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Is SE going to limit Russia based individuals and companies access to its resources considering the current situation?

I do believe that Russian businesses (and individuals) should not benefit from our collective knowledge as it is very likely that it could be used in the weapon industry or army.

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    We should ban users from the USA too. Very likely that it could be used in the weapon industry or army there too.
    – Nij
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 0:11
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    I think the Russian weapon industry could figure out how to use a VPN.
    – smitop
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 0:41
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    Or throw together a datadump.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 1:10
  • There are many unlawful invasion and bombings all over the world. The OP would probably be amazed if he learned about the distinct countries involved in one activity or another.
    – Hilton Fernandes
    Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 13:18

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Stack Exchange Inc. hasn't blocked any other country in the past based on the wars they have started or participated in. Recently, we had examples of countries involved in wars such as:

  • Ethiopia waging a war against their own citizens

  • Myanmar fighting ethnic groups within their own country

  • USA invading countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

  • Israel attacking Palestine

  • USA, Turkey and Russia fighting a proxy war in Syria

  • etc.

While all conflicts are bad and are crimes against humanity, Stack Exchange Inc. hasn't been involved in any political conflict and it's doubtful it will start now. It isn't a political entity that has to take arms and fight in any given conflict around the world.

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    While true, there is a trend in big Silicon Valley companies to ride the wave and get some scrapes of reputation for themselves by blocking or talking against "bad guys" when it does not conflict with their interest, so it's expected people would expect SE to do this as well, being big company in USA.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 13:47
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    @ShadowWizardHatesOmicron If the USA companies go that route, they can first block themselves as USA has caused more wars (read being bad guys) since WWII than any other country. Just saying...
    – Resistance Is Futile
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 14:32
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    @ResistanceIsFutile of course, but they won't. It won't give them any money. ;-)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 14:36
  • @ShadowWizardHatesOmicron A very vocal chunk of the community complains any time they make a statement of solidarity so I don't know why anyone who's been around 2+ years would still expect them to try again. Even the employees complained about the CEO saying they "have each other's backs".
    – BSMP
    Commented Feb 28, 2022 at 21:31
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I'm speaking as a (slightly?) senior moderator on 2 sites of some importance. This is also my personal viewpoint, and does not reflect that of my fellow moderators, and certainly is not that of Stack Exchange.

Personally I do feel that the people responsible for the shameful and cowardly invasion of a independent, democratic and sovereign nation should be brought to justice.

In war however the ones who suffer are not the elite, the puppet masters, or the ones who blow the horns of war, but the common folk.

While I'm not free to share the details, there's many good members of our community - including employees, fellow moderators and others who're Russian or of Russian origin. They might not support Putin's policies, or his war and it seems unfair to collectively punish them.

We also have a site - an SO offshoot as well as a Russian language site with many users who might not actually be in Russia proper - I see a Ukranian flag atop the users list on ru.so and users from all over. Practically, any response to the current war on our end needs to be a little bit more considered than chucking all of Russia out.

Unofficially - but logically, I suspect that the company will be upholding any legal requirements for doing business with Russian entities, but what they do with teams and enterprise clients is an internal matter.

I'm also concerned with any Russian employees as people I have worked with as a moderator and human beings and for their safety.

Things like the expulsion of the Russians from SWIFT - what's essentially the global money transfer system might have indirect effects on how stack does business in Russia for example.

My heart also goes out to any Ukrainians who might read this. The world's with you, even if apparently the leaders of the free world seem to have misplaced their courage. I'm breaking a few rules doing this, but I hope y'all win back your freedom, and the folks responsible die alone on a cell in the Hague, which seems the fate of genocidal despots these days.

So basically, I think SE shouldn't be blocking Russia unless we had to, and the impact it would have would be minimal.

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    We do have a second site in Russian too. ;)
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 1:12
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    Not to mention two sites entirely separate from the network, but nevertheless under the legal control of Stack Exchange. The server for those is in Russia
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 1:29
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    I thought hashcode was rolled into ru.so, and wasn't aware of the other one. And certainly not how they work, and that the server is in Russia. Also the cert for the latter is invalid ._.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 1:31
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    @JourneymanGeek I edited the comment to the correct URLs. They're both supposed to be non-HTTPS
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 1:41
  • Also, post regarding those sites: What's to become of the remaining hashcode.ru sites?
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Feb 27, 2022 at 1:45
  • phys.sezn.ru looks like a garbage dump entirely filled with spam questions about "Essays Online For Cheap". Is this recent, or was it already like this before February 24th?
    – Dmitry Grigoryev
    Commented Mar 23, 2022 at 14:22
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    @DmitryGrigoryev Was like this for a long time. See meta.stackexchange.com/questions/376650/…. To summarize, it was meant to be shut down as part of SE's acquisition of hashcode.ru, when sites deemed too small for migration to the SE network were shut down, but was kept up due to oversight. (The former site, Mathematics, was deemed large enough for migration, but community members objected to it because SE didn't want homework questions on their platform.)
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Mar 23, 2022 at 17:52
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A lot of companies already stopped taking money from Russian organizations and using this money to grow:

As Russia Attacks Ukraine, Shipments Of Products To Russia Halted By Intel, Dell & Lenovo

Audi, Jaguar Land Rover, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Citroen and General Motors have suspended shipments of cars to #Russia

We know SE makes money because of ads or as a job-platform and what I have already told in Stack Overflow Meta:

nothing changed regarding making money in the Russian Federation area, like the money from ads or jobs, like helping organizations in Russia grow, so they can pay taxes and this money can be then use to kill people

is - as we can assume - still actual.

Dharman very rightly showed the reasons why SE won't probably involved into this conflict in any way (including at least publishing some statement), however he missed an important point here:

It isn't a political entity that has to take arms and fight in any given conflict around the world.

It is not needed to be political entity. All what is needed is to understand that there is no war without money and money is something what companies have and use. And this money has an impact on war. And if the money has impact, SE has impact on war as well. They are choosing what they are doing with money from Russian organizations in every second, as well as Russian government chooses what to do with taxes from this money.

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