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Well, something to consider: during the time that the US Constitution was being written, the most common site to exchange information (usually pamphlets) was th

Well, something to consider: during the time that the US Constitution was being written, the most common site to exchange information (usually pamphlets) was the local tavern or coffee house. Sure, if the proprietor was being a prick you could always bring your friends to the shop across the street. But that environment influenced the founders' ideas about how information is exchanged and debated, and it's the format the law of the land was written for. Facebook is a global coffee house. Everyone can be there at the same time. But that also means it is very hard to use an alternative, especially as Facebook buys relevant competitors of information exchange like Instagram and WhatsApp. Suddenly, we are in a situation where more people can connect than ever before, but for the vast majority of people, because of convenience and the lack of tenable other options, there is hardly any other choice. Other social networks that simply tried to clone Facebook never got off the ground because everyone was already on Facebook. I would truly love to close my account and leave but it's hard to stay in touch with friends from outside the United States, especially if Instagram and WhatsApp are out of the question. Given Facebook's overwhelming presence in modern daily life, it is necessary to regulate what it can or cannot do for the benefit of the common citizens. The degree of regulation will always be debated, and rightly so, but to pretend that a private entity of immense social might is free to do as it pleases is to willingly give away power and authority from the state, and in a democracy, from the people themselves. EDIT: wow, downvoted to hell for this one. It would be so fascinating if just one person could describe what makes my view so wrong.

barrkel 10y ago
You're quite right. Democracy and consumerism don't always push in the same direction, but when they conflict, democracy has more moral legitimacy. Arguing in favour of democracy does mean limiting some people's opportunity to make money. That can make it an unpopular view. (Independent of regulatory capture and governmental corruption, of course. The point being that the people are in charge, not what they do with their wallets, because otherwise we end up with an oligopoly.)
csharp 10y ago
I suspect information exchange and debating, was not meant to be enforced on private property during the constitution's writing. If I owned a tavern, I do not suspect the founding father's intent was for me to allow whatever kind of debate/information exchange to take place in my establishment. If anything, I suspect the opposite to be true. If I own a coffeeshop today, I would have the right to restrict what is hung on my walls (e.g. advertisements, local events), and what is announced (i.e. someone loudly giving an announcement) to my patrons. I may not be able to control small group conversation though. That being said, posting something publicly to Facebook is greatly different than DMing a person / group of friends. If Facebook deleted the image sent from one friend to the other, this would be a different conversation. I think your analogy and inspection of the constitution's intent, even further justifies that Facebook has right to do what they did.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  I would only agree with your interpretation of my argument if you stated that you owned a tavern franchise in every town in the country, and every patron had to have a (free) membership to... Ok you know what? This analogy falls apart because the mediums of exchange are so vastly different there really isn't any comparison, so I really don't see how Facebook is in the right on this. I already said people can go to other "taverns," but comparing physical locations and Internet social networks is like comparing apples and Orange County, California.
smsm42 10y ago
> But that also means it is very hard to use an alternative, especially as Facebook buys relevant competitors of information exchange like Instagram and WhatsApp. It's not very hard. There are literally thousands of popular forums that are not facebook. > Given Facebook's overwhelming presence in modern daily life, it is necessary to regulate No it's not. The fact that you are frequenting a particular site does not give you the power over other people, neither should it.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  There are not literally thousands of forums that have Facebook's reach. Network effects, corporate acquisitions, walled-garden approaches, and similar mechanisms make an equivalent reach outside of Facebook difficult. http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-engagement-statistics-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-engagement-stati... http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/576d559e52bcd05c658cb6b3-2341/bii%20global%20social%20mau%202016.png http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/576d559e52bcd05c658... Global monthly active users, millions: * Facebook: 1,650 * Tumblr: 550 * Instagram: 500 * Twitter: 310 * Snapchat:300 * Pinterest: 150 * LinkedIn: 100 For monthly hours engaged: http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-time/ http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-time/ Facebook sees 7h 45m monthly, vs. 1h 47m for Google, on roughly the same monthly users (153m vs. 138m). Note that Google, a company with a $525 billion market cap, and a platform with a nominal 3.2 billion accounts, still manages to net only 5-20 million users with one or more monthly public posts. A topic on which I can claim some expertise. And the network doesn't even register above. https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG&ei=xhbTV9nNIoTqjAGmhL6ACQ https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG&ei=xhbTV9nNIo... http://www.techtimes.com/articles/51205/20150506/many-users-google-really.htm http://www.techtimes.com/articles/51205/20150506/many-users-... https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq
  - smsm42 10y ago
    I highly doubt you need in your daily life to reach 1.6 billion of people. If you need to talk to your relatives and friends, there are thousands of options. Including, you know, talking to them. If you need to find people with similar interests, there are thousands of places where you can do it, unless your interests require talking to a billion people at once - at which point you are probably an advanced AI which is destined to rule us all and need not to bother talking to a puny human like me. Of course, if your goal is to see cat pictures on the biggest social network there is in existence, then you have no alternative but Facebook. But I question this goal has any value at all. Facebook may have millions of posts every second, but you will never know about it, will never see them and will never interact with their creators in any way. If your purpose is to spread your ads to as many people as possible, billion-sized site is also providing reach second to none. But I personally have very little interest about the optimal spread of advertisement, and so does about 99.999% of people that do not work in ad business. In short, I see nothing that makes Facebook more than a) Schelling point that can be easily replaced with another one, and b) so-so platform to waste one's time because why not.

barrkel 10y ago

You're quite right. Democracy and consumerism don't always push in the same direction, but when they conflict, democracy has more moral legitimacy. Arguing in favour of democracy does mean limiting some people's opportunity to make money. That can make it an unpopular view. (Independent of regulatory capture and governmental corruption, of course. The point being that the people are in charge, not what they do with their wallets, because otherwise we end up with an oligopoly.)

csharp 10y ago

I suspect information exchange and debating, was not meant to be enforced on private property during the constitution's writing. If I owned a tavern, I do not suspect the founding father's intent was for me to allow whatever kind of debate/information exchange to take place in my establishment. If anything, I suspect the opposite to be true. If I own a coffeeshop today, I would have the right to restrict what is hung on my walls (e.g. advertisements, local events), and what is announced (i.e. someone loudly giving an announcement) to my patrons. I may not be able to control small group conversation though. That being said, posting something publicly to Facebook is greatly different than DMing a person / group of friends. If Facebook deleted the image sent from one friend to the other, this would be a different conversation. I think your analogy and inspection of the constitution's intent, even further justifies that Facebook has right to do what they did.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
I would only agree with your interpretation of my argument if you stated that you owned a tavern franchise in every town in the country, and every patron had to have a (free) membership to... Ok you know what? This analogy falls apart because the mediums of exchange are so vastly different there really isn't any comparison, so I really don't see how Facebook is in the right on this. I already said people can go to other "taverns," but comparing physical locations and Internet social networks is like comparing apples and Orange County, California.

smsm42 10y ago

> But that also means it is very hard to use an alternative, especially as Facebook buys relevant competitors of information exchange like Instagram and WhatsApp. It's not very hard. There are literally thousands of popular forums that are not facebook. > Given Facebook's overwhelming presence in modern daily life, it is necessary to regulate No it's not. The fact that you are frequenting a particular site does not give you the power over other people, neither should it.

dredmorbius 10y ago
There are not literally thousands of forums that have Facebook's reach. Network effects, corporate acquisitions, walled-garden approaches, and similar mechanisms make an equivalent reach outside of Facebook difficult. http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-engagement-statistics-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-engagement-stati... http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/576d559e52bcd05c658cb6b3-2341/bii%20global%20social%20mau%202016.png http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/576d559e52bcd05c658... Global monthly active users, millions: * Facebook: 1,650 * Tumblr: 550 * Instagram: 500 * Twitter: 310 * Snapchat:300 * Pinterest: 150 * LinkedIn: 100 For monthly hours engaged: http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-time/ http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-time/ Facebook sees 7h 45m monthly, vs. 1h 47m for Google, on roughly the same monthly users (153m vs. 138m). Note that Google, a company with a $525 billion market cap, and a platform with a nominal 3.2 billion accounts, still manages to net only 5-20 million users with one or more monthly public posts. A topic on which I can claim some expertise. And the network doesn't even register above. https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG&ei=xhbTV9nNIoTqjAGmhL6ACQ https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG&ei=xhbTV9nNIo... http://www.techtimes.com/articles/51205/20150506/many-users-google-really.htm http://www.techtimes.com/articles/51205/20150506/many-users-... https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq
- smsm42 10y ago
  I highly doubt you need in your daily life to reach 1.6 billion of people. If you need to talk to your relatives and friends, there are thousands of options. Including, you know, talking to them. If you need to find people with similar interests, there are thousands of places where you can do it, unless your interests require talking to a billion people at once - at which point you are probably an advanced AI which is destined to rule us all and need not to bother talking to a puny human like me. Of course, if your goal is to see cat pictures on the biggest social network there is in existence, then you have no alternative but Facebook. But I question this goal has any value at all. Facebook may have millions of posts every second, but you will never know about it, will never see them and will never interact with their creators in any way. If your purpose is to spread your ads to as many people as possible, billion-sized site is also providing reach second to none. But I personally have very little interest about the optimal spread of advertisement, and so does about 99.999% of people that do not work in ad business. In short, I see nothing that makes Facebook more than a) Schelling point that can be easily replaced with another one, and b) so-so platform to waste one's time because why not.