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> It was established long ago that the phone company isn’t guilty, legally or morally, if two people use telephones to organize a crime. In this case, Facebook
by bdhess 8y ago
> It was established long ago that the phone company isn’t guilty, legally or morally, if two people use telephones to organize a crime.
In this case, Facebook is not a neutral communications provider. They are selling and displaying the ad. They are a party to the transaction.
> Current public opinion is divided on whether internet communication services should take it upon themselves to detect and prevent crime.
Yes, there is debate as to how involved Facebook should be if two independent parties are, say, coordinating crime on Facebook messenger. That's a totally different case than what we're discussing.
- briandear 8y agoAnd they are also curating who’s phone calls get through. The phone call never edits or bans content on their lines (generally.) Facebook as a utility is a false idea: they are a publisher whether they say so or not. A neutral platform doesn’t have nebulous “community standards” nor algorithms to determine the visibility of content.
- pluma 8y agoIt's the same word games as the "sharing economy". Yeah, Uber drivers are "independent contractors" rather than employees because they have to buy their own cars and are totally free to do what they want (as long as they strictly follow the terms and conditions while being under close supervision of their performance). Yeah, Facebook is "just a platform" because users provide the content and Facebook just decides what content to show, whom to show it to and charges users to show it more prominently or to show it to very specific groups of people.