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What I'm saying is legislation of media (most obviously here, common carrier laws), exists, is widely accepted and often seen as essential for many mediums. As

What I'm saying is legislation of media (most obviously here, common carrier laws), exists, is widely accepted and often seen as essential for many mediums. As a consequence, I'm arguing, it would be a good idea to apply a similar approach to Facebook. I'm saying the lightest touch would be to make moving your social network off Facebook easier. Maybe there are other better ideas. On the topic of print media being off limits... not so. I'm from the UK, I'm not sure exactly about media laws in the US, but the First Amendment does not mean that any publishing company can run just how it likes. Having just Googled I see that there are indeed cross-ownership laws for newspapers in the US. I expect there are many other regulations on print media. Just as I'm arguing for Facebook, these are not laws about what might ultimately be said - either online or in print - they are laws about how much power a single company can have over the discourse.

mason240 10y ago
>but the First Amendment does not mean that any publishing company can run just how it likes. It literally does. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that government can not make any impositions on print media, save for extreme cases of national security and libel, which also has a very high bar. Cross ownership is only a thing because they can apply it to the TV half, which again, regulations on TV are made on the justification of their scarcity. There simply is no equivalent in the US to placing such draconian rules on websites.
- jimmytidey 10y ago
  Whatever the case with print, it's certainly the case that across many other media all developed countries have many regulations. I can see your point that Facebook, and the web more generally, does not represent a 'natural' monopoly in the sense that it's not a physical feature of the technology that it is inevitably going to be dominated by a few companies. We could argue that Metcalfe's law actually does make it a natural monopoly. Either way, it's an empirical fact that Facebook is tremendously dominant, and it seems to me that is the basis for intervention, though of course the intervention should be minimal respect and liberty as much as possible. I also understand that views on this topic will reflect your wider views on liberty and legislation more generally, but those views ought to be consistent. I think the position that an effective national discourse can be expected to occur exclusively from market forces is extremely dubious, maybe you think differently. Again, I do think you are mistaken about print media in the US. It seems to me cross-ownership laws do apply to print media, however justified. Much more clearly, copyright laws are applied everywhere. I think some of these laws are wrong, but there are many precedents for regulating print and the web.

mason240 10y ago

>but the First Amendment does not mean that any publishing company can run just how it likes. It literally does. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that government can not make any impositions on print media, save for extreme cases of national security and libel, which also has a very high bar. Cross ownership is only a thing because they can apply it to the TV half, which again, regulations on TV are made on the justification of their scarcity. There simply is no equivalent in the US to placing such draconian rules on websites.

jimmytidey 10y ago
Whatever the case with print, it's certainly the case that across many other media all developed countries have many regulations. I can see your point that Facebook, and the web more generally, does not represent a 'natural' monopoly in the sense that it's not a physical feature of the technology that it is inevitably going to be dominated by a few companies. We could argue that Metcalfe's law actually does make it a natural monopoly. Either way, it's an empirical fact that Facebook is tremendously dominant, and it seems to me that is the basis for intervention, though of course the intervention should be minimal respect and liberty as much as possible. I also understand that views on this topic will reflect your wider views on liberty and legislation more generally, but those views ought to be consistent. I think the position that an effective national discourse can be expected to occur exclusively from market forces is extremely dubious, maybe you think differently. Again, I do think you are mistaken about print media in the US. It seems to me cross-ownership laws do apply to print media, however justified. Much more clearly, copyright laws are applied everywhere. I think some of these laws are wrong, but there are many precedents for regulating print and the web.