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A counter argument could be that, these private platforms being hugely used by even larger parts of the population, what happens inside them becomes public matt

A counter argument could be that, these private platforms being hugely used by even larger parts of the population, what happens inside them becomes public matter (with public as in "about the people"), especially regarding discrimination and abuse (in all possible ways). It is a fact that the main behaviour on these platforms became ruled by fear of the mob, rather than by fear of the baselessness of your speech. By the expectation of constraint and force rather than the appeal of sharing (that used to exist for some short time at the beginning). All that empowered by automation. One may not even genuinely have a formative conversation on it, so it's not even good enough for education, unless you already know how to discern and ban discourses on your own. When your platform becomes one of the two or three main platforms that are used worldwide as a reference by most online people (for news, for representation, for propaganda), it stops to be only your private playground.

ziddoap 7y ago
I agree to your first point, to an extent, or at least I agree that the question must be asked: "At what point does a platform become public, despite being owned privately?". And obvious follow up would be "What do we do when a platform reaches this point". It's a question that I definitely don't claim to have the answer to, and it's an extremely fine balance to strike. I don't think the appropriate action is government encroaching on the rights of corporate entities, which we have to remember have their own rights as a legal entity, in order to attempt to solve to issue (which we know is a slim chance, given the recent history of governments intervening in technology). Does the government gain control of FaceBook? Some sort of auxillory authority? Do the platforms face some sort of regulatory scheme, and who creates it and with what goal?

ziddoap 7y ago

I agree to your first point, to an extent, or at least I agree that the question must be asked: "At what point does a platform become public, despite being owned privately?". And obvious follow up would be "What do we do when a platform reaches this point". It's a question that I definitely don't claim to have the answer to, and it's an extremely fine balance to strike. I don't think the appropriate action is government encroaching on the rights of corporate entities, which we have to remember have their own rights as a legal entity, in order to attempt to solve to issue (which we know is a slim chance, given the recent history of governments intervening in technology). Does the government gain control of FaceBook? Some sort of auxillory authority? Do the platforms face some sort of regulatory scheme, and who creates it and with what goal?