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Exactly yes. Once your platform becomes this popular, you wield real power over human society. And society should absolutely start to dictate to Facebook what i

Exactly yes. Once your platform becomes this popular, you wield real power over human society. And society should absolutely start to dictate to Facebook what it can and cannot do to prevent it from abusing its power. How many times do we need to go over this? Any organization, when it becomes sufficiently large, essentially becomes a government.

wyager 10y ago
> Any organization, when it becomes sufficiently large, essentially becomes a government. Remind me when Facebook used violence to enforce laws or take taxes?
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Any given API change, content promotion or censorship, freebooting support (or restrictions), represents a taking of usefruct or allocation amongst various parties. With little or no recourse to them.
  - wyager 10y ago
    > With little or no recourse to them. Did those parties enter into a contract with Facebook that said that Facebook owed recourse if they changed or censored something? Evidently not.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Does the victim of pollution, or of a highway rerouting, or a relocation of a major traffic draw for brick-and-mortar foot traffic, have any contractual claim to their previously-enjoyed benefit? Power and rights are far more about the ability to effectively press a claim than specifically detailed binding pacts. The matter was whether or not Facebook could effect a taking. Not the rights of recourse of others. You're dragging goalposts.
- wonder_er 10y ago
  Along these lines, the argument says "Facebook is large, and should therefore be subjected to regulation". Government is far larger than Facebook, and far more insulated from the people than is Facebook. I can't imagine why we extend trust to the government to fix a situation where we don't trust facebook. It's all run by people, with their own competing goals. And lets not forget that facebook could collapse overnight if enough people decided to stop using it. I don't think a population could exert that level of influence over a government.
  - dTal 10y ago
    >Government is... far more insulated from the people than is Facebook Is it? Facebook doesn't hold elections. It seems entirely unaccountable to me, with no system of checks and balances to reign it in. >facebook could collapse overnight if enough people decided to stop using it. I don't think a population could exert that level of influence over a government They could and do, all the time. See: any successful rebellion ever. See also: the collapse of the Soviet Union.
wonder_er 10y ago
>And society should absolutely start to dictate to Facebook what it can and cannot do to prevent it from abusing its power. We have no good mechanism to prevent the government from abusing its power. Those here defending FB are not arguing that FB can do no wrong, they are arguing that fixing a problem _with another broken system_ is not an improvement, and is, in fact, a step backwards. I can opt out of FB, and I have. Facebook exerts no influence over me, compared to the influence the government exerts over me.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  The problems of power abuse and effective communications are ancient ones. There's nothing that prevents private individuals or corporations from abusing power either, and there's a very long history of them having done just that. Government, for better or worse, is a vehicle for channeling and aggregating power, in a way that at best benefits society as a whole, expresses the preferences of the majority, and respects the rights of the minority. It's far from perfect. But it's better than most alternatives. Facebook is granted rights by governments, ultimately also to benefit the public at large. Facebook is not itself a government, though it transacts the online communications of a population larger than all but the very largest countries.

wyager 10y ago

> Any organization, when it becomes sufficiently large, essentially becomes a government. Remind me when Facebook used violence to enforce laws or take taxes?

dredmorbius 10y ago
Any given API change, content promotion or censorship, freebooting support (or restrictions), represents a taking of usefruct or allocation amongst various parties. With little or no recourse to them.
- wyager 10y ago
  > With little or no recourse to them. Did those parties enter into a contract with Facebook that said that Facebook owed recourse if they changed or censored something? Evidently not.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Does the victim of pollution, or of a highway rerouting, or a relocation of a major traffic draw for brick-and-mortar foot traffic, have any contractual claim to their previously-enjoyed benefit? Power and rights are far more about the ability to effectively press a claim than specifically detailed binding pacts. The matter was whether or not Facebook could effect a taking. Not the rights of recourse of others. You're dragging goalposts.
wonder_er 10y ago
Along these lines, the argument says "Facebook is large, and should therefore be subjected to regulation". Government is far larger than Facebook, and far more insulated from the people than is Facebook. I can't imagine why we extend trust to the government to fix a situation where we don't trust facebook. It's all run by people, with their own competing goals. And lets not forget that facebook could collapse overnight if enough people decided to stop using it. I don't think a population could exert that level of influence over a government.
- dTal 10y ago
  >Government is... far more insulated from the people than is Facebook Is it? Facebook doesn't hold elections. It seems entirely unaccountable to me, with no system of checks and balances to reign it in. >facebook could collapse overnight if enough people decided to stop using it. I don't think a population could exert that level of influence over a government They could and do, all the time. See: any successful rebellion ever. See also: the collapse of the Soviet Union.

wonder_er 10y ago

>And society should absolutely start to dictate to Facebook what it can and cannot do to prevent it from abusing its power. We have no good mechanism to prevent the government from abusing its power. Those here defending FB are not arguing that FB can do no wrong, they are arguing that fixing a problem _with another broken system_ is not an improvement, and is, in fact, a step backwards. I can opt out of FB, and I have. Facebook exerts no influence over me, compared to the influence the government exerts over me.

dredmorbius 10y ago
The problems of power abuse and effective communications are ancient ones. There's nothing that prevents private individuals or corporations from abusing power either, and there's a very long history of them having done just that. Government, for better or worse, is a vehicle for channeling and aggregating power, in a way that at best benefits society as a whole, expresses the preferences of the majority, and respects the rights of the minority. It's far from perfect. But it's better than most alternatives. Facebook is granted rights by governments, ultimately also to benefit the public at large. Facebook is not itself a government, though it transacts the online communications of a population larger than all but the very largest countries.