be subject to risk whatever assets it has in a nation and ought to ensure they don't HAVE assets to lose anywhere that is likely to make unreasonable demands or confiscate these assets.

This is because the alternative is only allowing speech that would pass muster in all.

If you have the ability to moderate and modify posts on your platform, everyone and their mother is going to come after you and try to force you to exercise that power. It looks like Facebook gets to find out what happens when governments try to make you do that.

>If Singapore why not every other nation on earth?

What's likely going to happen is that Facebook complies, but only for visitors from Singapore.

What about blacking out the text of the post with redaction bars, and adding a link to a copy of the government's order? Obey the letter of the law, yet call out the official oppression to the reader in a way that maximizes the ugliness.