No, its time to stop pretending that the "tech industry" is some sort of champion of freedom and goodness. There is nothing inherently good about tech or the tech industry. Governed properly, platforms and services like Twitter and Google can be valuable tools in creating and sustaining a free and open society. Nothing about their behavior suggests this is the case. Virtually every tech company has crumbled without much hesitation when put under pressure from authoritarian governments from China to the United States. Not only are these tech platforms quick to acquiesce to the requests(and threats) from governments, but they have proven just as willing to engage in shady and subversive practices to support their business model (and those of their advertisers and clients).
More concretely, the tech industry does good if and only if people reading this (and others like them) do good, including by advocating for good to their peers, employers, etc. There is nothing inherently good about the industry, or about you and me.
How to do it is complicated. If people like the Saudis offer money, consider the consequences. Consider your power to say 'no' to the influence they may wish to wield and how much you are legitimizing them by association.
As an example, Chinese censors now influence Hollywood. The Chinese government threatens to deny their market to those who don't cooperate, and so Americans and the world see films that are effectively censored, to a degree, by the Chinese government. For example, in the 1990s Disney made the film Kundun, about the Dalai Lama. China penalized Disney heavily in the domestic market.
In October 1998, [Disney head Michael] Mr. Eisner met Zhu Rongji, who had just been named prime minister, at China’s leadership compound in Beijing. Mr. Eisner apologized for “Kundun,” calling it a “stupid mistake,” according to a transcript of the meeting.
“This film was a form of insult to our friends, but other than journalists, very few people in the world ever saw it,” Mr. Eisner said during the meeting. (“Kundun” bombed, taking in just $5.7 million against a production budget of about $30 million.)
