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I just read a comment on HN that calls for using government to force private companies to host and serve content against their will. Is this real life?

• joshuaheard 10y ago
  The telephone company has virtually no say over what is transferred over their phone lines. What if the phone company decided to use voice recognition to censor swear words during your phone conversation so all you heard was a bleep? Or suppose the electric company decided it didn't like what you were doing with electricity and only allowed electricity to the activities it approved. The law on common carriers goes back over 100 years.
  • mason240 10y ago
    Phone and electric are commodities with very, very high barriers to alternatives, and so they are regulated as common carriers. There literally thousands of existing social sharing and networking sites in existence right now that serve as alternatives to facebook. One of the arguments is that they are "controlling the dialogue," yet here were, having dialogue but not on Facebook. At any rate, I doubt that you seriously believe your own arguments. For example, I doubt that you support Facebook being for to host white supremacy groups.
    • JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      I agree with the interpretation of Facebook as a sort of ISP. One doesn't have to support hate groups, to support freedom of speech.