>What? The telephone exchange (run by Bell) had to actually make the connection for you.... Exactly, and Facebook will not make an open connection for you to a

>What? The telephone exchange (run by Bell) had to actually make the connection for you.... Exactly, and Facebook will not make an open connection for you to another social network. Any connection is strictly limited to protect Facebook's sovereignty over you. It would be like At&T making a connection to Sumatra for you, but only if you confine your discussion to the size of pants you wear. No other information would be allowed to be discussed. If you tried to even say your name, AT&T would automatically mute those parts of the conversation. You cannot openly connect to another social network and move your data wherever you please. If you switch without moving your data, you cannot openly talk back to your friends who may still be on the old social network. ie - these are SILOS. And that's the behavior we should be targeting. You could go through the AT&T network back in the 70's and talk to someone in Sumatra, or Paris on a completely different national network not provided by AT&T. If you want to openly connect with someone in Sumatra or Paris via social network today, you have to be on the same social network. These networks are not open. What we need are laws obliging them to be open. Trust busting does not do that, all it does, at best, is give you multiple siloed social networks to choose from. (But it probably wouldn't even do that. It would likely just separate, say, youtube from google. Or separate instagram from facebook. We're still left with silos.)